americana, so paulo

Americana is a city and county (municpio) located in Brazilian state of So Paulo. As of 2000 it had around 180,000 inhabitants. The original settlement evolved around the local railway station, founded in 1875, and the development of a cotton weaving factory in a nearby farm. After 1866, several Confederate refugees from the American Civil War were settled in the region. Among them, there was William H. Norris, a senator from Alabama. Nowadays, due to Italian immigration near the end of the XIX century, only some 10 percent of the population descend from the Confederate and there are only a dozen or so English-speaking families. The city was known as Vila dos Americanos (Americans' Village) until 1904. It became a district in 1924 and a municipality in 1953. Americana has several museums and touristic atractions, such as the Pedagogic Historical Museum about slavery and the cotton weaving, and the Contemporary Art Museum.

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