John C. Yungjohann was a tile setter from New York who went to seek his fortune in Brazil
at the turn of the century as a rubber cutter, only to find himself struggling for survival. His diary documented some of the horrors of daily life for a rubber cutter at the height of the Amazon rubber boom, exposing the debt economy the Rubber Barons set up to entrap many others works to who couldn't get back out. John was one of the few who did. He was an adventurer and an artist, died of natural causes in 1930 back in New York City.