[7] Although the newspaper supported the change, it showed that it was completely independent, refusing to serve the interests of the ascendant Republican Party of São Paulo.

Today, newspapers in Brazil are sold in small street newspapers/magazines shops, and by single sellers located in the main avenues of the biggest cities.

Back in the 19th century, the Estadão was sold by only one man, a French immigrant, who carried his newspapers in a bag, while riding a horse, and announcing himself with a cornet.

Property of the Mesquita family since 1902,[10] the Estado supported the Allied cause in World War I, suffering reprisals from the German community in the city, which removed all advertising announcements from the newspaper.

[11] With the death of the old director of 1927, his son Júlio de Mesquita Filho assumed the directory along with his brother Franscisco, the latter managing the financial aspects of the newspaper.

Armando Salles, son-in-law of Júlio Mesquita (by then already deceased), imposed as a condition for his acceptance the position the amnesty of the rebels of 1932 and a convocation of a constituent assembly.

During the República Nova ("New Republic") (1946–1964) the Estado profiled itself to the National Democratic Union of Carlos Lacerda and opposed all the other governments, especially João Goulart.

In 1954, O Estado de S. Paulo led a national campaign against the elected democratic President, Getúlio Vargas, leading him to commit suicide.

In 1962, the director Júlio de Mesquita Filho even wrote a Roteiro da Revolução ("Guide to Revolution"), in an attempt to unify civilian opposition against the army, the then called "boasting party", which had intervened in Brazilian politics since the beginning of the Republic.

[12] On 13 November 1968, the editor of the Estado was arrested because of Mesquita Filho's refusal to eliminate from the section Notas e Informações ("Notes and Information") the editorial Instituições em Frangalhos ("Institutions in Frazzles").

Then, the newspaper gained worldwide visibility when it denounced the preemptive censorship of articles and replaced them with verses of the Portuguese classic The Lusiads, by Luís de Camões.

[13] In the 1970s, the newspaper ran into debt because of the construction of its new headquarters by the Tietê river, leading to a financial crisis, as it competed with a new standard of journalism represented by Folha de S. Paulo.

He updated the news bulletin of Estado and endeavored upon a series of reformed graphics, that would result in the adoption, in 1991, of colored printing in its daily editions.

The oldest of all the sections, known as Notas e Informações ("Notes and Information"), appears on page 3 and presents a republican institutionalist view, emphasizing liberty of expression, economic liberalism and Rechtsstaat – one of flagship columns of O Estado de S. Paulo.