Since the last third of the 19th century, the monarchy tried to affirm its legitimacy as the institution in charge of Brazilian government using the idea of civilization associated with the notion of progress. This association took place in the last two decades of the 19th century in such a way that the notion of progress was subordinate to the idea of civilization as the highest monarchy value. With the slavery abolishment and the establishment of the republican regime, a new political organization as well as a new perspective about the society by the Rio de Janeiro citizens was developed. The economic crises known as encilhamento reinforced that new perception. These social and political transformations led to a new relation between the notions of progress and civilization. The idea of progress, increasingly related with material development, took up the organizational role that was attached, since then, to the idea of civilization. The Great Urban Reform of 1903-1906 was the moment of combination of the two forms of relationship and subordination between the ideas of progress and civilization. The urban reform made by the Federal Government, during the presidency of Rodrigues Alves, attempted to affirm in the Rio de Janeiro urban space the relations between these two ideas consolidated in the republican regime. Otherwise, the urban reform implemented by the Rio de Janeiro local government - conducted by mayor Pereira Passos - tried to apply to the city the same primacy of the idea of civilization produced during the imperial regime.