Women’s education in 19th century Pernambuco: clippings from the Normal School of the Propagator Society

Abstract

From research on the process of inclusion of women in the
teaching profession during the the late nineteenth century, this
article discusses the importance of the establishment in 1872 of
the Normal School for Ladies of the Society for Public Instruction,
which emerged within civil society, with no supervision from the
state and which aimed to insert women into the world of work
through an activity for which they were believed to be naturally
‘designed’. The study is of a bibliographical and documental
nature from statutes, rules, regulations and memoirs of the
Propagator Society, reports from education inspectors and
periodicals of the time. It is important to highlight the belief in the
power of instruction and education to implement a desirable
modern society, based on urbanization and industrialization.