O Asilo de Órfãs São Benedito em Pelotas – RS (as primeiras décadas do século XX): trajetória educativa-institucional

Abstract

This dissertation consists in a historical research of History of Education, specifically the History of Educational Institutions. The research aims to analyze historical aspects of São Benedito Orphan Asylum, São Benedito Institut currently, founded in the early twentieth century in the city of Pelotas / RS to harbor black girls. The temporal delimitation of this study correspond to the first decades of the twentieth century, having as the starting point the foundation of the institution in 1901. In order to analyze the educational and institutional trajectory of the asylum, we attempted to make some notes about the institutionalization of an underprivileged childhood in Brazil, contextualize the city of Pelotas from the nineteenth century, and the situation of the black community in this city after the abolition of slavery. With the backing of the New History is that resorted to historiographical practice of the micro-history and to the referential of the History view from below for analyzing the documentary corpus, constituted of written documents, oral narratives of the educational actors and some photographs relating to the Orphan Asylum São Benedito. The function performed by the asylum was underlying in the lives of those underprivileged girls, because for many years, the work assumed at the same time the role of family, school, church, and sectors of society that had an interest in maintaining this institution The primary instruction, religious and moral education offered to those girls, helped make them good mothers, good wives and suitable for domestic work. From this bias is that we sought to investigate aspects of the São Benedito Orphan Asylum: the place of orphans in the society, characteristics of institutionalized education, the stereotype of the women formed in the Orphan Asylum and the relationship of the Pelotense's society with the institution.