Discussions about feminine education in the 19th century: Nísia Floresta and Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho

Abstract

The article discusses two books representing women's voices in defense of women's education and work which somehow reverberated in Brazil in the 19th century: Opúsculo humanitário (1853), by the Brazilian writer Nísia Floresta (1809 or 1810-1885), and Mulheres e crianças (1880), by the Portuguese writer Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho (1847-1921). We tried to identify to whom the texts were written and how they justified women's authorship and scholarship in a time when the traditional prohibition of public speech and of the press to women began to be questioned.

gender; citizenship; women's education; history of reading