Abstract

MULLER, Maria Lúcia Rodrigues. The register of color in requirements for teacher hiring processes. Perspectiva [online]. 2010, vol.28, n.01, pp.37-62. ISSN 0102-5473.

This article presents data about the racial origin of candidates for jobs as teachers in Rio de Janeiro during the First Republic when the city was the national capital. It compares the registration of color on the candidates’ birth certificates with other sources, and discusses the process of whitening of teachers in the capital at that time, based on discussions about a supposed inferiority of Brazil’s black population, and the effect of these discussions on the rationalization of the career of teachers. It also discusses the forms of racial classification of Brazilians in this historic period. Skin color, once a simply biological attribute, took on a cultural, social and moral connotation in a wide set of demeaning qualifications. This process mainly took place with phenotypic blacks, or those with darker skin, who could not hide their racial origin.

Keywords : Blacks; Brazil; History; Old Republic; 1889-1930; Discrimination in Education.

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