Abstract

ABRAMOWICZ, Anete; SILVEIRA, Debora de Barros; JOVINO, Ione  and  SIMIAO, Lucélio Ferreira. Children and childhood photos: the child and Brazilian iconography in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Perspectiva [online]. 2011, vol.29, n.01, pp.263-293. ISSN 0102-5473.

This article uses iconographic research in Brazilian historical collections to analyze how children, especially black children, and their childhoods were portrayed in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The aim was to see these children as the central characters of history, in which they are usually invisible, hidden or found just in traces. The methodology included the organization and analysis of photographs, considering issues related to gender, race and social class. Very few portraits of children were found and this scarcity demonstrates that children are seen from a different perspective than adults. The research also showed the presence of black children in portraits of everyday life without any allusion to slavery. The paper discusses the changes in the representation of black children in the social imaginary of the period. It concludes by identifying an ambiguity: the existence of a sense of childhood and the invisibility of the black child and black childhood.

Keywords : Child; Childhood; Blacks; Iconography.

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