Sincronias impressas entre o Rio de Janeiro e Porto: Um estudo comparado sobre as representações das mulheres no Jornal das Senhoras (Rio de Janeiro; 1852-1855) e a A Esperança (Porto; 1865-1866)

Abstract

The present work had as both source and object of study two periodicals opened in the second half of the 19th Century: O Jornal das Senhoras (Rio de Janeiro; 1852-1855) and A Esperança (Porto; 1865-1866). These journals had the same female audience as target and were related to a common context of expansion of printed productions, of urban reforms, of material reforms, of reforms in the educational and transport systems that were in development both in Brazil and in Portugal during the first decades of the mid eighteen hundreds. In this same scenario publications that aimed at female readers started to gain prominence and even admit female collaborators in the interior and on the writing of journals, as it is the case of the referred papers. Thus, starting from these printed materials that can be found online at the Digital Library of the National Library and in the Municipal Library of Lisbon, respectively, as well as using Comparative History according to Marc Bloch and the approach of Political and Cultural History, this research sought to analyze the conjunctural and historiographic scenario of these objects. We examined its leaders, sales tactics, production, in addition to the female representation itself contained and idealized in these journals. Even if they were located in different cities, countries, andeven decades, both the Jornal das Senhoras and A Esperança brought to the light the convergences of ideas around the definition of women and their representation. These papers presented a discourse of religious nature that sometimes considered women beings of virtue and angels of the homes, and sometimes evil and malicious beings, turned to luxury and perdition. Besides, it was possible to notice that both journals argued that women's education projects should be linked to the main role of wife and mother, and hardly to the activities of writing and publishing ideas through the press.