O Departamento Nacional da Criança e a gestão de Olímpio Olinto de Oliveira, a “arte de cultivar a infância, a sementeira da pátria” (1940 a 1945)

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the National Children’s Bureau (NCB), bringing to light the historical background of its foundation and establishment in the years 1940-1945). It is a perspective survey of the first five years of this institution during the physician dr. Olímpio Olinto de Oliveira administration, after the Decree-law 2024/1940 had been promulgated. For this purpose, two aspects will be considered: first the circulating scientific ideas at that time apropos of child care, secondly the actions in social welfare and in education that intended to create and mould a new portrait of the childhood in the country. As for the methodological procedures that were used, our examination policies of the national children’s Bureau in favour of the childhood. Regarding the select sources, the NCB there-monthly bulletin was given prominence: a cyclic periodical that circulated from 1940 to 1953. Other printed materials were used such as specialized medical journals and magazines. The examination of this compilation of data together with some reports about the NCB operation favoured first the research of the place and the role of the NCB as regards educational hygienic procedures; these were chiefly intended to the trainee elementary school teachers, mothers and other women of the Brazilian society. Secondly, they made it possible to question to what extent did the National Children’s Bureau contribute to that idea of “cultivating the childhood” and to the “making of a new man”, that would fit in with the patterns of modernity, namely the “homo higienicus civilizatus”, that is “the civilized and hygienic citizen” of tomorrow.