Professionals in Brazil, Students in the United States: Brazilian Women at Teachers College

Abstract

Background/Context: The article is part of a line of historical studies on training and improvement travels of Brazilian educators to foreign institutions. These studies have recently increased with the introduction of transnational history approaches. Purpose: This article discusses the training travels of seven Brazilian women, carried out centrally in the 1920s, and the impacts of these trips on their professional careers. Among these women were five teachers and two nurses. Research Design: Through historiographical research, personal and institutional documents are the primary sources to reconstruct their professional and intellectual trajectories. Documents from the institutions involved, particularly from Teachers College, Columbia University, were used, and documents belonging to personal collections, such as diaries, letters, and notebooks. Conclusions: The article gathers the intellectual impressions of the seven Brazilian women provoked by their teachers, colleagues, and experiences in the United States, especially the appropriations they made of their experiences abroad and at Teachers College in particular.