Subtitle: The Lives of Working Women in Nineteenth-Century Brazil
Author: Maria Odila Silva Dias
Subject: Latin American Studies/Womens Studies/Gender Studies
Paper ISBN 0-8135-2205-6
Cloth ISBN 0-8135-2204-8
Pages: 240 pp. 17 b&w illus.
Description:

Translated by Ann Frost

"A distinguished piece of new-style urban history, full of vivid detail. Dias writes with sympathy and perception about ordinary women and their struggle to survive."--Peter Burke, Cambridge University

This important new work is a study of the everyday lives of the inhabitants of So Paulo in the nineteenth century. Full of vivid detail, the book concentrates on the lives of working women--black, white, Indian, mulatta, free, freed, and slaves, and their struggles to survive. Drawing on official statistics, and on the accounts of travelers and judicial records, the author paints a lively picture of the jobs, both legal and illegal, that were performed by women. Her research leads to some surprising discoveries, including the fact that many women were the main providers for their families and that their work was crucial to the running of several urban industries. This book, which is a unique record of women's lives across social and race strata in a multicultural society, should be of interest to students and researchers in women's studies, urban studies, historians, geographers, economists, sociologists, and anthropologists.

Maria Odila Silva Dias teaches at the University of So Paulo.