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Women's Roles in Nineteenth-Century Chile: Public Education Records, 1843-1883

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

Gertrude M. Yeager
Gertrude M. Yeager*
Affiliation:
Tulane University
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In 1877 Miguel Luis Amunátegui, noted historian and Chile's Minister of Education, observed aptly that while the Chinese bound their daughters' feet, his countrymen bound their daughters' minds. Amunátegui's dictum reveals an official concern for women's education that was unique in nineteenth-century Latin America. Chile's efforts to remove the “bindings” from the minds of its young women are important in several respects. Education was in fact the linchpin of an ambitious strategy to revamp and modernize every aspect of Chilean society. Because of the centrality of formal education in this experiment and the intensity of thinking on the subject, when women's education was addressed in official circles, female roles were being defined as part of a coherent national ideology. The Chilean experiments in education thus provide a rare opportunity to observe explicit, detailed reflection on women's roles. Unequivocal official commitment to public education in Chile also resulted in the creation of a large bureaucracy that in turn collected immense quantities of data on household size, family income, occupation, and related subjects. Much of this data concerns women and insofar as it documents the “social bedrock” so often obscured to scholars, it is immensely useful for women's history.

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , 1983 , pp. 149 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 by the University of Texas Press

References

Notes

1. “Boletín de Instrucción Pública,” Anales de la Universidad de Chile 52 (1877):50. (“Boletín de Instrucción Pública” appears hereafter as BIP. Anales de la Universidad de Chile appears hereafter as AUCH).

2. Meri Knaster, “Women in Latin America: The State of Research, 1975,” LARR 11, no. 1 (1976):3-74. See also her Women in Spanish America: An Annotated Bibliography (Boston, 1977), pp. 95-136, 616-24. A sampling of this literature includes: Jesus Galindo y Villas, “La educación de la muyer mexicana a través del siglo XIX,” Memorias de la sociedad científica “Antonio Alzate” 11 (1900-1), pp. 289-312, and his “Breves consideraciones sobre la educación de la muyer mexicana,” ibid. 9 (1897-98), pp. 109-36; María Aldana, Dos palabras acerca de la educación femenina (Puebla, Mexico, 1902); Manuel Valldeperes, “Salomé Urena: poetisa y maestra,” Inter-American Review of Bibliography 19 (1969):23-38; Mariana de Cáceres, “Women of the Americas: III Maria Francesca Reyes: Honduras,” Boletín (Pan American Union) 74 (1940):500-3; Carlos Restrepo Canal, “El Colegio de la Merced al cumplir los ciento treinta años de su fundación,” Boletín Cultural y Bibliográfica (Colombia) 5 (1962):760-62; and Juan Antonio Susto, “La educación de la mujer panameña en el siglo XIX,” Lotería 9 (1965):91-96 and 10 (1966)57-71.

3. “Lei orgánica de la Universidad de Chile,” AUCH 1 (1843). Also see Amanda Labarca

H., Historia de la enseñanza en Chile (Santiago, 1939); M. Vaughan and M. S. Archer, Social Conflict and Educational Change in England and France, 1789-1848 (London, 1971).

4. Knaster, “Women in Latin America,” p. 15.

5. Compare the budgets made to various peacetime and crisis ministries. Boletín de leyes, ordenanzas i decretos del gobierno (Santiago) 19 (1851), p. 548; 20 (1851), p. 295; 23 (1854), p. 302; 26 (1858), p. 638; 28 (1860), p. 431; 30 (1862), p. 384; 32 (1864), pp. 36, 482; 33 (1865), p. 628; 35 (1867), p. 368; 43 (1875), p. 681. Also see the annual reports of the Minister of Education for discussions of current spending policies. (Boletín de leyes, ordenanzas i decretos del gobierno hereafter appears as BLODG).

6. Nancy Caro Hollander, “Women: The Forgotten Half of Argentine History,” in Ann Pescatello's Female and Male in Latin America: Essays (Pittsburgh, 1973), p. 142.

7. See, for example “Legislación antigua i moderna. Estado comparativo de la mujer bajo el influjo de la legislación pagana i de la cristiana. Memoria de prueba de don Zorobabel Rodríguez en su exámen para obtar el grado de licenciado en leyes leída el 17 de junio de 1864,” AUCH 26 (1865), pp. 193-204. Also see “Memoria. Religion. El liberalismo. Discurso de incorporarse a la facultad teolójica el 8 de enero de 1878 por el presbítero Guillermo Juan Carter,” AUCH 53 (1878), pp. 87-141.

8. “Memoria leída por el rector de la Universidad de Chile en el aniversario solemne de 29 de Octubre de 1848,” AUCH 5-6 (1848-49), pp. 143-95. Also see “Documentos oficiales,” AUCH 8 (1851), p. 103. See also BLODG 19 (1851), pp. 128, 127, 129, 250, 252, 249, 254; “Relación del secretario general leída por don Ramon Briseño,” AUCH 7 (1850), pp. 479-89. See also the following entries in BIP, AUCH 7 (1850), pp. 371, 403; 10 (1853), pp. 451-67, 530, 549-57; 12 (1855), pp. 427-33.

9. See BLODG 21 (1853), p. 6281. Also see BIP in AUCH 10 (1853), pp. 347, 527-30; 17 (1860), p. 493; 26 (1865), p. 745; 52 (1877), pp. 44-47, 62-64, 214-18; 30 (1868), pp. 55-59.

10. For community petitions see BIP, AUCH 10 (1853), pp. 451-67, 530, 549-57; 12 (1855), pp. 427-33, 489, 531-34, 712-22; 14 (1857), pp. 235-44, 379-86, 547-52, 15 (1858), pp. 120-48, 216-34; 17 (1860), pp. 868-74, 315-22, 431-89. For salary information see, for example, 23 (1863), p. 311; 32 (1869), p. 322; 12 (1855), pp. 813-17; 17 (1860), pp. 315-18, 322. See “Reglamento jeneral de instrucción primaria,” ibid. 23 (1863), pp. 841-58. Concerning prizes see 17 (1860), pp. 873-74. Doña Carmen Carrasco and Doña Carmen Aguirre are cited as excellent teachers; Doña Rosario Vargas was cited for her contributions to teaching the physically handicapped. See also “Consejo de la Universidad de Chile,” ibid., 17 (1860), pp. 377-78. Textbooks were presented in mathematics, geography, and domestic sciences. See ibid. 52 (1877), p. 7; 37 (1866), pp. 230-31; 22 (1869), p. 322. Doña Ecluvijes Casanova submitted a text entitled “Educación de la mujer,” which the consejo approved. (Consejo de la Universidad de Chile appears hereafter as CUCH).

11. CUCH, AUCH 52 (1877), p. 7; 54 (1878), p. 522; 8 (1851), pp. 407-34. Private liceos existed prior to this date; see AUCH 2 (1845), p. 39; 8 (1851), pp. 109, 403.

12. “Las mujeres pueden rendir exámenes válidos para ejercir profesiones científicos,” AUCH 52 (1877), pp. 206-7. Also see R. Florencio Moreyera, “Observaciones al proyecto de educar científicamente a la mujer,” Revista Chilena 7 (1877), pp. 603-15; Juan Enrique Lagarrigue, “El buen sentido de una mujer,” ibid., pp. 631-33: Ernesto Turenne, “Profesiones científicos para la mujer,” ibid. 7 (1877), pp. 352-427; C. González Ugalde, “Algo sobre instrucción,” ibid., pp. 573-603.

13. Benicio Alamos González, “Enseñanza superior de la mujer,” Revista Chilena 10 (1878), pp. 533-43.

14. CUCH, AUCH 54 (1877), p. 522; 55 (1878), p. 190.

15. The annual reports of the Minister of Education appeared in AUCH under the title “Instrucción pública—su estado actual, según la memoria del ministro del ramo al congreso nacional i según los documentos anexos que a continuación se insertan.” For examples see the following volumes of AUCH: 2 (1844), pp. 111-21; 5-6 (1848-49), pp. 143-205; 15 (1858), pp. 259-90; 17 (1860), pp. 650-72; 19 (1861), pp. 383-449; 24 (1864), pp. 476-510; 23 (1863), pp. 765-806; 28 (1865), pp. 141-248; 29 (1866), pp. 495-569; 31 (1868), pp. 3-180; 33 (1869), pp. 47-239; 38 (1871), pp. 240-324;

42 (1872), pp. 180-292; 45 (1873), pp. 320-59; 46 (1874), pp. 250-396; 58 (1880), pp. 197-232; 60 (1881), pp. 277-372.

16. AUCH 45 (1873), pp. 320-59; 46 (1874), pp. 250-396, 383.

17. AUCH 45 (1873), pp. 320-59.

18. See note 15.