Private schools and urbanization of Juiz de Fora at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century

Abstract

Emancipated from Barbacena in 1850 and named “Santo Antônio do Paraibuna”, the municipality of Juiz de Fora began the consolidation of its urban infrastructural bases only in the 1880s, when the city began to experience a moment of high economic prosperity, based on the coffee culture, which applied a good part of its earnings in the development of urban activities. Thereby, the end of the 19th century was an important period in terms of the implementation of commercial establishments, industrial, banking establishments, various urban facilities and educational institutions, a topic specifically addressed here. Adopting the period between 1880 and 1907 as a time frame, we present the main characteristics of private educational institutions and relate them to the local urbanization process, driven by a moment of great economic growth. Our question can be summarized as follows: how did the installation of schools affect the process of urbanization in Juiz de Fora? And how did the urbanization process demand the implementation of schools? Challenged to answer these questions, our aim was to study the relationship between the urbanization process of Juiz de Fora - which was consolidated at the end of the 19th century - and the implementation and development of a teaching network formed especially by private schools that served the children of the local elite. For this purpose, we carried out a numerical and nominal survey of educational establishments installed in the city during the analysis period.