Proposal of Partnership between Fundação Getulio Vargas and the Center for Research Libraries to digitize CPDOC’s feminine collection under the Global Collections Initiative.

The debate on women’s role in the public life is becoming ever more relevant. Recent studies have registered the impact of women’s votes in the 2018 election in Brazil, specially showing that, for the first time in Brazilian history, men and women have different voting intentions. The feminist agenda has spread and it has been a crucial part of thinking about the country’s current situation, with the popularization of feminism and the realization that it is impossible to go back on women’s rights that have already been gained.

The increasing political participation of women contrasts with historical data showing a shy feminine participation in Brazil’s public affairs. This shyness, which is closely related to the reduced presence of women in hegemonic historical narratives, leaves distinguishing marks in Brazilian archives. The lack of women-collected documents in archival institutions should be considered under a light in which the presence of women in the public life is silenced.

Women’s archives deposited at CPDOC:

The documents listed under this project have the purpose of increasing the amount of historical sources made available online for free by CPDOC. Of the over 2.7 million pages of archives in the institution, more than 900 thousand have been digitized and made available for free consultation online. These documents can be considered the largest available and accessible primary source of Brazilian history on the internet. Therefore, due to the social relevance of the archives proposed for digitalization, this source will increase the academic relevance of this digital collection, especially considering its specificity.