Rewriting portuguese women’s history at international expositions (1889-1908)

This article aims to understand how the changing nature of industrial schooling contributed to the erasure of women’s participation. Industrial schooling, manual work and the politics of exposition were increasingly conceived as male, despite the Portuguese tradition of female artisanal production. With the promotion of technological modernization, at the turn of the nineteenth century, women’s artisanal or mechanical productions were no longer considered “industrial;” henceforth they ceased to be recognized as a professional activity and were mistakenly categorized as homework. Marques Leitão and António Arroio appear as key players in this process through their efforts to redesign industrial schooling with a representation of industry that was more limited than before. In the process they repositioned women’s work firmly within the home, introducing a vision of feminine domesticity which had not held sway in Portugal until then. In the first three decades of the twentieth century, both men consolidated their vision of industrial schooling through written reports and studies that synthesized the legal and pedagogical changes that they defended. These documents, written by “experts” in the field, served as precious primary sources. Reality is the product of what is said and what is left unsaid. In this case, the material traces left by the industry of women lace workers in expositions offers a suggestive way to rewrite this history.