THE PUZZLING CONTRADICTIONS OF CHILD LABOR, UNEMPLOYMENT, AND EDUCATION IN BRAZIL

Hugh Cunningham recently argued that in nineteenth-century Europe, soc ial control was the major concern of authorities promoting both child labor and public education. This article examines this thesis for nine teenth-century Sao Paulo, Brazil, using Portuguese legislation concern ing orphans, cases of tutorship, criminal records, records of child la bor from industries, and annual reports of Sao Paulo primary teachers. The evidence shows that child labor was regarded as educational both in the moral sense and to acquire skills for children age seven and ol der and that employers also valued child label: The efforts to develop public education, on the other hand, were hampered by the resistance of parents to sending their children to school rather than sending the m to work or using them for chores at home. While social control was d efinitely an underlying agenda of elites in their ideas for popular ed ucation (since it was seen to prevent crime), the contribution of chil d labor to household economy was much more important from the perspect ive of average Brazilian families.