Jerry Dávila is Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

Introduction 1

1 Building the Brazilian Man 21

2 Educating Brazil 52

3 What Happened to Rios Teachers of Color? 90

4 Elementary Education 125

The New School in the New State 155

Rios Secondary Schools 192

The Enduring Brazilian Fascination with Race 233

List of Abbreviations 244

Notes 247

Bibliography 271

Index 287

A superbly researched analysis of the application of the whitening ideal, with all its contradictions, in the Rio de Janeiro schools during the interwar years.”—Thomas Skidmore, author of Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought



“By taking an innovative approach to the study of race and social policy, Jerry Dávila has written a rare book that shows how racial attitudes move from elite discourse into the real lives of real people. This approach combines with fascinating research and a narrative style that is compelling and often dramatic to make a first-rate contribution to the fields of Latin American and Brazilian history.”—Jeffrey Lesser, author of Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities, and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil