The structure of sociability in the professional trajectory of the physician, teacher and writer Valdemar de Oliveira

Abstract

This research analysed Valdemar de Oliveira's sociability structure and highlighted his participation as a physician, professor and writer of textbooks. A documentary and historiographical research were conducted, allowing us to establish a narrative with the information treated through a prosopographic analysis. Valdemar de Oliveira built political and cultural affinities through the intersection of shared spaces and intellectual production, forming a structure of sociability that allowed him to carry out his teaching activities in the most prominent secondary and undergraduate education schools in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil. Many brains of his time influenced his career, such as Amaury de Medeiros, in the field of Hygiene, and Aníbal Bruno, who invited him to write textbooks on Natural History for the National Publishing House (Companhia Editora Nacional). Also, Ricardo da Costa Pinto made it possible for him to stay at the Ginásio Pernambucano to teach in the complementary course, and Joaquim Amazonas appointed him as a lecturer of Botany in the Natural History Undergraduate Course at UFPE. Valdemar de Oliveira developed a career as a physician, a teacher and a textbook writer and carried out activities that strengthened hygienist ideals, disseminating a set of hygienist information in his textbooks. Taking advantage of the growth of the Brazilian publishing market, which projected its intellectual production nationally, he left his legacy in the educational policy of his time.

Keywords: Valdemar de Oliveira. Structure of sociability. Hygiene.