Eminent but nameless: Lydia das dôres matta and Brazilian nursing after 1930

Abstract

The article analyzes the process of reconstructing the nursing profession in Brazil post-1930. We examine teaching practices in higher education and the reinsertion of black women in professional nursing through the biography of Lydia das Dôres Matta, a nurse trained in the second class graduated from the São Paulo School of Nursing as a scholarship student in the Special Public Health Service Nursing Program. The results allow reflections on the professional identity of Brazilian nursing from the trajectory of a black woman, as well as on the historiography of nursing in Brazil.