A Life Course Analysis of the Abandoned Children Living in 19th Century Lisbon

Joana Vieira Paulino , Institute of Contemporary History - NOVA FCSH

During the first 60 years of the 19th century the population of foundlings on Portuguese institutions increased dramatically. The main reason laid on the juridical acceptance of the anonymous abandonment, a legal practice in South European countries. Fighting this reality, there was a change in Portuguese welfare policy: in 1867 the wheel, symbol of the anonymous exposures, was abolished, admissions were restricted, and parents had to identify themselves. In 1870, the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa (SCML), the institution responsible for the foundlings of the Portuguese capital (Lisbon), followed this trend. On one moment, this study aims to analyze and contextualize foundlings’ welfare system in the 19th century. On a second and more detailed one, it is our goal to pursue a life course analysis of some foundlings that lived with external wet nurses in Encarnação, a parish in Lisbon center. Which was the destiny of foundlings in Lisbon? Who were they and the families who raised them? Did foundlings get any education or learnt a craft? Did they get married? What was the distinction between the path of a girl and a boy? How did the SCML control them? Were these foundlings integrated in the families who raised them? Legislative production, press, institution’s minutes, and reports are our main sources to study foundlings’ welfare. To pursue the life course analysis, we will use the records from the SCML and ecclesiastical sources, applying a Geographic Information System (GIS) to follow the mobility of children in the city.

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 Presented in Session P1. Postercafe