Monteiro Lobato: A woman-friendly writer

This study presents data from historical research that aims to contribute to the analysis of representations of female profiles in the 1920s to 1940s, based on the dialogue with characters created by the writer Monteiro Lobato in some of his children's books from the same period. In this study, which is part of the field of the history of education, the main documentary corpus is literary material, which is why it was necessary to approach cultural history, the history of print and microhistory. At first, the interference of technological and cultural innovations in the trajectory of the intellectual Monteiro Lobato is emphasised. Furthermore, in an interdisciplinary way, through bibliographical research, the study looks at the concept of modernity, which made it possible to understand the relationship between Lobato's fictional writing and women's discourses and practices from the same period. It was observed that the characters' characterisations presented modernity as linked mainly to cultural media, technological artefacts and the educational debate of the 1920s-1940s.