Manuais de Etiqueta e Civilidade e sua Influência na Condução Social Feminina no Brasil (1940- 1960).

Societies, throughout history, have created codes with the aim of guiding relations between groups and people. In Brazil, manuals of etiquette and civility were used with the pretense of forming an emerging bourgeoisie, desirous of appearing good manners, especially in the early decades of the twentieth century. This article is a result of research on women's daily life from 1940 to 1960. Four civility and etiquette manuals were used as empirical sources, aiming at a historical review of aspects of women's life, in the context of Brazil, with the purpose of recovering a history based on invisibility. The analyzed manuals were consulted by elite women who mirrored themselves in them to perform behavioral roles in society and allowed to describe sparse fragments of women's lives by the large number of social rules that normalized their behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]