A formação da "parte robusta da nação" : carreiras e trajetórias dos egressos da Escola de Engenharia do Mackenzie College (1900-1910)

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the roles played by the Engineering School of the Mackenzie College in São Paulo, Brazil, during the beginning of the republican period both in relation to the development of higher education in engineering, which followed the North American matrix, as in regarding the careers and trajectories followed by their graduates. A series of questions guided this research: who were the students of the Mackenzie Engineering School? Which are their social origins? What set them apart from students at the São Paulo Polytechnic School? How were ideas of progress and religion associated with the institution? What was the model of teaching organized in the colleges? What are the differences between the North American teaching model and the other existent Brazilian models during that period? What elements of Mackenzie Collage's educational proposal corroborate the idea of internationalization of teaching? Did other institutions follow this pattern? What are the main educational institutions and specializations attended by Mackenzists abroad? What career patterns did they follow after graduating? In order to answer these questions, the prosopography was used, which is also known as the collective biography method. The group of students analyzed consisted of civil engineers graduated between 1900 and 1910. It was observed that most of them were from the state of São Paulo: 11 from the capital and the rest from different municipalities in the countryside. Regarding social origin, it was noted that, relative to individuals in which this information was mapped, children of farmers/landowners predominated, followed by the children of traders. Regarding school life, the average graduation age was 21.48 years and only eight of the 52 individuals included in the survey took specialization courses abroad. With regard to career standards, it was seen that in general they worked professionally in different municipalities or states from which they came. The teaching career was followed by eleven graduates and politics by even less: only four. The patterns that repeated in greater numbers referred to engineers who worked in the railways (52%), in public administration (68%) - mainly at the state level - and in the private sectors of the economy (84%). Therefore, it can be concluded that Mackenzie, during its early years, fulfilled the vocation proposed by its founders - to train engineers who worked in the railroads construction -, but that, additionally, provided workers for other sectors of public administration and established close ties with private companies linked to the manufacture and trade of products, as well as with service providers, as was the case of São Paulo Tamway Light e Power Co. These results are in accordance with the institution's organization, which unlike the São Paulo Polytechnic School, was not equated with official educational establishments, nor subsidized by the state.