Inaugurated in February 1919 to provide assistance to mothers and children from underprivileged social groups, the nearly century-old Maternidade Pro Matre maternity hospital was an initiative of physician and philanthropist Fernando Magalhães and of feminist Stella de Carvalho Guerra Duval, with the support of society women from Rio de Janeiro. Its creation was part of a mother-child assistance movement that historiography now calls the 'maternalist project,' which was based on the notion of the cultural inseparability of mother and child. The sources available at Pro Matre's institutional archive open up research possibilities in the field of mother-child assistance in Rio de Janeiro and, by extension, Brazil.
Pro Matre; mother-child assistance; history of maternity; Fernando Magalhães (1871-1944); philanthropy
