Based on an analysis of material from newspapers published in Manaus from 1895 to 1915, the article examines the links between the local elites' civilizing project, which was influenced by positivist ideas, and the characteristically modern concern with woman's body and sexuality. This social and historical context saw the affirmation of scientific thought and of technologies that target the body as an object of intervention; examples of these are medical discoveries in the treatment of so-called venereal diseases and the government's assumption of the role of moral regulator.
Manaus; gender; sexuality; newspapers; representations of women