Feminization is discussed in the perspective of the administrative practices, related to the processes of female teacher education, developed in women's schools, since 1900, in the Federal State of Rio Grande do Sul. We situate initial processes of formation for teaching os first letters, stressing ruptures and alterations in the profile of the demand. We conclude that the care for orphans, whose professionalization was linked with assistential practices, a fact that occurred at the Normal School, articulated with the power structure of the Direction of Public Instruction. The courses of female teacher education were reconstituted, starting to be offered in various institutions and locations in the State, which, assuming the formation of teachers of first letters, became independent from the Directory, being spaces of influence of the female initiative in the offering of courses for women of the privileged strata of the population.
HISTORY OF EDUCATION; WOMEN TEACHERS; WOMEN; EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION