Behind the Footsteps of the English Nannies in Valparaíso, 1875-1900

Abstract

The English governess entered into the heart of Chilean families as from the second half of the nineteenth century. Undoubtedly, it is an interesting figure to be able to meet, since the nanny, without being part of the family, was whom connected daily with the children of the members of the Valparaíso elite, joining into both the private and domestic world. In this sense, this study proposes that the figure of the English governess, through her educational work, collaborated in the transnational cultural relationship that developed as from the arrival of British migrants to Valparaíso during the second half of the nineteenth century. Along with the above, it is noted that these educators begin to be silenced once the first secondary state proposal to educate women, Liceo N° 1 de Niñas de Valparaíso, was founded in 1891, proving that they came to work in a function that the State had not yet assumed: educating the young women of the country. Press from Valparaíso was mainly used as the documentary corpus, specifically the liberal newspaper El Mercurio de Valparaíso and the conservative newspaper La Unión de Valparaíso. Along with this, documents compiled from the Educational Fund of the National Historical were used, as well as testimonies recollected in the memoirs of members of the national aristocracy during the change of the nineteenth century to the twentieth.