The material conforming this collection are contained in several volumes corresponds to 1890s-1950s. The collection contains Minutes Board, manuscripts, children’s admission, departure and transit registers, budgets, legal and official documents, inventories and valuations, photographs, plans, 1 film, about the services that the Child Protection Society have provided to thousands of poor children since its foundation in 1894. Its documentation refers to a modern charitable association, directed by elite catholic women, focused on the well-being of the child of workers families: the Protectora maintained boarding houses that during several decades were in charge of nuns, schools, medical and dental services, hospices and primary care-centers. This documentation traces of boys and girls, their original family contexts, charity practices, and public beneficence in the context of urbanization, industrialization, labors, poor living conditions, the social question and state intervention. The richness of the documentation lays on its uniqueness for research on education, the working class, the poor, and social policy. This historical material tell us about children everyday life in relationship with child-rearing practices and educational policies that enhanced civil society and the nascent Chilean welfare state. The institution also has working with the civil court, requesting judges to take care of children that policemen caught in the streets; thus, the documentation contains information about legal structures surrounding family and children, and the social significance of children rights and their wellbeing. The mayor part of the volumes was been stored at large in the main institutional building located since 1936 in Puente Alto (a traditional rural locality near Santiago). Documentation dated from 1890s have suffered this moving from the first asylum located in Matucana street in the center of the capital, and the new building did not have consider space for an archive. The main corpus of documentation is bounded in multiple and dusty volumes, manuscript, and without indexation.
El material que conforma esta colección está contenido en varios volúmenes correspondientes a los años 1890-1950. La colección contiene las actas del directorio, manuscritos, registros de ingreso, salida y tránsito de niños, presupuestos, documentos legales y oficiales, inventarios y tasaciones, fotografías, planos, 1 película, sobre los servicios que la Sociedad Protectora de la Infancia ha prestado a miles de niños pobres desde su fundación en 1894. Su documentación hace referencia a una asociación benéfica moderna, dirigida por mujeres católicas de élite, centrada en el bienestar de los niños de familias obreras: la Protectora mantuvo internados que durante varias décadas estuvieron a cargo de monjas, escuelas, servicios médicos y dentales, hospicios y centros de atención primaria. Esta documentación rastrea a los niños y niñas, sus contextos familiares de origen, las prácticas de caridad y beneficencia pública en el contexto de la urbanización, la industrialización, el trabajo, las malas condiciones de vida, la cuestión social y la intervención estatal. La riqueza de la documentación radica en su singularidad para la investigación sobre la educación, la clase obrera, los pobres y la política social. Este material histórico nos habla de la vida cotidiana de los niños en relación con las prácticas de crianza y las políticas educativas que potenciaron la sociedad civil y el naciente estado de bienestar chileno. La institución también ha colaborado con los tribunales civiles, solicitando a los jueces que se hicieran cargo de los niños que los policías atrapaban en las calles; por lo tanto, la documentación contiene información sobre las estructuras jurídicas que rodean a la familia y los niños, y la importancia social de los derechos de los niños y su bienestar.
Extent: 17 volumes; 1 film; 2 Photograph albums; 26 glass negatives; 4 contact sheets; photographs.
Custodial history: This collection belongs to the Sociedad Protectora de la Infancia founded in Santiago in October 1894 by a group of eight Catholic women of the Chilean elite, relatives and friends, as a charity inspired by the Encyclical Rerum Novarum, and aimed at helping underprivileged urban children. This charitable association was under the protection of the Blessed Virgin of Sorrows. Its first authorities were: president Emiliana Subercaseaux de Concha, treasurer Carmela Correa de Blanco and secretary Josefina Gana de Johnson. Other founding members were Magdalena Vicuña de Subercaseaux, Leonor Frederick de Montt, Emma Ovalle de Mac Iver, Emiliana Concha de Ossa, Rosa Huici de Gandarillas. It has legal personality by decree of the Supreme Court of Chile dated 7 February 1895. Its statutes establish its administration by a board of directors appointed each year by its general meeting of members. In 1895 they also defined a regulation for the admission of children which was reformed in 1930. In 1927 its statutes were amended, the position of administrator was introduced and the number of female directors increased to twenty. Until 1935, all the directors were women. Between 1895 and 1900, La Protectora operated in an establishment located at Matucana Street No. 47 (given free of charge by the Chilean Government). There, they took in children of both sexes up to the age of five, under the care of the religious congregation of the Daughters of St. Joseph (the Chilean section of the Sisters of Providence who arrived from Canada in 1853). In 1896 it housed 246 children and distributed 5,053 rations of food to mothers and their children in other premises in the suburbs of Santiago. From 1900 until 1937, La Protectora operated in a new establishment built on land ceded by the State on the banks of the Mapocho River. Since 1937, it has operated in the building located in the Puente Alto district. Since its foundation, its funding has come from membership fees, private donations and tax subsidies. From its beginnings, it was supported by Chilean doctors for the medical care of the children. These services operated through an infirmary and an apothecary; in 1922 a dental clinic was created with the support of the Chilean Dental Society; from 1936, the infirmary became an ‘emergency hospital’ run by a professional nurse. The educational service formally began in 1926 with the creation of a school within the Protectora. In 1928 there were 23 teachers and 662 pupils. The social service began its effective work in 1928, collaborating with the Civil Registry.
Arrangement: No Arrangement at all. The material was dispersed in several rooms inside the institutional building; manuscripts documents are bounded in several volumes organised by type; without indexation; no chronological order.
Author(s)/Creator(s): Sociedad Protectora de la Infancia.
