Maria Lucia de Barros Mott

Maria Lúcia de Barros Mott (December 16, 1948 – June 26, 2011) was a historian, writer, and feminist in Brazil.

Since the 1980s, Mott developed studies regarding health history with an emphasis on births in Brazil. Her work served as a precursor to gender studies in the country, publishing the book "Submission and Resistance, the woman in the fight against slavery" in 1992. At 19 years old, in 1968, she began her studies in History at the University of São Paulo (USP). She had frequent contact with artists who worked at the Park of the Republic (Praça da República), where she made ceramics, painted, and identified with the hippie generation and counterculture ideologies. During this time she began to identify as a feminist and conduct research. I always saw research as a form of political activism. Between 1988 and 1998, Mott completed her doctorate studies in social history at USP and wrote her thesis Parto, parteiras e parturientes no século XIX: Mme. Durocher e sua época (Birth, Midwives, and Labor in the 19th Century: Madame Durocher and her Era), under the tutelage of Maria Odila da Silva Dias.

In 1994, participated in a conference and delivered her lecture: Ser parteira: a representação de uma profissão" (Being a Midwife: the Representation of a Profession). She then developed her post-doctorate project: Caminhos cruzados: os cursos para formação de parteiras e enfermeiras em São Paulo, 1890–1971 (Crossed Paths: Graduation Courses for Midwives and Nurses in São Paulo, 1890–1971), which kept her in an intense and fruitful collaboration with docents of obstetric nursing and the history of nursing, as well as other graduates from USP's nursing school (EEUSP).

Between 1999 and 2000, Mott received a scholarship from the University of São Paulo to perform a post-doctorate internship under the thesis Destinos cruzados: os cursos para formação de parteiras e enfermeiras em São Paulo (1898–1971) (Across Destinies: Graduate Courses for Midwives and Nurses in São Paulo (1898–1971)).

With her team, she wrote several articles such as "Moças e senhoras dentistas: formação, titulação e mercado de trabalho nas primeiras décadas da República (Female Dentists Young and Old: Education, Titration, and the Job Market in the First Decades of the Republic)", published in Historia, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos (History, Sciences, Health-Manguinhos) (volume 15, 2008) and "Médicos e médicas em São Paulo e os livros de registros do Serviço de Fiscalização do Exercício Profissional (1892–1932) (Male and Female Doctors in São Paulo and the Record Books of the Professional Practice Inspection Service (1892–1932))", published in Ciência & Saúde Coletiva (Science and Health Collective) (volume 13, 2008). Submissão e resistência: a mulher na luta contra a escravidão. São Paulo: Contexto (coleção Repensando a História), 1988. O romance de Ana Durocher. Editora Siciliano, 1995. 220 páginas. O gesto que salva: Pérola Byington e a Cruzada Pró-Infância, 188 páginas, 2005. ISBN 8598953024. No tempo das missões. Editora Scipione.

Articles «A criança escrava na literatura de viagens», artigo na revista Cadernos de pesquisa (Fundação Carlos Chagas), n.º 31, páginas. 57–68, 1979. «A parteira ignorante: um erro de diagnóstico médico?», artigo na revista Estudos Feministas, volume 7, n.º 1. Florianópolis, 1999. ISSN 0104-026x. «Ser mãe: a escrava em face do aborto e do infanticídio», artigo na Revista de História (Nova Série), Nº. 120, páginas 85–96, Janeiro–Julho 1989.