Haydée Guanais Dourado

professional training and financing from the Rockefeller Foundation (1941-1956)

Abstract

Objective: to describe and analyze nurse Haydée Guanais Dourado’s (HGD) educational and professional trajectory between 1941 and 1956. The emphasis is on two periods of studies and training carried out by her in the United States of North America and in Canada with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation. Methods: the research used documentary sources collected in archives at the Museum of the Nursing School of the Universidade Federal da Bahia, the Escola Anna Nery Documentation Center, the National Library Hemeroteca Digital and among family members of HGD [two interviews, five scholarship holder cards, a dossier from the Rockefeller Foundation (RF), newspaper reports and images] that recorded her experience as a scholarship recipient. Document analysis was based on onomastic and indexical methods, as proposed by Carlo Ginzburg, which highlights the importance of the name for document collection and analysis. Results: Haydée’s multiple learning and observation experiences abroad prepared her to act as a leader in the field of nursing education at a time when the priority was the creation of new Nursing Schools. Final considerations: although the scholarship granting policy sponsored by RF had well-defined institutional and political objectives, HGD’s choices were decisive in defining her professional path.