Abstract
This paper is the result of a research concerned with identifying the reasons and ways of the changes in the status of the document during the Nineteenth Century, when documents acquired a central role amongst new procedures necessary for building the modern history of Brazil. The institutions for the safeguard of document collections, like the Biblioteca Nacional, Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro and Arquivo Nacional were subjects of this investigation, through which it was possible to observe specific movements related to transformations in practices, technics and attitudes towards the materialities of the past. The Biblioteca Imperial e Pública - currently, Biblioteca Nacional (BN) - is highlighted, since it started its institutional trajectory in the country at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century as a symbol of Portuguese royalty which affirmed itself slowly as an emblem of the new independent nation. The BN established itself as an important place for the safeguard of documents and collections that would become the mediators for the construction of the country’s history, by introducing organization and documental critique as professionalized work crucial for ensuring the documents’ authenticity.
Keywords:
Brazilian historiography; Biblioteca Nacional; IHGB; Arquivo Nacional; historical collections