In Brazil, the turn of the 19th century to the 20th century was marked by a break with the monarchy through a republican form of government. However, strategies for ideal construction of national identity remained, above all through continued school use of manuals of the History of Brazil dedicated to the construction of a Brazilian national biography as pedagogy for education of Brazilians. In this text, we examined both ideas in regard to national identity and the lessons disseminated in a canonical work in the area of school literature, Licoes de Historia do Brasil (Lessons on the History of Brazil), which was written by Joaquim Manuel de Macedo as commissioned by the Instituto Historico Geografico Brasileiro, with the first editions published from 1861 to 1863. The work was initially intended for use in secondary education in the Imperial Colegio de Pedro II (Pedro II Imperial High School) and was used in various other secondary schools in Brazil, but there was also publication of a special version directed toward primary school in Brazil. This school textbook, which was complemented by Olavo Bilac in 1905 and by Rocha Pombo in 1914 and 1922, remained in use up to the first half of the 20th century. However, there were no significant changes in the function of construction of the biography of Brazil that would promote a certain idea of national identity among children and Brazilian youth.
