Activist Biology: The National Museum, Politics, and Nation Building in Brazil by Regina Horta Duarte (review)

Regina Horta Duarte’s book on the National Museum offers a new perspective for understanding a critical moment of Brazilian History, when the country was going through a period of self-discovery and nation building. Activist Biology is a translation and an expanded version of Horta Duarte’s work, which was published in 2010 by the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.

The book clearly shows that the National Museum, established by Dom João VI in 1818, became a hub for disseminating knowledge in the 1920s and 1930s, with the objective of transforming Brazil. At the time, biology was emerging as a discipline that could help solve political problems. In this context, the National Museum became a successful partner with the government by bringing together “biology, educational initiatives, and the rejection of social conflict” (12).

At the center of the museum’s activities (and the focus of the book) were three scientists: Alberto José de Sampaio (1881–1946), Edgard Roquete-Pinto (1884–1954), and Candido de Melo Leitão (1886–1948), all of whom became highly influential in the provisional government of Getúlio Vargas (1930-34). As Duarte demonstrates, the anti-Darwinist stance of the aforementioned scientists was of central importance to Vargas. Eugenics had had a major influence in the country, with some believing that Brazil was doomed because of its Afro and mixed-race populations. Yet, as the author states, challenges to the assumptions of scientific racism increased and the “early decades of the twentieth century witnessed fierce rejection of Darwin in Brazilian intellectual circles” (57). Instead, intellectuals and scientists claimed that lack of health care and illiteracy were the real reasons for any weakness of the country’s population.

However, this rejection of Darwinism—as Duarte points out—has to be understood in an authoritarian context. These scientists (and Vargas) believed that ignorant people needed to be transformed into civilized citizens through scientific education to prepare them for civic and political participation. Thus, for instance, before they were able to vote, they had to learn how to obey authority and the law. The idea was that through “education, Brazilians dispersed across this huge land would learn to understand and adopt rules of hygiene and scientific teachings and could then do battle with disease, redeem their spirits and bodies, be integrated into the nation, and change their environment” (66).

With this in mind, the National Museum, with Vargas’s support, began organizing campaigns to “transform Brazilian children into well-educated adults, familiar with their homeland’s territory and riches, its natural resources, and its fauna and flora” (63). Although not the only respected scientific institute in Brazil, the museum was singled out by the provisional government precisely because of its ability and predilection to connect biology and education.

Duarte shows that this cooperation was short lived. Although Vargas would continue to rule until 1945 and return again by popular vote in 1951 before committing suicide in 1954, the National Museum never enjoyed the same prestige as it did under the provisional government. Increasing conservative influence—mostly from the Catholic Church—convinced the decision-makers that education should shift focus from science to vocational education for the sons of the working class, and domestic skills for the girls. Children of the elite would be taught science, but emphasis would be placed “on the study of languages and on a patriotic, humanist education, to the detriment of the biological, physical, and chemical sciences” (124). Lower prestige also brought a decrease in funds, a pattern that continued through the twentieth century until the museum closed its doors in 2015 due to lack of funds.

The book’s major contribution is to explore and illuminate the complexities of the Vargas era, a period that also...