A Grande Guerra e os quotidianos no Porto: os arquivos como contributos

Abstract

This article results from an investigation realized under the topic of “Porto Quotidians and Sociabilities in the Context of the Great War” developed between the Escola Superior de Educação do Porto and the Arquivo Distrital do Porto. Seeks, through the analysis of four funds - Emigrant Passport Processes (letters of call); Porto Railroad Company; Admission Processes of the House of the Hospices of Porto (Wheel House); and Notary Registers Book - to contribute to the knowledge of quotidians and sociability in the city of Oporto during the World War I, more concretely in 1917. It aims to outline the importance of archives as a primary source of safeguarding an unequalled documentary heritage, solidified by the personalities and historical events it immortalizes. The analysis of documentation, here understood as a constructive element of a collective and identity memory, revealed a city marked by emigration to the South American continent and loss of an active contingent, by the misery and hunger of many families of disadvantaged classes who saw in the house of the hospices the only salvation for their children and a city where the war had consequences in the commercial and associative sector.