Social Action by the Robinsons, Cork Industrialists, in the Alto Alentejo (1870-1910)

Abstract

In the case of the southern Portuguese region of Alto Alentejo, in the period of the Constitutional Monarchy (1834-1910), a recent substantive investigation demonstrated that, besides the strong participation of the public sector in the area of social assistance, there were some individual contributions from the private sector, namely in the foundation and maintenance of asylums for the poor and for helpless children. These contributions, inspired by philanthropic and/or charitable sentiments and integrated in strategies of power by the dominant groups, include those of the cork industrialist Robinson family, which we propose to analyze in this paper. The Robinsons stood out for their participation in childcare and the promotion of a theoretical debate, with practical results, on the relative role of the State and the private sector in social care. Specifically, they were part of the Protective Association for the District Asylum for Helpless Children, since the beginning (1873), making the largest donations, and were associated with the creation of the João Batista Rolo Nursery (Portalegre, 1905), which was typically linked to a large industrial unit, the Robinson Factory. They were also at the center of the ideological debate that led to the creation of the Protective Association for the Poor of Portalegre (1906).