Writing the biography of "Obscuros e Ativos": the Dictionary of the Workers' Movement experience in the city of Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

Since Jean Maitron’s French labor biographical dictionary began in 1964 similar projects where developed in other countries, all having as main concern to shed light on those Maitron called “the obscure and active”. The same concern is present, from its very beginning, in the Brazilian labor dictionary project, whose first volume dealing with Rio de Janeiro has already been published. This experience and it’s relation with other labor dictionaries published abroad, as well as the difficulties e peculiarities of the Brazilian case, are the subject of this article.