“Servicio Social, esa forma científica y moderna del altruismo”. Visitadoras sociales, género y pobreza en Santiago de Chile, 1925-1940.

This article investigates the role of Chilean social workers in the production and application of knowledge about social reality in the 1920s and 1930s. It was a profession that scientifically investigated and intervened directly in the problems of the poorest families, but although it used rigorous research methods, the profession has no place in the history of academic disciplines, and its contribution to the understanding of poverty and inequality remains in obscurity. Her work was appreciated through gender stereotypes, valuing mainly the personal, sentimental and moral qualities of the female visitors, forgetting their intellectual contribution.