This thesis aims mainly at investigating, through photographic records and reproductions, the social relations and customs which emerge from the analysis of images of Rio de Janeiro`s municipal school teachers, during the period between the end of the 19th century (the 1890s) and the beginning of the 20th century (its initial decades). By analyzing how the images of the teachers was made public and attached to values through photographic documents, reflected in everyday school practices of the period investigated, the work took the form of a historicalsociological study. This search for meaning in the visual discourse of the photographic images analyzed allowed the mapping of the everyday pedagogical customs of these female teachers who imprinted their identities. The structure used to analyze the photographs was based on the premise which also defines photography as a visual text, benefiting from the theoretical leads laid by Boris Kossoy, Ana Maria Mauad, Lorenzo Vilches, Ruggero Eugeni, Erwin Panofsky, Roland Barthes, among other authors cited. The city of Rio de Janeiro was chosen because it was the country`s capital until the year 1960, besides the fact that, nowadays, it remains a broadcasting hub in terms of habits and customs which spread throughout the country, having, therefore, welcomed and emanated official modes of professional conduct; in the case of this thesis, the identity of female schoolteachers. The final considerations of the work point out that the study of images and photographic documents of Rio de Janeiro`s elementary public school teachers offers a new look on the construction of the teaching identity, on the networks from which this identity is woven. These images do reflect the facts as well as the ideologies of the periods in which they were produced, recorded and made public. They can only be analyzed if today`s audience is permeated not only by the time in which it lives, but also by the context in which these photographs were taken, which opens the way to a dialogue between the record and the view of the contemporary observer.