This work aims to contribute to the history of professionalization of schoolteacher from the understanding of their working conditions between 1854 and 1926 in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The work takes as its starting point an initial analysis of so-called imperial professions, Medicine, Law and Engineering, which enabled the construction of categories of analysis of primary teaching profession, flanked by the specifics of this professional group. Thus, we highlight in this study the movements of feminization and feminisation of the teaching profession, the changes of training instances, the movements of teacher associations, as well as Salvationists vision of education, increased during the study period. In preparing this report, we conducted a survey of the legal documentation of the period and we set as analysis axes Couto Ferraz reform carried out in 1854 and the actions of Carneiro Leao ahead of the General Directorate of Public Instruction between 1922 and 1926. The choice of study educational legislation is based on the desire to understand the teaching profession from the analysis of the mechanism that we consider most expressive communication and relationship between the teachers and the state: labor regulation. However, to understand the legislation and its impact on the organization of teachers was necessary to use a variety of sources, ministerial reports, conference proceedings, publications in major newspapers, manifestos and communications between the administrative authorities and teachers. The analysis of this material has enabled us to observe interesting resistance movements and adaptations by teachers and the state, resulting in distinctive professional brands such as professional fragmentation and control of teaching. Thus, we believe that the understanding of the working conditions of primary teachers throughout history, guided by the ratio of the category with the state, is a key element for understanding the construction of the place of the teaching profession in society, to form do the teaching, among other issues surrounding this craft.