[The life and work of Zaíra Cintra Vidal]

This is a social-historical study that aims at describing the trajectory of Zaíra Cintra Vidal, her participation in the Nursing School Rachel Haddock Lobo and in the Brazilian Association of Nursing (ABEn). The study is based on the concepts of symbolic power, habitus and symbolic struggle of Pierre Bourdieu. The primary sources are documents which were collected in the Documentation Center of Escola de Enfermagem Ana Neri (EEAN--Ana Neri School of Nursing) in the Federeal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and at the Memory Center of the Faculty of Nursing (FENF) in the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). The data was collected between August 2000 and April 2001 by means of document analysis script. The outcomes showed that Zaíra Cintra Vidal was born on 5 May 1903; graduated from the Nursing School of the National Public Health Department in 1926; studied and post-graduated in the United States from 1927 until 1929 and returned to Brazil in 1943. Zaíra Cintra Vidal was the founder of the Nursing School Rachel Haddock Lobo and was its first director for nine years. She also and took part in ABEn's Direction Board and in the Revista Anais de Enfermagem (Nursing Magazine).