Banco de dados da tese de livre-docência, "O atraso em meio à riqueza: uma história econômica da educação primária em São Paulo, 1835 a 1920", defendida na FEA-USP em 2016. Link de acesso à tese: https://teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/livredocencia/12/tde-22082019-144418/pt-br.php Abstract This thesis is an attempt to answer a long-standing question: which were the causes of the remarkable backwardness of primary education in Brazil from Independence to the early decades of the twentieth century, when the foundations of modern Brazil were established? In other words, the thesis seeks to understand the roots of Brazil’s persistent educational backwardness which extends to the present day. The study addresses the case of São Paulo, which is compared with other provinces and states, in the context of educational institutions and aggregate outcomes of Brazil in relation to other countries of Latin America and the world. The raw material is basically drawn from archival sources (manuscripts, newspapers, parliamentary debates, official documents) comprising qualitative and quantitative data. To explain the educational results of São Paulo and Brazil in the period studied, the thesis examines the consequences of two general features of the constitutional regime consolidated in Brazil since Independence and that directly affected the resources and institutions of primary education: first, the centralization of political power and public revenues, much to the detriment of the self-government of the municipalities; second, the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of few individuals and families, which excluded land and other forms of wealth from the sources of taxation that could finance the universalization of primary education – unlike the countries that revolutionized their educational systems during the nineteenth century.