The main objective of this work is to show how were presented
the contents of Kinematics in Science textbooks in Brazil during the 19th
century until the decade of 1930. We point out that some foreign textbooks
had great influence in the Brazilian Physics teaching, once in the beginning of
the 19th century there are no Brazilian Physics textbooks authors. Therefore,
this phenomenon did not happen only in Brazil, once the same textbooks were
references in other countries. We also showed some reasons that, in the
middle of the 19th century, the emphasis in the experimental character
appeared in Physics textbooks, especially in the kinematics content. Therefore,
we based how textbook changes happened. We will also present some
historical moments that influenced Brazilian education scenario, and
contributed to the selection of foreign Physics textbooks with different
approaches, mainly in the beginning of the 20th century. It helps us to
understand, for instance, why Kinematics has been overlooked in the beginning
of the 19th century, and which changes it suffered along time to acquire an
algebrized and traditional form which appears until our days.