Women who would not be silenced

Who they were

62 women, in the order they were born — from the generation that demanded the vote to the one that made the revolution.

The gains and the struggles, date by date

From the first vote cast by a woman in Portugal to the laws that, even in democracy, had yet to be written. Open each period.

See it in the full timeline

The places

• 

  Aljube Prison

  Today: Aljube Museum – Resistance and Freedom

  Next to the cathedral, it was a political prison from 1928 to 1965 — the one with the isolation cells the prisoners called “curros” (isolation cells) or “gavetas” (drawers). Since 2015 it has been the Aljube Museum – Resistance and Freedom.

  RepressionOppositionWomen

• 

  A Voz do Operário (The Worker’s Voice)

  Today: A Voz do Operário Education and Welfare Society

  It was born in 1879 as the newspaper of the tobacco workers and became the largest people’s school in Lisbon. In 1949, the opposition held rallies here for the candidacy of Norton de Matos, with Maria Lamas, Isabel Aboim Inglez and Cesina Bermudes.

  LabourOppositionWomen

• 

  Boa-Hora Court

  Today: Former court, closed since 2009

  A convent turned into a court in 1843. The Plenary Court, which tried political prisoners, sat here — and it was here that Maria Alda Nogueira, Natália Correia and the “Three Marias” were tried; the Three Marias were acquitted after 25 April.

  RepressionWomenCulture and censorship

• 

  Botequim

  Today: Botequim bar (reopened in 2010 by new owners)

  The bar Natália Correia opened in 1971 on Largo da Graça with three friends, and to which she moved the salon she held at home — where, in the words of a NOVA University guide, people discussed “literature, politics and feminism in freedom”.

  Culture and censorshipWomenOpposition

• 

  Capela do Rato

  Today: Capela do Rato (Chapel of Nossa Senhora da Bonança)

  Over the turn of 1972 into 1973, Catholics opposed to the colonial war held a 48-hour vigil here. It was a woman, Maria da Conceição Moita, who announced it at the microphone; the riot police broke it up and took dozens of people away.

  OppositionColonialismRepression

• 

  Carolina Beatriz Ângelo’s surgery (Rua Nova do Almada, 84)

  Today: A building with a shop on the ground floor

  An advertisement from 1909 places the surgery of Carolina Beatriz Ângelo, a gynaecologist and the first Portuguese woman surgeon, here, at no. 84 Rua Nova do Almada — two years before she became the first woman to vote in Portugal.

  WomenLabour

• 

  Caxias Fort — the political prison

  Today: Caxias Prison

  The political prison of the Lisbon region: the South Redoubt for men from 1935, the North Redoubt for women from 1938. Eight prisoners escaped from here in Salazar’s armoured car in 1961, and the last political prisoners walked out of here in the early hours of 27 April 1974.

  RepressionWomenOpposition

• 

  Church of São Domingos

  Today: Church of São Domingos

  As 1968 turned into 1969, more than a hundred Catholics kept a vigil here against the colonial war. For that night, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen wrote the “Cantata da Paz” (Cantata of Peace): “We see, we hear and we read / We cannot ignore” (Vemos, ouvimos e lemos / Não podemos ignorar).

  OppositionColonialismCulture and censorship

• 

  Cidade Universitária Canteen

  Today: Cantina Velha (Old Canteen) of the University of Lisbon

  The Cidade Universitária canteen, opened in 1961, was the stage for the hunger strike of May 1962: 81 students refused to eat, hundreds joined them, and in the early hours of 11 May the police surrounded it and arrested them one by one.

  StudentsRepressionWomen

• 

  Cidade Universitária de Lisboa (University Stadium and faculties)

  Today: Cidade Universitária – University of Lisbon

  The 1962 academic crisis began here: when Students’ Day was banned, on 24 March, the riot police charged the students. At the general assemblies that followed, Isabel do Carmo was the first woman to take the floor.

  StudentsRepressionWomen

• 

  Clube Estefânia — São Jorge de Arroios polling station (1911)

  On 28 May 1911, the São Jorge de Arroios polling station was set up here. It was there that the doctor Carolina Beatriz Ângelo, registered by order of a judge, became the first woman to vote in Portugal.

  WomenRepublic

• 

  Cordoaria Nacional (Hospital Colonial e Escola de Medicina Tropical)

  Today: Cordoaria Nacional; no edifício funciona o Arquivo Histórico da Marinha

  Na antiga Real Fábrica da Cordoaria instalaram-se em 1902 o Hospital Colonial e a Escola de Medicina Tropical: a medicina de que o império precisava, para tratar quem voltava doente de África e formar os médicos das colónias.

  ColonialismWomen

• 

  D. Maria II National Theatre

  Today: D. Maria II National Theatre

  The national theatre, in the Rossio. Maria Barroso made her debut here in 1944 and was José Régio’s “Benilde”; in 1948, an order from the police and the Ministry of Education took her off this stage. The company that ran it worked under censorship until the fire of 1964.

  Culture and censorshipWomenRepression

• 1907

  Dr Afonso Costa Republican School Centre — evening classes for women (Calçada de Arroios)

  In this republican centre on Calçada de Arroios, while the monarchy still ruled, Maria Veleda set up free evening courses to teach women to read and write; in 1907, the Portuguese Group for Feminist Studies gave classes here to illiterate women.

  WomenRepublic

• 

  Edifício Franjinhas — the restaurant of the carnations

  Today: Edifício Franjinhas

  This was the home of the Sir, the restaurant where Celeste Caeiro worked. It turned one year old on 25 April 1974: it did not open, and the carnations bought for the celebration were given to the women on the staff — the carnations that Celeste took down to the Baixa.

  RevolutionWomenLabour

• 

  Editorial offices of the newspaper “A Capital” (Rua do Norte, 3)

  At no. 3 Rua do Norte, on the corner with Praça de Luís de Camões, were the editorial offices of “A Capital”, a republican evening daily. Virgínia Quaresma, the first woman journalist in Portugal, wrote for it and lived just opposite; in 1911, the paper told the story of Carolina Beatriz Ângelo’s fight for the vote.

  WomenRepublicCulture and censorship

• 1951

  Espírito Santo family home — seat of the Centre for African Studies

  In 1951 the Centre for African Studies was set up in the house where the São Toméan poet Alda do Espírito Santo lived: Amílcar Cabral, Mário Pinto de Andrade, Francisco José Tenreiro and others met here to “get to know Africa”, away from the eyes of the PIDE.

  ColonialismWomenStudents

• 

  Gare Marítima de Alcântara

  Today: Gare marítima e Centro Interpretativo Murais de Almada nas Gares Marítimas

  Inaugurada em 1943 e pintada por Almada Negreiros, foi porta de partida e de chegada do império: daqui e da vizinha Rocha do Conde de Óbidos partiram soldados para a guerra colonial, e aqui se amontoaram, em 1975, os caixotes de quem regressava de África.

  ColonialismCulture and censorshipWomen

• 1935

  Headquarters of the Portuguese Women’s Association for Peace

  Headquarters of the Portuguese Women’s Association for Peace, which from 1935 to 1952 brought women together for peace and for their rights — from Maria Lamas, its president, to Stella Piteira Santos, Isabel Aboim Inglez and Maria Alda Nogueira. The Minister of the Interior dissolved it in 1952.

  WomenOpposition

• 

  Headquarters of the Republican League of Portuguese Women (Rua dos Castelinhos, 6)

  The Republican League of Portuguese Women — the league of Ana de Castro Osório, Carolina Beatriz Ângelo, Adelaide Cabete and Maria Veleda — was founded in 1909 on the 2nd floor of no. 6 on this street. It was the first association to bring together the defence of feminism and of the Republic.

  WomenRepublic

• 

  Headquarters of the Seamstresses and Stitchers’ trade association (Rua do Benformoso)

  In 1915 the Seamstresses and Stitchers’ union had its headquarters here. It was here that Adelaide Abrantes called the women workers of Ramiro Leão & C.ª, who went on strike against the dismissal of three colleagues and were dispersed by the GNR.

  WomenLabourRepression

• 

  Home of Carolina Beatriz Ângelo and Januário Barreto (Rua do Sol ao Rato, 181)

  In 1909 the doctor Carolina Beatriz Ângelo lived here with her husband, the republican doctor Januário Barreto. His funeral left from here in 1910; widowhood made her a “head of family”, the status with which, in 1911, she became the first woman to vote in Portugal.

  WomenRepublic

• 

  Home of Natália Correia

  Natália Correia lived on the fifth floor of no. 52 from 1953 until her death in 1993. In the 1950s and 1960s the flat hosted her salons and, in 1955, a theatre premiere behind closed doors: her translation of Sartre’s “Huis-Clos”.

  Culture and censorshipOppositionWomen

• 

  Home of Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen

  Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen lived on the first floor of no. 57 from 1951 until her death in 2004. A home with its doors open to the opposition, with one side facing the river and the other the lane of the Mónicas women’s prison.

  Culture and censorshipOppositionWomen

• 

  House of the Students of the Empire (CEI)

  Today: Office and residential building

  Created by the regime in 1944 to foster “imperial unity” among students from the colonies, it became a school of opposition and anti-colonialism: Amílcar Cabral, Agostinho Neto and Alda do Espírito Santo passed through here. The PIDE closed it in 1965.

  ColonialismStudentsOpposition

• 

  House where Angelina Vidal died (Rua de São Gens, 41)

  Today: A small single-storey house

  In this single-storey house on Rua de São Gens lived Angelina Vidal, a teacher, journalist and republican and socialist propagandist who championed women workers and the education of women. She died here, “almost destitute”, on 1 August 1917.

  WomenRepublicLabour

• 

  Instituto Superior Técnico

  Today: Instituto Superior Técnico – University of Lisbon

  Pardal Monteiro’s campus was the scene of decisive plenary meetings of the student movement: here the academic mourning of 1962 was suspended, here the PIDE raided the students’ association in 1968, and here it was decided, in 1972, to go en masse to Ribeiro Santos’s funeral.

  StudentsRepressionWomen

• 

  Jardim Botânico Tropical (antigo Jardim Colonial)

  Today: Jardim Botânico Tropical — Museu Nacional de História Natural e da Ciência (Universidade de Lisboa)

  Criado em 1906 como Jardim Colonial, recebeu em 1940 a Secção Colonial da Exposição do Mundo Português: 138 homens, mulheres e crianças trazidos das colónias foram aqui expostos ao público durante meses.

  ColonialismWomen

• 

  Last headquarters of the CNMP, closed by the police in 1947

  In 1946, the National Council of Portuguese Women, chaired by Maria Lamas, moved its headquarters to this lane in Amoreiras. On 28 June 1947, the police closed it “without prior notice”, putting an end to 33 years of the association.

  WomenRepression

• 

  Liceu Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho (successor to the Liceu Maria Pia, the first girls’ secondary school)

  Today: Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho Secondary School

  The country’s first girls’ secondary school (liceu), created in 1906 as the Liceu Maria Pia, and from 1933 the first to be housed in a building purpose-built for girls. Domitila de Carvalho and Maria Guardiola, two of the first three Portuguese women deputies, were headmistresses here.

  WomenStudents

• 

  Lisbon Airport (Portela)

  Today: Humberto Delgado Airport

  In the early hours of 25 April, the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) occupied Portela airport and closed the airspace. From here Caetano and Tomás left for Funchal, and here, on 30 April, Álvaro Cunhal and Conceição Matos arrived from exile on the “Freedom plane”.

  RevolutionOppositionRepression

• 

  Mónicas Prison

  Today: The former Convent of Santa Mónica

  A 16th-century convent turned into a women’s prison. It was mainly a prison for common crimes, but it took in women political prisoners — and served as a punishment for women of the opposition, such as Isabel Aboim Inglez, sent here by the Plenary Court.

  RepressionWomen

• 

  National Council of Portuguese Women

  Today: Praça dos Restauradores, 13

  In Adelaide Cabete’s surgery, on this square, the National Council of Portuguese Women was born in 1914 — “the most important and longest-lasting Portuguese feminist association of the first half of the 20th century”. It had its headquarters here for 32 years.

  WomenRepublicOpposition

• 

  National Society of Fine Arts

  Today: National Society of Fine Arts (Sociedade Nacional de Belas-Artes)

  In January 1947, the National Council of Portuguese Women, led by Maria Lamas, brought together here three thousand books by four hundred women authors from thirty countries. It was a success — and the pretext for the regime to close the Council down months later.

  WomenCulture and censorshipRepression

• 

  O Século — the newsroom of “Modas e Bordados”

  Today: Palácio Lançada, Rua de O Século

  This was the home of the newspaper O Século (The Century), where Maria Lamas edited “Modas e Bordados” (Fashions and Embroidery) until 1947 and where, in 1930, she organised the exhibition “Mulheres Portuguesas” (Portuguese Women). Virgínia Quaresma, one of the first Portuguese women reporters, also worked here.

  WomenCulture and censorshipLabour

• 

  Paço de São Cristóvão / Palácio Vagos — Mutual Aid Association of Commercial Employees of Lisbon

  Today: São Cristóvão Clinic, run by the Mutual Aid Association of Commercial Employees of Lisbon

  A palace in Mouraria that has belonged since 1913 to the Mutual Aid Association of Commercial Employees of Lisbon. In May 1924 the First Feminist and Education Congress, the first in the country, was held in the association’s great hall.

  WomenRepublic

• 

  Palácio de Belém

  Today: Palácio de Belém – Presidency of the Republic

  Here, in 1970, the first woman to be part of a government in Portugal took office. In September 1974 the palace was the stage for the tense meetings that led to Spínola’s resignation; on 25 November 1975, for President Costa Gomes’s command post.

  RevolutionColonialismWomen

• 

  Palácio de São Bento

  Today: Assembly of the Republic

  The parliament where, in 1911, women were refused the vote and where, in 1975–76, twenty-seven women deputies helped to write the Constitution that prohibits discrimination on grounds of sex. Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen chaired the committee on the preamble here.

  WomenRevolutionRepublic

• 

  Parque Eduardo VII

  Today: Parque Eduardo VII

  Here, on 13 January 1975, the Women’s Liberation Movement set out to burn the symbols of women’s oppression. Some two thousand shouting men broke up the demonstration. The bonfire never happened — and the “bra burning” is a legend.

  WomenRevolution

• 

  Peniche Fortress — the political prison

  Today: National Museum of Resistance and Freedom

  Peniche Fortress, a high-security political prison, was where the sentences of the Plenary Courts were served. Ten communist leaders, Álvaro Cunhal among them, escaped from it on 3 January 1960. Today it is the National Museum of Resistance and Freedom.

  RepressionOppositionWomen

• 

  Portuguese Society of Writers (headquarters)

  The Portuguese Society of Writers was on the first floor of no. 20 on this street. In May 1965, for having given a prize to “Luuanda”, by Luandino Vieira, then a prisoner at Tarrafal, it was dissolved by the government, and its headquarters were raided and wrecked that same night.

  Culture and censorshipRepressionColonialism

• 

  PVDE / PIDE / DGS headquarters

  Today: Residential apartment complex

  In the Chiado, the headquarters of the political police: the archives, the informers and, on the third floor, interrogation and torture. On 25 April, agents fired from here on the crowd and killed four people.

  RepressionWomenRevolution

• 

  Rua Angelina Vidal

  In 1924 the former Caminho do Forno do Tijolo was named after Angelina Vidal, a republican propagandist, with the caption “Illustrious Lecturer and Propagandist of Social Emancipation”. She did not live here: she died in 1917 on nearby Rua de São Gens.

  WomenRepublic

• 

  Rua do Carmo — Celeste Caeiro’s carnations

  Today: Rua do Carmo

  Salgueiro Maia’s column climbed this street, from the Rossio to Largo do Carmo. It was here, at the start of the street, that Celeste Caeiro gave a carnation to a soldier who asked her for a cigarette — and the carnation became the symbol of the revolution.

  RevolutionWomenLabour

• 

  Santa Apolónia Station

  Today: Santa Apolónia railway station

  The station of homecomings. In 1958, a crowd waited here for Humberto Delgado, and the GNR charged it. On 28 April 1974, Mário Soares and Maria Barroso arrived back from exile, to a jubilant welcome.

  OppositionRepressionRevolution

• 

  São José Hospital

  Today: São José Hospital

  It was in this hospital that Carolina Beatriz Ângelo became the first Portuguese woman doctor to operate. On the night of 25 April 1974, it took in those wounded by the PIDE/DGS shooting on Rua António Maria Cardoso; the student João Arruda died here.

  WomenLabourRevolution

• 1976

  Streets of the republican feminists in the Quinta dos Condes de Carnide

  Today: Rua Adelaide Cabete, Rua Ana de Castro Osório and Rua Maria Veleda

  Lisbon’s first housing development with streets named only after women: in 1976, the new streets of the Quinta dos Condes de Carnide were given the names of Maria Veleda, Ana de Castro Osório, Adelaide Cabete and Guiomar Torresão; in 1978 four more followed, among them Manuela Porto.

  WomenRepublic

• 1950

  Streets of the women pioneers in Bairro de Caselas

  Today: Rua Carolina Ângelo, Rua Virgínia Quaresma, Rua Aurora de Castro, Rua Alice Pestana, Rua Olga Morais Sarmento and others

  In 1988, the numbered streets of Bairro de Caselas were given names, many of them those of women pioneers: Carolina Ângelo, the first woman to vote; Virgínia Quaresma, the first woman journalist; Aurora de Castro, the first woman notary; the writers Alice Pestana and Olga Morais Sarmento; the painter Sara Afonso.

  Women

• 1904

  The “A Padaria do Povo” cooperative (the People’s Bakery)

  Today: Cooperative, bar and cultural space

  A bread cooperative founded in 1904 in a working-class neighbourhood, and home to Bento de Jesus Caraça’s Popular University until 1946. According to the Democratic Women’s Movement itself, it was at an assembly here that the MDM was born, in 1968.

  WomenOppositionLabour

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