From Rato to the Park

The stops

1. 1

   Stop 1: The bakery of ideas

   Rua Luís Derouet, 20A, 1250-153 Lisboa

   Today: Cooperative, bar and cultural space

   The Padaria do Povo (People’s Bakery) was founded in 1904 as a cooperative, to make cheaper bread for the neighbourhood. In 1919, Bento de Jesus Caraça and António Ferreira de Macedo founded the Popular University in its rooms; it ran here until 1946, when it was persecuted and closed down.⁴⁵

   According to the Democratic Women’s Movement itself, it was at an assembly here, in 1968, that the movement was born, heir to the National Council of Portuguese Women and the Portuguese Women’s Association for Peace. On 21 October 1973 it held its first national meeting, with 250 women.⁶

   • 1968The Democratic Women’s Movement is founded
   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 2640 m · 10 min on footDirections

2. 2

   Stop 2: The widow who read the law

   Rua do Sol ao Rato, Lisboa (n.º 181, 1.º, na numeração de 1909–1910; não localizado na numeração atual)

   

   In 1909, Carolina Beatriz Ângelo lived on the first floor of No. 181 on this street, with her husband and cousin, the republican doctor Januário Barreto.⁷ Januário died in 1910, a few months short of seeing the Republic; his wake was held here, and a crowd followed the funeral procession to the Prazeres Cemetery.⁸

   Widowed, with a daughter to support, Carolina became a “head of household” — the status that the electoral law of 1911 allowed her to invoke in order to claim the vote. She voted a year later, in Arroios: the first woman to vote in Portugal.⁹

   • 28 May 1911Carolina Beatriz Ângelo, the first woman to vote in Portugal
   RTP Arquivos · Video · broadcast on 30 May 1988 · 21 minAs FeministasIn the programme “Mátria” (Motherland), Natália Correia evokes Ana de Castro Osório: her granddaughter, Isabel de Castro, reads a text on the right to vote, and portraits of Carolina Beatriz Ângelo, Maria Veleda and Adelaide Cabete are shown. Elina Guimarães gives her testimony on women’s struggle and 25 April.Open in the archive
   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 3430 m · 5 min on footDirections

3. 3

   Stop 3: The vigil against the war

   Calçada Bento da Rocha Cabral, 1-B, 1257-047 Lisboa

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

   

   On 30 December 1972, at the end of the afternoon Mass, the educator Maria da Conceição Moita went to the microphone of this chapel and announced, on behalf of a group of Christians, a 48-hour vigil, with fasting, against the colonial war.² The next day, some three hundred people approved a motion against the “criminal war” and the “complicity of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church”. Riot police surrounded the chapel and took dozens of people to the police station; fourteen ended up in Caxias.¹⁰

   When the police came in, it was a librarian, Maria Benedita Galamba de Oliveira, who led the prayers. Months later, arrested by the DGS, Conceição Moita was slapped until she fainted and spent seven days and eight nights without being allowed to sleep.²

   What you can see today

   A plaque put up by Lisbon City Council by the chapel entrance in 2022, honouring the vigil (wording to be confirmed). Memorial by Cristina Ataíde in the nearby Jardim das Amoreiras (2024).

   • 30 Dec 1972The Capela do Rato vigil against the colonial war
   • 24 Nov 1973The DGS case against the anti-colonial group and the Revolutionary Brigades
   Casa Comum – Fundação Mário Soares e Maria Barroso · Document · 7 January 1973A Paz é ObrigatóriaA statement on the events at the Rato Chapel, which ended with the arrest of several of those present on 31 December 1972, with the motion against the colonial war approved there. Casa Comum warns that the document is hard to read.Open in the archive
   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 4260 m · 5 min on footDirections

4. 4

   Stop 4: The Council the police shut down

   Travessa da Fábrica das Sedas (Amoreiras), Lisboa – número por confirmar

   

   In 1946 the National Council of Portuguese Women moved its headquarters from Restauradores to this lane. Under the presidency of Maria Lamas it had grown and opened branches around the country; the move was, according to the researcher Rosa de Lurdes Correia, the opportunity the regime needed.¹

   On 28 June 1947 the police closed the headquarters “without prior notice”. Shortly before, Maria Lamas had been forced to choose between editing the magazine Modas e Bordados (Fashions and Embroidery) and the Council — and had chosen the Council.¹¹ She responded by travelling the country to write As Mulheres do Meu País (The Women of My Country), published in instalments from 1948.¹²

   • 28 Jun 1947The police close down the National Council of Portuguese Women
   • May 1948Publication of Maria Lamas’s “As Mulheres do Meu País” (The Women of My Country)
   RTP Arquivos · Video · broadcast on 31 August 1974 · 50 minMaria LamasA portrait of Maria Lamas in the series “Nome Mulher” (Name: Woman), by Maria Antónia Palla and Antónia de Sousa, with interviews in Torres Novas and in the newsroom of “Modas e Bordados” (Fashions and Embroidery) at “O Século”, and footage of Caxias prison. She talks about presiding over the National Council of Portuguese Women and its closure, about prison and about what 25 April meant.Open in the archive
   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 5730 m · 10 min on footDirections

5. 5

   Stop 5: The radio station of the revolution

   Rua Sampaio e Pina, 24, Lisboa

   In the early hours of 25 April 1974, officers of the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) occupied the studios of Rádio Clube Português, on this street, without incident, and made it the Movement’s broadcaster.¹³¹⁴ At 04:26 the announcer Joaquim Furtado read the first communiqué, which asked the population to stay calm and doctors to go to the hospitals.¹⁴

   At around 14:30, the communiqué announcing the siege of Marcelo Caetano in the Carmo was read by a woman, Clarisse Guerra.¹⁴¹⁵ Throughout the day the station played songs that had been banned, by José Afonso, Adriano Correia de Oliveira, José Jorge Letria, Luís Cília and José Mário Branco.¹⁴¹⁵

   What you can see today

   The site is one of the “Places of April” (Lugares de Abril), the project of Lisbon City Council and the 25 April Association that marks the places of the revolution with plaques, each with a QR code.¹³¹⁹

   • 25 Apr 1974Ocupação do Rádio Clube Português
   • 25 Apr 1974Rádio Clube Português lê o primeiro comunicado do MFA
   • 25 Apr 1974Uma voz de mulher lê o comunicado do cerco ao Carmo
   RTP Arquivos · Audio · broadcast on 25 April 1974 · 2 minComunicado do M.F.A.The voice of Clarisse Guerra, an announcer at Rádio Clube Português, reading a communiqué from the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) on 25 April. The communiqué states that the MFA is in control of the political and military situation.Open in the archive
   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 6570 m · 10 min on footDirections

6. 6

   Stop 6: 13 January 1975 — the bonfire that never was

   Parque Eduardo VII, Lisboa

   Today: Parque Eduardo VII

   

   Late in the afternoon, some fifteen activists from the Women’s Liberation Movement — some with their children — came to the park to burn symbols of women’s oppression: pots and pans, brooms, bridal wreaths, sexist toys, the civil and penal codes. Three of them played the bride, the housewife and the “vamp”.

   The newspaper Expresso had announced the event in a mocking tone, and some two thousand men turned up, shouting “Out with them!” (fora com elas!). They surrounded some of the women and tried to overturn the van the children were in. The bonfire never happened — and the “bra burning” is a legend, denied by the participants and by the journalist Maria Antónia Palla, who stayed to the end.³

   • 13 Jan 1975Manifestação feminista do MLM atacada no Parque Eduardo VII
   • 23 Apr 1974Otelo entrega as «Instruções Finais» no Parque Eduardo VII
   RTP Arquivos · Video · broadcast on 14 January 1975 · 1 minBoicote à manifestação do Movimento de Libertação das MulheresFootage of the Women’s Liberation Movement demonstration in Parque Eduardo VII on 13 January 1975, broken up by groups of men. Torn placards, night scenes and magazine cuttings on the ground can be seen.Open in the archive
   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 7710 m · 10 min on footDirections

7. 7

   Stop 7: The carnations of the Sir

   Rua Braamcamp, esquina com a Rua Castilho, 1250-048 Lisboa

   Today: Edifício Franjinhas

   

   This building housed the Sir, the restaurant where Celeste Caeiro worked. It turned one year old on 25 April 1974, and the owners had bought carnations to give to their women customers. That morning the boss announced that the restaurant would not open, “because there’s a revolution going on”, and the carnations were handed out to the women on the staff so that they would not wilt. Celeste took a bunch and caught the metro down to the Baixa.¹⁶

   The rest of the story is in the route The first day.

   • 25 Apr 1974Celeste Caeiro e os cravos

   «Celeste dos Cravos» imortalizada na sua LisboaCâmara Municipal de Lisboa · 25 April 2025 · 01:03

   RTP Arquivos · Audio · broadcast on 23 April 2015 · 16 minEntrevista a Celeste Caeiro, Garcia dos Santos, Carlos Cedoura e Pena MadeiraForty-one years on, Celeste Caeiro recalls her initiative of handing out carnations to the soldiers on 25 April. In the same programme, the military men Garcia dos Santos, Carlos Cedoura and Pena Madeira also speak.Open in the archive
   The story of the place See on the map

   To stop 8440 m · 5 min on footDirections

8. 8

   Stop 8: Three thousand books by women

   Rua Barata Salgueiro, 36, 1250-044 Lisboa

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

   

   From 4 to 12 January 1947, the National Council of Portuguese Women held the “Exhibition of Books Written by Women” (Exposição de Livros Escritos por Mulheres) here: three thousand books by four hundred women authors from thirty countries, and photographs of women who had stood out as intellectuals and as members of the resistance to Nazism and fascism.¹⁷ The actress Manuela Porto spoke about Virginia Woolf and “the problem of women of letters”.¹¹

   It was a success. The Catholic press saw the Council as “a mortal danger to Woman and Morality”¹⁸ — and, for the researcher Teresa Joaquim, it was this exhibition that led the regime to close it down six months later.¹²

   • 4 Jan 1947Exhibition of Books Written by Women
   The story of the place See on the map