Noronha, Joana de (fl. c. 1850)
Noronha, Joana de (fl. c. 1850)
Argentinean-Brazilian feminist, journalist, and literary critic. Name variations: Joana Paula Manso de Noronha. Born in Argentina; flourished around 1850; married a Portuguese violinist-composer (separated).
After separating from her Portuguese husband, a violinist and composer, Argentinean-born Joana de Noronha relocated to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she became a journalist and literary critic. During a visit to the United States in 1846, she noted how women there were attempting to improve their status, and upon her return to Brazil she started a progressive feminist paper, O journal das senhoras. The project met with considerable hostility and after six months she was in such dire financial straits that she was forced to relinquish the paper to Violante Atabalipa de Bivar e Vellasco , who served as its editor until 1855, when it ceased publication. (Vellasco later founded her own journal, O domingo, in 1874.) O journal das senhoras was a watershed publication, however, and influenced later radical feminist journals, such as O sexo femminiso (1873) and A familia (1888).