Feminism, science and politics - Bertha Lutz’s legacy
Inscribed on the Memory of the World International Register and on the Regional Register for Latin America and the Caribbean in 2023, the nomination "Feminism, science, and politics - Bertha Lutz's legacy" presents collections of four institutions which have the work of the Brazilian biologist, congresswoman, and feminist Bertha Lutz (1894-1976) as point of convergence. She was one of the founders of the Brazilian Federation for Women’s Progress (Federação Brasileira pelo Progresso Feminino), founded in 1922, an organization which fought for equal rights between men and women, for women’s access to education and to the labor market, and contributed to the conquest of the women’s vote, guaranteed in the 1934 Constitution.
Graduated in Science at Sorbonne, Bertha Lutz also worked as a researcher at the National Museum of Brazil (Museu Nacional) in Rio de Janeiro, at a time when women were excluded from the scientific field. She took over as a congresswoman in 1936 and was one of Brazil’s representatives at the 1945 San Francisco Conference, which resulted in the United Nations Charter, playing a crucial role to the inclusion of equality between men and women in the Charter.
In addition to Brazilian particularities, the collections of this nomination help to shed light on the diversity of women’s movements in other countries as well. Getting to know feminism in countries considered to be peripheral is essential for building a comprehensive history of these movements. The archival holdings presented in this nomination, registered in the Memory of the World Programme in Brazil in 2018, offer diverse possibilities for understanding the way in which movements in favor of women’s rights were organized and related from their countries of operation, especially in the decades of 1920, 1930 and 1940. They also attest to the involvement of activists and organizations in defense of women’s rights in broad issues such as disarmament and world peace.