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COLLECTION — Box: 1 Identifier: MS Port 49

Ana de Castro Osório papers

Overview

Contains personal letters and other materials from Portuguese feminist Ana de Castro Osório to members of her family, as well as one postcard from Beatriz Osório da Gama e Castro.

Dates

  • Creation: 1892-1942

Conditions Governing Access

There are no restrictions on physical access to this material. Collection is open for research.

This collection is shelved offsite at the Harvard Depository. Retrieval requires advance notice. Readers should check with Houghton Public Services staff to determine what material is offsite and retrieval policies and times.

Extent

.25 linear feet (1 box)

Contains personal letters, postcards, and other materials from Portuguese feminist Ana de Castro Osório to judge and symbolist poet Alberto Osório de Castro, João de Castro Osório (her son), Mariana Adelaide Osório de Castro Cabral de Albuquerque Moor Quintins (her mother), João Baptista de Castro (1845-1920, her father), D. Maria Catharina de Souza Coutinho Osório de Castro (her sister), as well as one postcard from Beatriz Osório da Gama e Castro to her cousin Alberto Osório de Castro and a single letter from José Sarmento to “Excellentissima Senhora," presumably Ana de Castro Osório. Topics include discussions of family members, finances, local news, books, literary contracts and disputes, as well as reflections on contemporary culture and conversations about legal trials.

Biographical / Historical

Ana de Castro Osório (1872-1935) was one of the earliest militant Portuguese feminists, perhaps the earliest, active in the field of children's literature and political Republicanism. Osório married republican poet Paulino de Oliveira, was the younger sister of Alberto Osório de Castro, and mother of the authors João de Castro Osório and José Osório de Oliveira. In 1905, she wrote the feminist manifesto Às Mulheres Portuguesas. She founded the feminist review A sociedade futura, and was the founder of several women's organizations including the first Portuguese feminist association, the Grupo Português de Estudos Feministas (Portuguese Group of Feminist Studies) in 1907. Together with Adelaide Cabete and Fausta Pinto de Gama, they founded the Liga Republicana das Mulheres Portuguesas (Portuguese Women's Republican League) in 1908. The group called for the overthrow of the monarchy and contributed to the proclamation of the Portuguese Republic in 1910. In 1911, Osório headed the Associação de Propaganda Feminista (Portuguese Feminist Propaganda Association). She worked alongside Afonso Costa when he was Minister of Justice in the provisional republican government to write a divorce law, writing A mulher no casamento e no divórcio. In 1917 Osório was one of the founders of the Crusade of Portuguese Women, which encouraged women to be active in the war effort.



Ana de Castro Osório was active in the earliest days of the field of children's literature in Portugal. Her Para as crianças was published from 1897 to 1935 in 18 volumes. She translated Grimm, Andersen and other foreign authors and wrote several original novels, novellas, and short stories for adults in which she treated feminist themes.

Arrangement

Materials are arranged in the order in which they were received from the dealer.

Physical Location

Harvard Depository

Other Finding Aids

Additional description from the dealer is available in the curatorial file.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

2020M-84. Purchased with funds from the Edwin Erbe Jr. Fund, the Francis J. Cenedella Book Fund, the Melvin R. Seiden Houghton Library Book Fund, and the Crocker Wight 1938 Book Fund in the Houghton Library, 2020 January.

2022M-69. Purchased from Richard C. Ramer with the Edwin Erbe Jr. Fund, 2022 January 6.

Processing Information

Processed by Betts Coup. Collection description and biographical notes were derived from dealer information.

Title
Osório, Ana de Castro, 1872-1935. Ana de Castro Osório papers, 1892-1942 (MS Port 49): Guide.
Status
completed
Author
Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Date
2020 February 13
Description rules
dacs
Language of description
eng
EAD ID
hou03314

Repository Details

Part of the Houghton Library Repository

Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.

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