Angelina Vidal

She was born in Lisbon, in the parish of São José, on 11 March 1847, the daughter of the conductor Joaquim Casimiro. In 1872 she married the Navy doctor Luís Augusto de Campo Vidal, and was widowed in 1894.¹

She began writing in the newspapers under the pseudonym “Uma Republicana Viseense” (A Republican Woman from Viseu) and spread republican propaganda at rallies and in the press, in titles such as O Sindicato, Justiça do Povo, Emancipação, O Tecido and O Trabalhador. She wrote for A Voz do Operário from 1883 and was the paper’s editor between 1897 and 1901.¹ To her republican ideals she later added socialist ones.²

She defended the rights of women workers and the education of women as the basis of equality. She never called herself a feminist, and even criticised the suffragists of the Republican League of Portuguese Women, but she always demanded equality between men and women, at work and in civil law. She taught French, piano and music, including at the A Voz do Operário society, and wrote poetry, prose and plays, among them Lisboa Antiga e Lisboa Moderna (Old Lisbon and Modern Lisbon, 1900).¹

The monarchy’s government denied her a widow’s pension, claiming that she was an “enemy of the institutions”. In 1917, under the Republic, she applied again; it was granted on 31 July, and the next day, 1 August 1917, she died almost destitute, at No. 41 Rua de São Gens.¹ By an edict of 17 October 1924, Lisbon City Council gave her name to the former Caminho do Forno do Tijolo, today Rua Angelina Vidal, with the caption “Illustrious Lecturer and Propagandist of Social Emancipation” (Ilustre Conferencista e Propagandista da Emancipação Social).¹³