Olga Morais Sarmento

She was born in Setúbal on 26 May 1881. She spent part of her childhood in Elvas, where she became friends with Virgínia Quaresma, and was widowed young by the death of her husband, a navy doctor.¹

She edited the magazine A Sociedade Futura (The Future Society), created in 1902, succeeding Ana de Castro Osório.¹ In 1906 she joined the Portuguese Peace League, where she founded the Feminist Section, which she chaired.¹ On 18 May that year she gave a lecture at the Lisbon Geographical Society on the “Feminist Problem”.¹

She lived for some thirty years in Paris, alongside Baroness Hélène de Zuylen, her companion for three decades. In 1939, at the start of the Second World War, she returned with her to Lisbon, so that Hélène, who was Jewish, could escape Nazi persecution.¹ She died in December 1948.¹ Since 1988, a street in Bairro de Caselas has borne her name.²