Juana Paula Manso (June 26, 1819 – April 24, 1875) was an
Argentine
Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...
writer, translator, journalist, teacher and feminist who advocated for better educational reform and better educational accessibility for women.
Biography
Juana Paula Manso, also known as Juana (Paula) Manso de Noronha, was born in
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
,
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
on June 26, 1819.
Coming from a liberal and progressive family, Manso's father, José Maria Manso, had a highly educated background and worked as an engineer and took great pride in his daughter's education and intelligence.
The Manso family's liberal political ideologies soon caused trouble for them when the
Rosas government came into power, and in 1840 Manso and the rest of her family were forced from their home in Buenos Aires and exiled to
Montevideo
Montevideo () is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...
, Uruguay (where she first published a few of her poems in a local newspaper, ''El Nacional,'' in 1841'')''
—only to have to flee to
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
in 1841; initially staying in
Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul (, , ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative_units_of_Brazil#List, fifth-most-populous state and the List of Brazilian st ...
, then settling more permanently in
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
.
In 1844, Manso married
Francisco de Saá Noronha, a Portuguese violinist.
Between 1846 and 1850, Manso and Noronha traveled across Brazil, the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
(whose education system would act as a model for many of Manso's views on education reform and women's educational rights),
and
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
for Noronha's violinist career before they once again returned to Brazil in 1852.
Manso's first daughter, Eulalia, was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1846, and her second daughter Hermina followed closely after. While in Rio de Janeiro, Manso focused her energy on teaching and educating girls,
as well as creating the feminist journal, started in 1852 called, ''O Jornal das Senhoras (The Ladies' Journal)'—''one of the first newspapers in Brazil to be both written and managed by women''.''
Eventually she turned the journal over to another Brazilian feminist,
Violante A. Ximenes de Bivar e Vellasco to continue publishing and editing. In 1852, Noronha suddenly abandoned Manso and their two daughters.
Facing financial hardship, Manso, for a short time, humored the idea of attending the Medical School of Rio de Janeiro to become a
midwife
A midwife is a health professional who cares for mothers and newborns around childbirth, a specialization known as midwifery.
The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughout their lifespan; co ...
, only for the plan to fall through.
Subsequently, after
Juan Manuel de Rosas
Juan Manuel José Domingo Ortiz de Rosas (30 March 1793 – 14 March 1877), nicknamed "Restorer of the Laws", was an Argentine politician and army officer who ruled Buenos Aires Province and briefly the Argentine Confederation. Althoug ...
's fall from power, Manso would finally return to Buenos Aires in 1853 for the first time since her family's exile. There, she established the newspaper ''Álbum de señoritas (Ladies Album)'' in ''1854'', which garnered little success.
Luckily, Manso did find success in the educational journal, ''Anales de la educación (Annals of common education)'', which was founded in 1858 by
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (; born Domingo Faustino Fidel Valentín Sarmiento y Albarracín; 15 February 1811 – 11 September 1888) was an Argentine activist, intellectual, writer, statesman and the second President of Argentina. His writing s ...
, until he transferred the leadership of the journal to Manso in 1865, which she would maintain until 1875.
In 1859, Manso would become the principal of Buenos Aires' first
co-ed
Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...
school with the assistance of Sarmiento, who had enormous connections in the educational sphere due to his position as the head of the Elementary Schools Department in Buenos Aires at the time.
Around the same time, Manso would also become a member of the National Education Council—becoming the first woman to do so.
The 1860s and 1870s saw Manso's incredible devotion to bettering Argentina's education system: along with continuing her work in ''Anales de la educación,'' Manso also published both the ''Compendia de la Historia de las Provincias Unidas del Río de La Plata (Compendium of the History of the United Provinces of the River Plate)'', as well as the ''Historia general del Descubrimiento y la Conquista de Nuevo Mundo al alcace de los niños (General history of the discovery and conquest of the New World for children) in 1862,'' both of which were intended to better or improve teaching in Argentina''.''
A further advancement in 1868 saw Manso become a member of Argentina's Board of Public Instruction, making her the first woman to ever be appointed to a position in the Argentine government.
In 1871, Manso would be initiated into the membership of the National School Commission, once again becoming the first woman in the organization; a reoccurring pattern of Manso's.
Juana Paula Manso died in Buenos Aires on April 24, 1875, having overcome the limitations which 19th century society had shackled her with, and left the world with a lasting legacy in the reformations she made in Argentinian education and her advocation for women's right to education.
On 26 June 2017, a
Google Doodle
A Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and notable historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running an ...
commemorated her 198th birthday.
References
Citations
Sources
*
* Southwell, Myriam (2005). "Juana P. Manso (1819–1875)". ''PROSPECTS''. 35 (1): 117–132. doi:10.1007/s11125-005-6821-0.
ISSN
An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs ...
0033-1538
* Josiowicz, Alejandra (2018). "Juana Manso no Brasil: cidadania, educação e cosmopolitismo". ''Revista Brasileira de História da Educação''. 18: 1–21. doi:10.4025/rbhe.v18.2018.e010. ISSN 2238-0094.
* PEARD, JULYAN G. (2008-07-17). "Enchanted Edens and Nation-Making: Juana Manso, Education, Women and Trans-American Encounters in Nineteenth-Century Argentina". ''Journal of Latin American Studies''. 40 (3): 453–482. doi:10.1017/s0022216x08004409. ISSN 0022-216X.
* "Women and Independence in Latin America". ''www.nottingham.ac.uk''. Retrieved 2022-04-07
External links
juanamanso.org- Web site dedicated to the life and works of Juana Manso (Spanish)
UNESCO biography*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Noikov, Peter
1819 births
1875 deaths
Burials at La Chacarita Cemetery
Writers from Buenos Aires
Argentine translators
19th-century Argentine writers
19th-century Argentine women writers