María Trinidad del Cid (May 20, 1899 – November 19, 1966) was a Honduran writer, journalist, and feminist activist. She is considered a foundational figure in the fight for women's rights in Honduras.

Biography

María Trinidad del Cid was born in

Magdalena, Intibucá Magdalena () is a municipality in the Honduran department of Intibucá. Magdalena is located 86 km south of the city of La Esperanza and 280 km west of Tegucigalpa. The municipality consists of 7 villages and 33 hamlets. Dem ...

, Honduras, in 1899. She completed her primary studies in both Honduras and El Salvador, due to Magdalena's proximity to the border. At age 16, in 1915, she began studying to be a schoolteacher at the Girls' Normal School of Comayagüela. After graduating in 1922, she began contributing to various publications as a journalist, including '' La Tribuna, El Amigo del Hogar, Vida, Regeneración, Antorcha, Vida Rotaria'', and ''Revista del Archivo y Biblioteca Nacionales.'' She also continued her involvement in education, representing Honduras in the First Central American Education Conference, held in Costa Rica in 1928. Trinidad del Cid served as spokesperson for the Society of Geography and History of Honduras, which was founded in 1934. She was also a member of the Honduran Institute of Inter-American Culture, the Pan-American Roundtable, the Zelaya Sierra Group, the National Magisterium, and the

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is a non-profit non-governmental organization working "to bring together women of different political views and philosophical and religious backgrounds determined to study and make kno ...

. A proponent of

pan-Americanism Pan-Americanism is a movement that seeks to create, encourage, and organize relationships, an association (a Union), and cooperation among the states of the Americas, through diplomatic, political, economic, and social means. The term Pan-Amer ...

, she also represented Honduras at the Inter-American History Congress in New Orleans in 1947 and at the

Pan-American Union The Organization of American States (OAS or OEA; ; ; ) is an international organization founded on 30 April 1948 to promote cooperation among its member states within the Americas. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, the OAS is ...

. She fought for Honduran and Latin American women's political rights, founding the Honduran Women's Committee in 1947 and serving as the organization's first president. The committee swiftly affiliated with the

Inter-American Commission of Women The Inter-American Commission of Women (, , ), abbreviated CIM, is an organization that falls within the Organization of American States. It was established in 1928 by the Sixth Pan-American Conference and is composed of one female representative ...

, which Trinidad del Cid participated in as a representative of Honduras. That same year, in 1947, Trinidad del Cid founded the magazine ''Mujer Americana'', which was affiliated with the Honduran Women's Committee and promoted

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...

among other causes. In 1949, she led the committee in launching "The Women's Hour" on the radio station HRN La Voz de Honduras, the country's major radio station at the time. In addition to her journalistic work and feminist essays, Trinidad del Cid also wrote poetry, including an ode to the former Honduran political leader

Francisco Morazán José Francisco Morazán Quesada (; born October 3, 1792 – September 15, 1842) was a liberal Central American politician and general who served as president of the Federal Republic of Central America from 1830 to 1839. Before he was president ...

. In 1944 she published her first book, ''La vida ejemplar de doña Guadalupe Reyes de Carías''. The work discusses the Carías Reyes family and contains other essays. She also wrote the novel ''Los Héroes'' in 1955. Trinidad del Cid continued to be involved in teaching civics and moral education into her final years. She died in Tegucigalpa in 1966. In 1981, the government honored her by issuing a stamp with her image, as part of a series on the Inter-American Commission of Women.

Selected works

* ''La vida ejemplar de doña Guadalupe Reyes de Carías'' (1944). * ''Los Héroes'' (1955).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trinidad del Cid, Maria 1899 births 1966 deaths People from Intibucá Department Honduran feminists Honduran women activists Honduran journalists Honduran women journalists 20th-century Honduran writers 20th-century Honduran women writers 20th-century journalists