Maria Lacerda de Moura (16 May 1887 – 20 March 1945 in Manhuaçu

Manhuaçu

Manhuaçu is a city and municipality in Eastern Minas Gerais state, in Brazil. The population of the municipality was 67,723 inhabitants with 40,751 in the urban area and 26,372 in the rural area. Located 260 km from the state capital of Belo Horizonte, it is near the important road junction...

, Minas Gerais

Minas Gerais

Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...

, Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

) was a Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

ian teacher

Teacher

A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...

, journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

, writer, anarcha-feminist, and individualist anarchist.

Life

She was born on the Monte Alverne farm in Manhuaçu in Minas Gerais state, Brazil on 16 May 1887. "She was the daughter of Modesto de Araújo Lacerda and Amélia de Araújo Lacerda, freethinkers and educated folk from whom she certainly inherited her strong anticlerical outlook"..

"Five years after she was born they moved to Barbacena, the town where she started her schooling and by the age of 16 she was training as a primary teacher, the profession to which she was deeply committed". One year later she married Carlos Ferreira de Moura.

As a teacher and a pedagogue in Barbacena

Barbacena

Barbacena is a city and municipality in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. As of 2006, the municipality had 124,601 inhabitants. The total area of the municipality is 788 km²....

 she founded the League Against Illiteracy and worked with other women to help provide housing for the homeless

Homelessness

Homelessness describes the condition of people without a regular dwelling. People who are homeless are unable or unwilling to acquire and maintain regular, safe, and adequate housing, or lack "fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence." The legal definition of "homeless" varies from country...

. Her ideas regarding education were largely influenced by Francisco Ferrer. Moura used Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...

 and Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...

 as examples of pacifism in her essay "Serviço militar obrigatório para mulher? Recuso-me! Denuncío!"

She later moved to São Paulo

São Paulo

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...

 and became involved in journalism for the anarchist and labor press. "Among the labour papers she wrote for were O Culinário Paulista, A Patrulha Operária, A Plebe, A Lanterna and O Trabalhador Gráfico." "At that time of great social upheaval she started to give lectures (some in the city of Santos) to trade unions, cultural centres, anarchist theatre groups and labour associations and the likes of the Printing Workers’ Union, the Anticlerical League and the Union of Footwear Crafts. She also started to write for the anarchist press, among it the newspaper A Plebe where she wrote about ‘the underlying and ancillary sciences of education and educational psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

’ carrying on and adding to the work done in that field by Neno Vasco with the weekly newspaper A Terra Livre in 1906."

There she also lectured on topics including education, women's rights

Women's rights

Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...

, free love

Free love

The term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...

, and antimilitarism

Antimilitarism

Antimilitarism is a doctrine commonly found in the anarchist and, more globally, in the socialist movement, which may both be characterized as internationalist movements. It relies heavily on a critical theory of nationalism and imperialism, and was an explicit goal of the First and Second...

. Her writings and essays landed her attention not only in Brazil, but also in Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 and Uruguay

Uruguay

Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...

. "In 1918 she began her career as a writer, issuing her first book On Education. Such was the impact it made that the following year she published two follow-ups Why Does the Future Triumph?."
In February 1923 she launched Renascença, a periodical linked with the anarchist, progressive

Progressivism

Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...

, and freethinking

Freethought

Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or other dogmas...

 circles of the period.

"At around the same time she helped to found the International Women’s Federation and the Women’s Anti-war Committee, based in São Paulo." "In February 1923 she launched the monthly review Renascença which made no bones about spreading libertarian feminist ideas and dealing with other social issues. This review was circulated in nine states of Brazil as well as in Argentina and Portugal. The following year she issued her most famous book Is Woman Degenerate? by way of an outraged retort to the thesis ‘Epilepsy and pseudo-epilepsy’ written by the psychiatrist Miguel Bombarda in which he tried to show through pseudo-scientific case studies that woman was man’s biological inferior. In 1926 she issued another class work: The Religion of Love and Beauty."Due to her great popularity in countries such as Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Mexico she was invited to give talks in Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Santiago."Due to her great popularity in countries such as Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Mexico she was invited to give talks in Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Santiago." In 1931 she issued two more books, Clergy and State and Civilisation – Body of Slaves. In 1932 she published yet another outstanding book, Love … and Do Not Multiply.

Her thought was mainly influenced by individualist anarchists such as Han Ryner

Han Ryner

Jacques Élie Henri Ambroise Ner , also known by the pseudonym Han Ryner, was a French individualist anarchist philosopher and activist and a novelist...

 and Emile Armand

Emile Armand

Emile Armand was the most influential French individualist anarchist at the beginning of the 20th century and also a dedicated free love/polyamory, intentional community, and pacifist/antimilitarist writer, propagandist and activist...

. On Han Ryner

Han Ryner

Jacques Élie Henri Ambroise Ner , also known by the pseudonym Han Ryner, was a French individualist anarchist philosopher and activist and a novelist...

 she wrote Han Ryner e o amor plural (1928).
Maria Lacerda de Moura died in March 1945.

Selected works

• "A fraternidade na escola" (Fraternity at school) (1922)
• "A mulher hodierna e o seu papel na sociedade" (The women of today and their role in society) (1923)
• "A mulher é uma degenerada?" (Is the woman a degenerated being?) (1924)
• "Religião do amor e da beleza" (Religion of love and beauty) (1926)
• "Amai-vos e não vos multipliqueis" (Love each other and don't breed) (1931)
• "Han Ryner e o amor no plural" (Han Ryner
  Han Ryner
  Jacques Élie Henri Ambroise Ner , also known by the pseudonym Han Ryner, was a French individualist anarchist philosopher and activist and a novelist...
  
   and love in the plural) (1933)
• Em torno da Educação
• Renovação
• A fraternidade na escola (1922)
• A mulher hodierna e o seu papel na sociedade (1923)
• Lições da Pedagogia (1925)
• De Amundsen a Del Prete (1928)
• Civilização, tronco de escravos (1931)
• Serviço militar obrigatório para a mulher? Recuso-me… (1933)
• Clero e Fascismo, horda de embrutecedores (1933)
• Fascismo – filho dileto da Igreja e do Capital (1933)
• Português para os cursos comerciais (1940)
• O Silêncio (1944)