Stages of Almeida’s journalistic work

The figures in this study are as accurate as possible: despite the breadth and invaluable wealth of the National Library’s Digital Library, there are gaps in the digital reproduction of the O País newspaper: for example, some issues are missing and there are stained or mutilated pages that make it impossible to read all or part of them. Table 4.1 provides a summary.

One of the reasons why Almeida’s journalistic output gained such importance was her commitment to consolidate a female readership, which she explicitly addresses, especially in Livro das noivas (1896), Livro das donas e donzelas (1906), and Maternidade (1925). However, she did not limit her reach to this audience, nor to the stereotypes associated with the gender. Throughout the decades of her collaboration with the newspaper, she successfully broadened the themes of women’s writing. Initially they were restricted to aspects of domestic life, sociability and women’s fashion, but later incorporated more explicitly political and social themes, including the urbanisation of the city of Rio de Janeiro, public health, education, women’s work and the right to vote. An extensive reading of her chronicles allows one to diagnose the breadth and variety of the (supposed) interests of the female public and to realise the effort made to conquer and maintain this breadth, in a constant struggle against the limits tacitly established by a patriarchal social structure.

One can assume that the prestige she progressively gained in the periodical resulted from her confrontational remarks and conflicts. Despite the undocumented pressures, lost behind the scenes of the past, Almeida’s chronicles suggest and document some of the struggles experienced by the writer, presented sometimes with discretion, veiled under metaphors, sometimes with humour and pertinacity.

The first public confrontation took place in 1885, when she published her second text in the newspaper. In it, Júlia Lopes (signing with her maiden name) begins by claiming to have been the victim of plagiarism: she mentions her collaboration with the Gazeta de Campinas (1869–88), a newspaper in which she published her first chronicle at the age of nineteen, documents the success of her texts, and accuses other newspapers of adulterated reproductions of these texts. The accusation exudes ironic and jocular comments against the newspaper responsible for the alleged forgery, against the poor quality of the doctored text, and against the club responsible for the publication. Whether well-founded or not, the writer’s complaint leads us to believe that her texts aroused significant public interest, while also allowing us to infer that her authorship was treated with contempt. Almeida refused to accept the situation in silence; she demanded recognition of the rights to her work, at a time when the struggle for copyrights, still unregulated in Brazil, was mobilising intellectuals.2 Marisa Lajolo and Regina Zilberman, ‘A profissionalização do escritor no Brasil do século XIX’. Fragmentum, 45 (Dec. 2015), pp. 65–92, <doi:10.5902/20738> [accessed 1 Dec. 2023]. Although she did not hold a prominent position in the Brazilian literary system, the first-time chronicler was part of the ongoing professionalisation process of writers. At the end of the complaint, she concludes her text with two small fictional texts (in lyrical prose, permeated by elements of fables) and authorises their transcription by the newspaper she had accused, provided that the integrity of the texts is maintained. An ironic offer!

The accusation did not go unnoticed. Three days later, João Ernesto da Silva revealed that he was the accused writer (Almeida had not named him) and refuted the accusation: according to him, she was the real plagiarist, since his text predated that of his ‘young comprovincial’, the ‘distinguished writer and unknown Ms. Julia Lopes’.3 João Ernesto da Silva, ‘Um plágio’, O País, 14 Feb. 1885, p. 3, <http://memoria.bn.br/DocReader/178691_01/553> [accessed 1 Dec. 2023]. Despite claiming authorship of the text, da Silva reveals a deep contempt for the literary writing.

The following day, Carnival Sunday, João Ernesto da Silva again attacked his female counterpart, this time in an advert for the Clube dos Democráticos, which invited readers to a Carnival rehearsal on the theme of ‘Plagiarising Jújú Lopis’. He thus kept the matter alive resorting to the spirit of carnival fun and games.

Wherever the truth lies about the plagiarism, we should note that Almeida caused quite the uproar from the outset of her collaboration with O País and that, in the wake of such a reaction, she did not return to the newspaper as a contributor for several years. Such an interruption in the collaboration would apparently signal the writer’s stance against the newspaper’s attitude, which accepted an advertiser making fun of her. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that Almeida left O País, but did not stop writing and publishing. On the contrary, she started to contribute to leading periodicals in the federal capital. Her return, after a long break, would be slow and gradual: first under the mask of the pseudonym and persona of Ecila Worms, and only later under her own name.