Conclusion
As we have tried to document and analyse here, journalistic production authored by women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was subject to generally obscure pressures and expectations of which the texts are documentary evidence. The subtleties of their meanings, which are far from evident when reading chronicles in isolation, become more perceptible and complex when read over a certain period of time. An extensive analysis of the chronicles shows that regular collaboration with O País allowed Almeida better conditions to engage as an intellectual. Although we have no knowledge of any documents related to how she was hired or paid by the newspaper, the progressively professionalised relationship between the writer and O País (which published her texts on a weekly basis) had repercussions in terms of her abandoning the more passive and domestic female themes and attitudes, and broadening her chosen topics, engaging with issues of collective interest, beyond her class and her more immediate interests.
In the hybrid nature typical of the genre, journalistic chronicles constitute rich material for understanding the limits and possibilities of women’s writing, as well as how limits were broken and difficulties imposed by patriarchy explained. The non-publication of part of her production in book form has clouded the historical understanding of the writer’s work and career. Reading the chronicles today, with the historical and critical reference of gender studies, allows us to understand nuances in the author’s work, as well as to identify similarities between the Brazilian writer and her contemporaries, of different languages and spaces, who used similar themes, stylistic resources, and rhetorical strategies to confront the limitations imposed on women intellectuals.