Feminist literature has rarely been studied by historians and critics of Argentine writing. The latter have usually satisfied themselves with isolated references, rather than carrying out in-depth research on women’s productions. Perhaps because a systematic study of Argentine women’s literature has not yet been developed, little or nothing is known about the journalism they edited or wrote—a lack that Néstor Tomás Auza intends to remedy by examining twelve publications. His work shows a literary movement and rescues the forgotten or unknown names of those pioneers who were the first to struggle against indifference and cultural prejudice.

The starting point of what we could call “the feminist program” is La Aljaba, the first journal of its kind, which was inaugurated in 1830. In its pages a program is enunciated to review women’s role in society and to defend their right to formal education—quite a novel idea in a period when the supervision and training of women were centered in the home.

With only two exceptions, the life of feminist publications was rather short. Twenty years after La Aljaba, following Rosas’s fall, La Camelia appears. It was edited by Rosa Guerra, who started a campaign of female demands. In 1854, La Educación again lays out, now more explicitly, the issues of women’s defective education. This is taken up by teacher Juana Manso in her Album de Señoritas. She states her disagreement with Argentine society, the standards of which had been imposed by males, and calls for women’s emancipation. During this time, Manso also edits La Siempre-viva, renewing statements in favor of women’s education and emancipation.

The long-lived La Ondina del Plata was a weekly journal proposing women’s admission into professional careers. Its powerful campaign was developed by many female writers. The high editing quality of this journal, its varied approaches, and its longevity were factors which helped diffuse the feminist program to several American countries. The program proposed in favor of women—to enlarge their role in society, accept their rights to education and culture, and admit them into the professions—appears again in La Alborada del Plata, edited by Juana Manuela Gorriti, and in La Alborada Literaria del Plata.

It should be noted that the female writers’ and journalists’ message was still very far from that of feminist organizations militating and struggling for women’s juridical and civil rights. Rather, there is only advocacy for sexual equality as to education and work and a moderation which contrasts with the attitude of contemporary European and U.S. feminist leaders.

Another publication, El Alba, was a hybrid mixture of literature and fashion. Later, female journalism returned with Búcaro Americano (1896-1904), edited by Clorinda Matto de Turner, a Peruvian writer residing in Buenos Aires, who continued the literary tradition begun by Juana Manuela Gorriti. A publication of quite different style was El Adelanto, where issues of social and political interest predominate—subject matters which make this newspaper an avant garde organ, its contributors drawn from a new generation of educated middle-class women.

Auza has thoroughly explored publications of difficult availability. His book is quite well written and very readable. Its title, though, is misleading, as the journals and newspapers discussed were published up to 1908 and not 1930.