Celina Guimarães Viana

Celina Guimarães Viana (Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, 15 November 1890 - Belo Horizonte, 11 July 1972) was a Brazilian professor and suffragist. She was the first women to vote legally in Brazil, although Isabel de Mattos Dillon, claimed to have voted in 1887.^[1][2][3] She did so on 5 April 1928 in the city of Mossoró.

Celina Guimarães Viana, voting in Mossoro

She was the daughter of Joseph Eustachian Amorim Guimarães and Eliza Amorim Guimarães. She studied at the Normal School of Natal, where she completed the course in teacher training. It was at this same school that she met Elyseu de Oliveira Viana, a young student from Pirpirituba, whom she married in December 1911. In 1912, she went to Acari and on 13 January 1914, moved to Mossoro. With the enactment of Law No. 660 of 25 October 1927, Rio Grande do Norte became the first state that, in regulating the "Electoral Service in the State," established that there would be no more "distinction of sex" for the exercise of suffrage.^[4]

References

1. Tosta, Antonio Luciano de Andrade; Coutinho, Eduardo F. (14 December 2015). Brazil. ABC-CLIO. pp. 144–. ISBN 978-1-61069-258-8.
2. Responsável, Gestor. "Professora Celina Guimarães Vianna, primeira eleitora do Brasil" (in Portuguese). Setor de Administração Federal Sul. Archived from the original on 31 March 2016. Retrieved 20 March 2016.
3. "Izabel de Mattos Dillon". Brasiliana ´Fotográfica. Retrieved 21 June 2024.
4. Vainsencher, Semira Adler Vainsencher. "Celina Guimarães Viana" (in Portuguese). Fundação Joaquim Nabuco. Retrieved 20 March 2016.