Virgínia de Castro e Almeida and women’s presence in international cooperation during the interwar period

Abstract

ABSTRACT In recent years, scholars have re-examined the impact of the interwar League of Nations (LON), exploring the contributions of a range of different component bodies. This article contributes to the historiography of the LON’s cooperative legacy by examining the work of an overlooked female intellectual within the LON’s history: Virgínia de Castro e Almeida (1874–1945). De Castro e Almeida, born in Portugal and of aristocratic origin, played a distinctive and high-profile role in advocating transnational intellectual cooperation in the interwar years through her diplomacy work in association with the LON. In negotiating the field of internationalism and patriotism, her case illuminates the need to consider the divergent ways in which nations were involved in international cooperation in the interwar years, reorienting the narrative away from histories that focus on a small group of nations to include those of less well-known countries. The article also explores the additional difficulties that a female intellectual who did not live within her country of origin had in persuading those in a conservative country to recognize the benefits of internationalism.