Carmela Jeria Gómez

Carmela Jeria's feminist workers' newspaper. This issue was published in Santiago, Chile.

Carmela Jeria (born Carmela Jeria Gómez in Valparaíso, Chile, July 16, 1886 – ?) was a labor activist, typographer, publisher, and social and feminist leader. Called the "first working journalist" of her country, she was the founder of , the first feminist worker newspaper published in Chile.

Social unrest Working conditions at the turn of the century were very precarious and led to the formation of many workers' organizations as Chile began exploiting its natural resources. Its economy was almost 50% dependent on saltpeter. The resulting economic development generated a new social structure in the country, a product of the worker migration and the growing use of female and child labor. A series of labor disputes erupted with workers demanding better wages and more limited working hours.

Many of these outbursts were brutally repressed by the police and government forces with many fatalities. Two of the many uprisings were Red Week (sometimes called the meat riots) in 1905 and the Santa Maria School massacre (also called, massacre at the Santa María de Iquique School) on December 21, 1907, which fueled even more worker activism.

At the age of 19, Jeria founded a new feminist newspaper, (in English, The Dawn), making her the first woman in Chile to become a working journalist. She published bi-monthly editions starting September 10, 1905 from Valparaiso. After a few issues, production paused before resuming in the nation's capital city, Santiago, on November 11, 1906 as a weekly publication and with the words “Feminist Newspaper” on the masthead.

Jeria's first editorial, which she signed Carmela Jeria G., says: " is born into journalistic life, with the sole and exclusive purpose of defending the proletarian class and more particularly the working-class... working with tireless and ardent determination for the moral, material and intellectual advancement of the working woman and also for our brothers in suffering." The editor goes on to say, "We ardently wish that women will one day reach the level of advancement of men."

A proponent of female education, Jeria said that women's education should not be limited to training better-prepared mothers. She regularly published articles describing the plight of working women and men (those committed to educating and emancipating women), citing the "fight against violence towards women and the 'slavery of working women.

Jeria's work is said to have contributed to the formation of several women's associations dedicated to the suffrage movement, eventually leading to Chilean women gaining the right to vote in municipal elections in 1934, and in presidential elections in 1952.