Laureana Wright de Kleinhas

Laureana Wright de Kleinhans (4 July 1846 – 22 September 1896), simply known as Laurena, was a Mexican writer and feminist pioneer. Her writings on the role of women, were revolutionary for her time. Her magazine, Violets of Anahuac in 1887, changed the paradigm by promoting as the core ideology of the magazine, the feminine ideal of a cultured, educated wife and mother. The publication promoted female education and insisted that the intellectual equality between men and women was the means of emancipation. She was one of the first feminist theorists in Mexico, asking women to question their role in society and the conditions in which they lived. She covered topics such as education, women's suffrage and legal equality between men and women. She wrote patriotic poetry and served as the vice president of the Spiritualist Society of Mexico, which she joined because one of its principles held that men and women were of equal intelligence.

Biography Laureana Wright González was born on 4 July 1846 in Taxco, Guerrero, Mexico to American father James Wright and his Guerreran wife, Eulalia González. The family relocated to Mexico City, for better economic opportunities when Wright was a child and there learned Spanish, English and French. and in 1865, she began writing patriotic poetry. De Kleinhans was one of the first Mexican writers to express that women should have a public voice and should be educated. She postulated that by keeping women ignorant, they were treated no better than property.

In 1869, she was admitted as an honorary member of the Society of Nezahualcoyotl, at the request of its founders, Manuel Acuña and Gerardo M. Silva. She joined the scientific society El Porvenir in 1872, where she published several of her poems. In 1873, she was appointed to the membership of the Liceo Hidalgo, In 1887 she founded the newspaper Mujeres de Anáhuac (Anahuac Women). It also included the histories of 29 indigenous women, which was a definitive break from the typical Euro-centric histories written at that time. She also explored Freemasonry which in the nineteenth century was being heralded as a means of removing the influences of the Catholic Church. She ultimately rejected the organization because they refused to acknowledge the equality of men and women and in fact had an initiation oath which declared "never admit to their ranks a blind man, a madman, or a woman".

She died 22 September 1896 in Mexico City, Mexico.

Mujeres notables mexicanas (1910) was released posthumously. It is an important work, as it is a collection of the biographies de Kleinhans had assembled of distinguished Mexican women. It contains 116 biographies, beginning with pre-conquest subjects and extending to the second half of the nineteenth century. It was one of the few books which included women as a part of the history of Mexico before the twentieth century.

Selected works

Poems "A Cuba" "El 5 de mayo de 1862"

Books Violetas del Anáhuac: periódico literario: redactado por señoras (1888) (In Spanish) Available at Biblioteca Nacional de Mexico (OCLC #651191638) La emancipación de la Mujer por medio del estudio Imprenta nueva: Mexico (1891) (In Spanish) Educación errónea de la mujer y medios prácticos para correjirla Imprenta nueva: Mexico (1892) (In Spanish) Mujeres notables mexicanas Tipografía económica: Mexico (1910) (In Spanish)