Bertha Lutz

A zoologist at Rio de Janeiro's National Museum, Lutz founded the Brazilian Federation for the Advancement of Women in 1922 and ran a patient lobbying campaign of petitions, press work and contacts with legislators rather than street protest. Brazil's 1932 electoral code gave women the vote, among the first in Latin America, and Lutz helped draft the 1934 constitution's equality provisions before Vargas's dictatorship suspended elections altogether in 1937.