Luisa Capetillo (1879–1922)

Luisa Capetillo achieved some cultural notoriety as the first Puerto Rican woman to wear trousers in public, but A Nation of Women shows how broad and engaged her political activities and interests were: she was an anarcho-communist, an anticlericalist, an advocate of free love, and a feminist whose work in favour of women's rights was firmly linked to her identity as a member of the working class. (Capetillo worked as a seamstress and in tobacco factories.)

This edition makes a collection of her works available in English translation for the first time, and I can see this being very useful in the college classroom. I do think it's likely to be mostly of historical interest, though. While Capetillo has some interesting things to say about mutual aid and the intrinsic connections between women's rights and workers' rights, a lot in here has either dated badly (homophobia; gender essentialism; belief that masturbation causes physical and mental illness) or is just kind of off the wall (Capetillo believed in reincarnation and Spiritualism and there's mention of "beneficial fluids" being sent from the afterlife; also some "social hygiene" messaging which in light of later 20th century history is uneasy reading.)… (mehr)