Women in modern neighborhoods : Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, Jakoba Mulder, Lotte Stam-Beese and Carmen Portinho

...The interventions and contributions of women to improve the living conditions of the working class did not wait for recognized and university trained professionals. At the beginning of the 20th century there was already a tradition of women intervening in the city, based on the assigned gender roles. For example, women from reformist movements4 approached housing and urban issues in an integral and global way; from the understanding of everyday life difficulties; and from the specific needs and capacities of citizens, they proposed progressive and realistic improvements based in the knowledge of the situation and in the personal relations. The first three of this activist list, who have been often underestimated as benefactors, are Angela Burdett Coutts (1814–1906), Octavia Hill (1838–1912) and Henrietta Barnett (1851–1936). Through their works these women opened new paths and ways for understanding and acting in the city. Their way of acting, paying attention to reality, the needs of the different groups and the own capacities, is also a characteristic of other women’s groups organized at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century in the large cities of the Eastern USA, both from the Settlements Movements and from Municipal Housekeeping.