The Feminism fund

Feminist documentation finds its place in the International Office of Bibliography very early on through Léonie La Fontaine (1857-1949). This original feminist accumulates documents while working with the Belgian League for Women’s Rights.

The evolution of a feminist documentation office in the Union of International Associations is due to Léonie La Fontaine. Her private documents reflect the extent of her militancy at the origins of the feminist combat of the nineteenth century and of pacifism in the twentieth century. After she dies in 1949, the Mundaneum will continue her document collection on feminism with press cuttings and publications.

The archives of a feminist of the National Council of Belgian Women (from the twenties until the Second World War) represent the feminism fund. Finally, recent donations by Luce Hautier and René Fosséprez allow for understanding post-1945 feminism through increasingly economic and social preoccupations.

The feminist collection comprises 222 archive boxes. An inventory was completed in 1998.