On this day in 1897....

Stage actress, journalist and leading suffragette Marguerite Durand (true fucking cool woman!) founded the feminist newspaper La Fronde.

La Fronde (The Sling) was a feminist newspaper first published in Paris, France on December 9, 1897 by activist Marguerite Durand (1864-1936). Durand, a well known actress and journalist, used her high-profile image to attract many notable Parisian women to contribute articles to her daily newspaper, which was run and written entirely by women. To send a message of equality the paper indicated the current date according to a variety of calendars such as the French Revolutionary calendar, the Jewish calendar, and the Gregorian.

The newspaper gave extensive coverage to a broad range of feminist issues and profiled such things as Jeanne Chauvin's demand that the French government grant her the right to practise law and for Madeleine Pelletier who argued for the right to become a psychiatrist.

Circulation for La Fronde briefly reached a peak of 50,000 but in September of 1903, financial problems forced the paper to cut back to a monthly publication, and to close altogether in March of 1905.