The subject of this paper is the role of women in the cultural life of Zadar in the 19th and the first two decades of the 20th century. The objectives of the research were to determine and interpret the activities of women in the cultural and historical context according to the foreseen research bases. The fundamental points were the sources about women participation in the cultural activities of the past, which has been subject to changes throughout the 19th century in the line of social and political changes. The research questions were related to the observation of the restrictions imposed onto women, such as insufficient education, family obligations and the negligence of the work after death. The research was carried out at several archives and libraries in Dalmatia, focusing on sources in the State Archives in Zadar. The research covered the records pertaining to Dalmatian government, institutions, personal records of families and individuals, including also various publications that were printed in Zadar as well. The variety of cultural, educational and artistic women activities, that have been recorded in the mentioned sources as well, and their historiographical reception of these have been analysed. The distinctiveness of such approach is in a wide-ranging review of the variety of roles women had appeared to be taking, but this has led to large dispersal or inaccessibility of information about them. The way they had lived and the disregard for their work has led to their marginalization of majority of them later on, especially in the official historiography and historical insights. The composition of this paper, covering two periods, is conditioned by the role of women and their status. In the period since the beginning of the 19th century until the 1880s, the status of the women and their relation in regards to their cultural role in the Zadar society has been considered. During that period in Zadar rarely appeared as the authors in the Croatian and Italian languages. However, at that time the works of the most famous Dalmatian writers of that period (Ana Vidović, Ana Vrdoljak and Carolina Degiovanni Luxardo) were published in Zadar. Since 1880, also the State has been paying more attention to the education of female children, so the large number of Croatian female teachers have been employed in public schools throughout Dalmatia. They have been publishing their professional and literary works in the Zadar press, in particular Erminija Bracanović Feranda, who was also the first female journalist in Zadar. At that time, also recognized writers were publishing in Zadar: Elda Gianelli and Vinka Beatrice Šperac in Italian language, Marija Jurić Zagorka, Zdenka Marković, Adela Milčinović, Milka Pogačić and Štefa Iskra in Croatian and Zofka Kveder in Slovenian language. Despite of their recognition as authors, their publishing activity in Zadar has been ignored by literary historiography. Nevertheless, women actively participated in the cultural city life, and the newspapers in Zadar regularly talked about artistic, musical and theatre events dominated by noble women and bourgeoisie educated abroad. Female painters and musicians, who had achieved great success in their youth both at home and abroad, have remained neglected and quickly forgotten in Zadar, such as Antonietta and Itala Bogdanović, Polyxena Alačević or Zoe Borelli. The engagement of women during the First World War caused public attention. At the same time, the society has been adapting to the new social and political divisions, including the division of male and female roles, so this engagement has been neglected later on. This paper interprets the sources that present the efforts of institutions and individuals towards women limitation, from their education and employment to individual creative expression. It points out to the necessity of the changes in regards to the accessibility to the resources because the engagement of women in the past has not been adequately evaluated. It also points out to the revaluation of their contribution to the history of Croatian culture.