Elzira Dantas Gonçalves Pereira Machado GCC (15 December 1865 – 22 April 1942) was a Portuguese feminist activist.

Her education, influenced by the Regeneration values of economic progress and social usefulness, no doubt prepared her to assume the role of wife and mother.

With the start of the First World War and Portugal's participation in the conflict, Elzira Dantas Machado helped create the Portuguese Women's Crusade in 1916, with the purpose of aiding soldiers and their families.

That year, on 12 June, President Canto e Castro made Elzira Dantas Machado a Grand Cross of the Order of Christ,[7] on the same day the Portuguese Women's Crusade was made a Grand Cross of the Order of the Tower and of the Sword, of Valour, Loyalty and Merit.

By then, the political decline of the First Portuguese Republic was accentuating and, in May 1926, a military coup initiated a dictatorial regime.