Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T09:09:40.676Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Gender, Welfare and the Catholic Church in Argentina: Conferencias de Señoras de San Vicente de Paul, 1890-1916*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Karen Mead
Karen Mead*
Affiliation:
Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Between 1880 and 1916, elite women engaged in social welfare and transformed the politics of subordination in Argentina as they brokered a new accommodation between the Catholic Church and the Argentine state. Without ever claiming equality, women made it clear that the progress of the new nation—as male intellectuals and statesmen conceived it—could not be accomplished without their assistance. By stressing what they considered to be their essential contributions to social peace and national integration, elite women completely ignored both traditional and liberal ideas of the divisions between public and private responsibility without appearing to challenge gender norms.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , July 2001 , pp. 91 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank James Wadsworth and Donna Guy for their efforts toward organizing the conference panel and collective publication of these articles. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers of The Americas, whose insightful suggestions made this a better essay.

References

1 Auza, Nestor Tomás, Aciertos y fracasos sociales del catolicismo argentina, 3 vols. (Buenos Aires: Editorial Docencia, 1987).Google Scholar Héctor Recalde also left women outside social Catholicism in his La Iglesia y la cuestión social (1874–1910) (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1985), though subsequent works are more inclusive, see especially Beneficencia, asistencialìsmo estatal y previsión social, 2 vols. (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor América Latina, 1991).

2 Useful introductions to this literature are provided in Lavrin, Asunción, “Women, Labor and the Left: Argentina and Chile, 1890–1920,” Journal of Women's History 1 (1989), pp. 88–116 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Feijóo, María del Carmen, “Las trabajadoras porteñas a comienzos del siglo,” in Armus, Diego, ed. Mundo urbano y cultura popular: Estudios de Historia Social Argentina (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1990)Google Scholar; see also Lavrin, Asunción, Women, Feminism, and Social Change in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, 1890–1940 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995).Google Scholar

3 See Wainerman, Catalina H. and Navarro, Marysa, “El trabajo de la mujer en la Argentina: Un analisis preliminar de las ideas dominantes en las primeras décadas del siglo XX,” Cuaderno del CENEP 7 (Centro de Estudios de Población, 1979).Google Scholar Wainerman, Catalina, La mujer y el trabajo en la Argentina desde la perspectiva de la iglesia católica, (Buenos Aires: Centro de Estudios de Población, 1980)Google Scholar; Deutsch, Sandra McGee, “The Catholic Church, Work, and Womanhood in Argentina, 1890–1930,” Gender & History 3:3 (Autumn 1991), pp. 304–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 The quote is from the Pastoral Colectiva de 1889, cited by Ruibal, Juan, “Anticlericalismo y religiosidad,” Todo Es Historia 238 (March 1987), p. 61.Google Scholar See also Auza, , Aciertos y fracasos, vol. 1,Google Scholar and his Católicos y liberales en la generación del ochenta (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Cultural Argentinas, 1981).

5 McGee, Sandra F., “Female Right-Wing Activists in Buenos Aires, 1900–1932,” in Harris, Barbara J. and McNamara, Jo Ann eds. Women and the Structure of Society (Durham: Duke University Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Deutsch, McGee, Counterrevolution in Argentina, 1900–1932: The Argentine Patriotic League (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Navarro, Marysa, Los nacionalistas (Buenos Aires: Jorge Alvarez, 1968).Google Scholar

6 Cynthia Little brought the Beneficent Society to the attention of U.S. academic readers, but her study stops inexplicably in 1900. See “The Beneficent Society of Argentina,” (Ph.D. diss., Temple University, 1980).

7 Ciafardo, Eduardo O., “La práctica benéfica y el control de los sectores populares de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, 1890–1910,” Revista de Indias 54:210 (1994), pp. 383–403.Google Scholar

8 “Sociedad de señoras de San Vicente de Paul,” La Prensa, 26 December 1891, p. 4.

9 See Diana Balmori's chapter “Buçnos Aires” in Balmori, Diana, Voss, Stuart F., Miles Wortman, Notable Family Networks in Latin America (University of Chicago Press, 1984),Google Scholar as well as her “Family and Politics: Three Generations (1790–1890),” Journal of Family History 10:3 (1985), pp. 247–257.

10 For a concise statement of this position see Memoria presentada al Honorable Congreso Nacional en el año 1887 por el Ministro del Interior Dr. D. Eduardo Wilde (Buenos Aires: Imprenta de la Tribuna Nacional, 1886).

11 For an autobiographical account of the Asistencia Pública, the agency where many of these men became active, see Penna, José and Madero, Horacio , La Administración Sanitaria y Asistencia Pública de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: Editorial Guillermo Kraft, 1910)Google Scholar; a more critical account is Crider, Ernest Allen, “Modernization and Human Welfare: The Asistencia Pública and Buenos Aires, 1883–1910” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1976)Google Scholar; for the higienista approach to women, see Guy, Donna J., Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family, and Nation in Argentina (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991), chapter. 3.Google Scholar

12 Penna, and Madero, Horacio, La Administración Sanitaria, vol. 2, p. 132.Google Scholar

13 A more extended discussion of these developments may be found in Mead, Karen, “Oligarchs, Doctors and Nuns: Public Health and Beneficence in Buenos Aires, 1880–1914” (Ph.D. Diss., University of California, 1994), chapter. 2.Google Scholar

14 See, for example, Coni, Emilio R., Memorias de un Médico Higienista (Buenos Aires: Talleres Gráficos A. Flaiban, 1918), p. 311.Google Scholar

15 In a report assembled for presentation at the 1906 meeting of the International Council of Women, a long and admiring history of the Beneficent Society made specific reference to how the “Damas had made of their example and counsel an apostolate” that could be exercised by others. de Brinkman, Catalina Moreno and De Argerich, Carolina L., “Acción Social de la Mujer Argentina,” reprinted in Anales del Patronato de la Infancia, 14:5 (May 1906), pp. 97–111.Google Scholar

16 The organization counted on bishops and often the archbishop to offer communion to the patients of the Women's Hospital and the orphans of their asylums, but clerics were never present at their meetings. In fact, no men attended their meetings except for the occasional consultation with their attorney.

17 For Mitre, see “Hospicio de las Mercedes. Su regimen interno,” La Nación, 12 March 1895, p. 5.

18 On the Damas de Caridad and Damas de Misericórdia, see Brinkman, Moreno de and Argerich, ,“Acción Social,” p. 105 Google Scholar; and Arana, Alberto Meyer, La Caridad en Buenos Aires, 2 vols. (Buenos Aires: Imprenta Sopeña, 1911),Google Scholar vol. 2, pp. 16–42. For the attitude of the municipal intendant Torcuato de Alvear, see Memoria de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires correspondiente a 1884 presentado al Honorable Concejo Deliberante (Buenos Aires: Imprenta de M. Biedma, 1885), vol. 2, pp. 111–113.

19 “En las escuelas patrias. La primera comunión.” Anales del Patronato 19 (December 1911), pp. 440–41.

20 “La peregrinación de ayer,” La Prensa, 14 November 1892, p. 3.

21 Revista Eclesiástica del Arzobispado de Buenos Aires. Publicación Oficial 1:10 (October 1901) 636–37.

22 Farmer, David Hugh, ed., Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 284 and 425. St. Vincent was canonized by Clement XII in 1737 and declared the patron saint of charity by Leo XIII.Google Scholar

23 See Recalde, , Beneficencia, asistencialismo, pp. 11–18.Google Scholar

24 For papal visits conducted by Beneficent Society members see Actas (recordings of proceedings), 10 December 1900 and 24 February 1902, Sociedad de Beneficencia, Archivo General de la Nación,(hereafter SB/AGN), vol. 12, pp. 210 and 365. For the papal audience of the wife of a most anti clerical statesman see Cesar de Wilde, Guillermina Oliveira, Lecturas familiares y acción social (Buenos Aires, 1935)Google Scholar.

25 de Newton, Lily Sosa, Diccionario biográfico de mujeres argentinas, 3rd ed. (Buenos Aires: Editorial Plus Ultra, 1986), p. 42.Google Scholar

26 Correspondence and papal documents are reproduced in Appendix 1 of Las Conferencias de Señoras de la Sociedad de San Vicente de Paul en la República Argentina. En el 25°aniversario de la fundación del Consejo General 1889–1914 (Buenos Aires: Compañía Sud-Americana de Billetes de Banco, 1914).

27 Quod apostolici muneris. Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo Xill (New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: Benziger Brothers, 1903), p. 28.

28 Ibid., pp. 29–32.

29 See Rerum novarum, in Great Encyclical Letters; and Hobgood, Mary E., Catholic Social Teaching and Economic Theory: Paradigms in Conflict (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991).Google Scholar

30 Conferencias de Señoras, en el 25° aniversario, p. 46.

31 “Sociedad de señoras de San Vicente de Paul,” La Prensa, 26 December 1891, p. 4.

32 Quoted in “La caridad nacional. Instituciones piadosas y filantrópicas. Una sociedad de 13,198 damas,” La Nación, 20 October 1898, p. 3.

33 Conferencias de Señoras, en el 25° aniversario, pp. 206–207. This conference, an average performer among the scores that were recorded in this amazing document, also distributed over 2,000 pesos in cash, over 9,000 in clothes and shoes, over 13,000 in educational fees, 126.50 worth of drugs, 132 worth of coffins, 352.50 in masses, over 8,000 in food, 10,000 in other works, in addition to 150 mattresses and 50 sewing machines.

34 Ibid., p. 36. Of the 2 million pesos, only some 400,000 were voted in special laws for the construction of large institutions, including the “Casa Felicitas” to be discussed later. The rest came from regular small allotments provided by the lottery that also subsidized many smaller organizations. As a point of comparison, the government budget for the Beneficent Society in 1889 was 520,906 pesos and in 1914 was over 4 million.

35 See Suriano, Juan, “La huelga de inquilinos de 1907 en Buenos Aires,” Sectores populares y vidaurbana (Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 1984), pp. 202–212 Google Scholar for a concise discussion and description of the housing problem. For the city of Rosario see Armus, Diego and Hardoy, Jorge Enrique, “Conventillos, ranchos y casa propia en el mundo urbano del novecientos,” Mundo urbano y cultura popular, pp. 155–193.Google Scholar

36 According to Gutiérrez and Suriano, from 1870 to 1910, “there were no proposals for financing or construction of housing by the State,” and only once, in 1905 though Law 4824, did the municipality advance funds for residential building for workers. See “Workers’ Housing and Living Conditions in Buenos Aires, 1880'1930,” in Adelman, Jeremy, ed. Essays in Argentine Labour History, 1870–1930 (London: Macmillan, 1992), pp. 45–48.Google Scholar The municipality would also donate land to the Vincentian General Council.

37 See for example, “Fiesta de la Caridad. La sociedad de Beneficencia en los suburbios de Buenos Aires,” La Prensa, 1 May 1890, p. 3, and “Los premios a la virtud,” La Prensa, 25 May 1890, p. 2.

38 Piatt, D.C.M., “Domestic Finance in the Growth of Buenos Aires, 1880–1914,” Piatt, and Telia, Guido de eds. The Political Economy of Argentina 1880–1946 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

39 See Lupano, María Marta, “Organizaciones religiosas y patrones industriales católicos: política habitacional con referencia a la mujer obrera, 1890–1930,” in Knecher, Lidia and Panaia, Marta, eds. La mitad del país. La mujer en la sociedad Argentina (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1994), p. 367.Google Scholar

40 In 1914, the Jockey Club had 3 million pesos on deposit in the Banco de la Nación at the order of the executive branch for the construction of worker housing. See “La falta de trabajo y la acción del gobierno,” La Prensa, 21 August 1914, p. 1, and “Los desocupados y el auxilio del Estado,” on 26 August 1914, p. 2.

41 “Sociedad de San Vicente de Paul,” Lu Prensa, 24 July 1890, p. 4.

42 de Figueroa, Manuela Suárez, “Conferencia de Nuestra Señora de la Piedad,” Memoria de los trabajos realizados por la Conferencia de Señoras de San Vicente de Paul durante el año transcurrido de 30 de abril 1909 a 30 de abril 1910 (Buenos Aires, 1910), p. 23.Google Scholar

43 Personal communication with Stephanie Bower, Southern Indiana University.

44 Memoria de los trabajos, p. viii. T. P. de Uriburu became president of the General Council in 1902.

45 Conferencias de Señoras en el 25° aniversario, p. 89.

46 Ballent, Anahi, “La Iglesia y la vivienda popular: la ’Gran Colecta Nacional’ de 1919,” in Mundourbano y cultural popular, p. 197.Google Scholar

47 Quoted in Ballent, , “La Iglesia,” p. 216.Google Scholar

48 “Sociedad de Damas de San Vicente de Paul—Sus Bodas de Plata,” La Prensa, 7 October 1914, p. 7. They housed 431 persons in March 1914, of which 227 were Argentine, 102 were Spanish and the remainder of “diverse nationalities.”

49 Conferencius de Señoras en el 25° aniversario, pp. 377–78.

50 Muzzilli, , Carolina, , “El Hogar Obrero,” Boletín Mensual del Museo Social Argentino 2: 19(1913), pp. 209–220.Google Scholar

51 For discussion of such enterprises, see María Marta Lupano, “Organizaciones religiosas y patrones industriales católicos.”

52 Primary accounts of working women include Massé, Juan Bialet, El estado de las clases obreras argentinas a comienzos del siglo, (1904, reprint; Madrid: Hyspamerica Ediciones Argentina, 1985)Google Scholar; Muzzilli, Carolina, “El trabajo femenino,” Boletín Mensual del Museo Social Argentino 15–16 (1913), pp. 65–90.Google Scholar See also Guy, Donna J., “Women, Peonage, and Industrialization: Argentina, 1810–1914,” Latin American Research Review 16:3 (1981), pp. 65–89 Google Scholar; and “Public Health, Gender, and Private Morality: Paid Labor and the Formation of the Body Politic in Buenos Aires,” Gender and History 2:3 (1990), pp. 297–313; Maria del Carmen Feijóo, “Las trabajadoras porteñas a comienzos del siglo;” María, Marcela Nari, Alejandra, “La reproducción de la fuerza de trabajo a principios de siglo, en la ciudad de Buenos Aires: Trabajo a domicilio y trabajo doméstico,” (Thesis. University of Buenos Aires, 1992).Google Scholar

53 Lavrin, , “Women, Labor and the Left,” p. 104.Google Scholar

54 See for example, Quesada, Ernesto, La cuestión femenina (Buenos Aires: Imprenta Pablo Coni, 1899).Google Scholar

55 Segundo censo de la República Argentina, mayo 19 de 1895 vol. II (Buenos Aires: Taller tipográfico de la Penitenciaría nacional, 1898), vol. II, p. cxiii.

56 Rocchi, Fernando, “Building a Nation, Building a Market,” (Ph.D. diss, University of California, 1996), p. 169.Google Scholar

57 Ibid., pp. 161–164.

58 Palacios, Alfredo, Legislación del trabajo—mujeres y niños; discursos del diputado Palacios sobre la ley por él iniciada y sancionada por el Congreso Argentino (Buenos Aires: Progreso, 1908).Google Scholar See also Lavrin, “Women, Labor, and the Left”; Feijóo, “Trabajadoras porteñas”; and María Silvia Di Liscia and Rodríguez, Ana María, “El Socialismo y la Iglesia. Aportes sobre la condición femenina, 1918–1929,” in Knecher, Lidia and Panaia, Marta, eds. La mitad del país, pp. 341–353 Google Scholar

59 See Guy, , “Public Health, Gender, and Private Morality;” and Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires for a more generous discussion.Google Scholar

60 Mead, , “Oligarchs, Doctors, and Nuns,” pp. 250–263.Google Scholar

61 “La caridad práctica. Su orientación eficaz. A formar la mujer útil.” Anales del Patronato 14 (March 1906), p. 63.

62 Conferencias de Señoras en el 25° aniversario, p. 361. As a monthly average, the workshops of the Casa de Santa Felicitas employed 22 non-resident workers and 71 residents (12 of whom were subsidized), while 39 women who did not work there rented rooms (p. 355). The Electric Laundry employed 32 women and 65 men (p. 376). The documents give no indication of the wages paid.

63 Lapalma de Emery, Celia, “Fuerza victoriosa de la caridad,” Acción pública y privada en favor de la mujer y del niño en la República Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1910).Google Scholar

64 Lapalma de Emery, Celia, “El trabajo manual,” La Prensa, 13 January 1911, p. 5.Google Scholar

65 The most interesting of these efforts was the Professional School pioneered by Dolores Lavalle's Sociedad de Santa Marta, where the girls also learned sewing, religion, and domestic science. See de Brinkman, Moreno and de Argerich, L., “Acción Social,” p. 107.Google Scholar See also Recalde, , Beneficencia, asistencialismo, pp. 28–32 for a list of similar institutions.Google Scholar

66 Memoria de los trabajos, p. v.

67 Celia Lapalma de Emery, “Fuerza victoriosa.”

68 Conferencias de Señoras en el 25° aniversario, Appendix 6 contains all the formal correspondence between the Uriburus and the officials responsible for introducing this legislation.

69 “Taller de Santa Felicitas. El festival de anoche,” La Prensa, 15 August 1909, p. 6.

70 See the discussion in Ruibal, “Anticlericalismo y religiosidad,” with regard to the transformation of the religious question from a topic of intra-elite controversy to one of class solidarity.

71 As early as 1892, La Prensa (a staunch supporter of women's associations) complimented the Damas de Misericordia for financing their operations entirely through subventions, “Damas de Misericordia,” 18 September 1892, p. 4; see also “Funciones de beneficencia. La caridad y los ricos,” La Nación, 18 October 1902, p. 5. For stronger criticism, see de Nelson, Ernestina López, “Nuevos Ideales Filantrópicos: no el arte de curar, sino la ciencia de prevenir,” Boletín Mensual del Museo Social Argentino 3:25&26 (January-February 1914), pp. 64–79 Google Scholar; and Ingenieros, José, “Jesus y Federico,” in his Crónicas de viaje, 1905–1906, 6th ed. (Buenos Aires: L. J. Rosso, 1919).Google Scholar

72 Conferencias de Señoras en el 25° aniversario, p. 33.

73 Ibid., p. 35.

74 Ibid., p. 57.

75 Ibid, p. 63. Requoted from the 1912 Memoria of the General Council.

76 Avellaneda, Marco M., “Cocina obrera,” (1911) Del camino andado (Economía Social Argentina) (Buenos Aires: 1919), pp. 162–63.Google Scholar

77 Actas, SB/AGN (5 March 1912) vol. 17, p. 69.

78 Nestor Tomás Aura, Aciertos y fracasos sociales del catolicismo argentino. Volume 1 devotes extensive coverage to de Andrea and the workings of social Catholicism during this first decade of the twentieth century.

79 de Emery, Celia Lapalma, “Punible apatía en presencia de los males que afligen a la sociedad,” (October 1906) Acción pública y privada, p. 30.Google Scholar

80 See Carranza, Romero, Ambrosio, , Itinerario de Monseñor de Andrea (Buenos Aires: 1957)Google Scholar, Appendix I; and “En la Catedral. Segunda conferencia de monseñor de Andrea,” La Prensa, 27 July 1914, p. 3.

81 Actas, SB/AGN (25 June 1913), vol. 18, p. 16.

82 Ivereigh, Austen, Catholicism and Politics in Argentina, 1810–1960 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995), p. 69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar