The first university women exchanges between Spain and the United States through the Residencia de Señoritas de Madrid (1917-1936)

Abstract

In 1915 the Women’s Group of the Residencia de Estudiantes, better known as Residencia de Señoritas, opened its doors in Madrid, dependent on the Board for Expansion of Studies and Scientific Research. The Residencia de Señoritas, located in several buildings in Fortuny Street, is presented as a place of accommodation for women who came to Madrid to study in the multiple centers of the capital or to expand their culture and as a means of intellectual and moral formation. The success of the Residencia, run by María de Maeztu, is immediate, and since 1919 it establishes contacts with the International Institute for Girls in Spain, an American missionary institution dedicated to the education of women. This relationship will give rise to an interesting flow of exchanges which draws a model of women student relations between Spain and the United States profoundly original and unparalleled. The aim of this contribution is to show the pioneering exchanges of university women between the Residencia de Señoritas and the most relevant women colleges of United States. In the study it has been used primary documentation of the Archive of the Residencia de Señoritas, deposited in the Ortega y Gasset-Marañón Foundation, hemerographic sources and complementary bibliography. The main conclusion is that since 1919 there was an innovative policy of exchanges of university women from Spain to United States and vice versa, very enriching intellectually and humanly, which will not be repeated until the most advanced post-Francoism.