“A comprehensive and meticulously researched study of women’s contributions to intellectual life in eighteenth-century Spain, enhanced by elegant illustrations. A truly enlightened consideration of the Spanish Enlightenment.”
~Roberta Lee Johnson, professor emerita at the University of Kansas and coeditor of A New History of Iberian Feminisms
“This richly documented and well-illustrated collection of essays reveals how deeply women in eighteenth-century Spain were involved in the Enlightenment project. Refusing to be marginalized or silenced, a handful of women demanded a role in the creation of modern Spain, despite familial and institutional resistance. Women insisted on contributing ‘usefully’ and ‘rationally’ to the betterment of society, and forged new ways of doing so. The essays in this book focus on the members of Madrid’s Junta de Damas (part of the Madrid Royal Economic Society) and their pathbreaking work undertaken to improve the lives of poor women and children. For the first time in English, readers will discover the practical effects of Spanish women working together to forge a more equitable and just society. Attention to the sweep of history, combined with scholarly attention to detail, makes this book a ground-breaking study of women in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Spain. The Junta de Damas is indeed a ‘pioneer in the history of modern women’s networks of sociability and philanthropy.’ Ignore the Damas at your peril.”
~David T. Gies, Commonwealth Professor of Spanish at the University of Virginia and editor of Dieciocho: Hispanic Enlightenment
“This book offers the first English-language study of an association of women whose pioneering initiatives in the public sphere and personal stories define a new perspective on the social transformation of Spain from the ancien régime to the Restoration. Beyond its contribution to the history of Spanish feminism, Society Women and Enlightened Charity in Spain at last gives an essential component of the Spanish Enlightenment its due.”
~Janis A. Tomlinson, art historian and author of Goya: A Portrait of the Artist
“These essays offer a compelling portrait of the exemplary and transgressive persistence of the members of the Junta de Damas, who exercised ‘civic motherhood’ beyond the sanctioned spaces of the Catholic Church and their domestic lives, and whose contributions—both to Enlightenment projects in eighteenth-century Spain and to our understanding of early feminism—have often been overlooked.”
~Karen Stolley, professor of Spanish at Emory University and author of Domesticating Empire: Enlightenment in Spanish America
