Description:
In original essays drawn from a myriad of archival materials, Society Women and Enlightened Charity in Spain reveals how the members of the Junta de Damas de Honor y Mérito, founded in 1787 to administer charities and schools for impoverished women and children, claimed a role in the public sphere through their self-representation as civic mothers and created an enlightened legacy for modern feminism in Spain.
Review Quotes:
"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