An exhibition on Clara Campoamor at the National Library includes the Teresian Association and some of its first members who were among the women who broke new ground and achieved new advances in the recognition of equality in Spain.
The historical archives of the Teresian Association provided several items for this exhibition which was open to the public from 16 July to 16 October at the headquarters of the National Library of Spain in Madrid. The materials included original images of Josefa Segovia and of the first graduating class from the University Residence. 
Clara Campoamor
The exhibition was dedicated to Clara Campoamor, a pioneering woman, defender of women's suffrage and women's rights, on the 50th anniversary of her death. The wide-ranging exhibition dealt with the social, cultural and political context, both in Spain and internationally, in which this woman, born in 1888, lived. She was one of the first Spanish jurists and a member of the Cortes of the Second Republic.
In difficult and adverse circumstances, she fought for her education and combined work and studies until she obtained a doctorate in law. Her desire for change led her to feminism and politics. During the Civil War she decided to go into exile and lived in Argentina and Switzerland as a writer, translator and lecturer. She died in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1972.
TA Pioneers
Along with Campoamor and many other Spanish and international figures in the history of feminism, there were significant achievements made by members of the Teresian Association featured in the exhibition.
In addition to Josefa Segovia and the first graduating class of the residence for women university students on the Calle Goya in Madrid (in the photo), images of Carmen Cuesta were shown, magazine contributions by María Echarri and a mention of Josefina Olóriz, a TA associate member. All three were deputies appointed to the National Assembly constituted in 1927 during the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera. That period lasted from 1923 to 1930, prior to the Second Republic.
Women university students
Furthermore, there was an article in the exhibition catalogue by Consuelo Flecha García, professor at the University of Seville and director of the Chair of TA History. It is entitled “The arrival of Spanish women at university”. She describes the evolution that took place from the time of prohibitions and obstacles to any presence of women in the lecture halls at the end of the 19th century to the growing number of women enrolled in the faculties of Medicine, Law, Pharmacy, Philosophy and Arts and Science in the 1930s.
The website of the National Library of Spain provides information about the exhibition and a series of videos in which the historian Rosa María Capel Martínez, curator of the exhibition, highlights some of its elements and approaches. It is also possible to access the videos of the exhibition in which the Association is mentioned for its role in teaching and in advocating for women's access to university.
TA Info.
