Letters that forged an organization: the role of correspondence in the articulation of the "Movimiento pro Emancipación de las Mujeres de Chile" (MEMCh), 1935-1949

el papel de la correspondencia en la articulación del Movimiento Pro Emancipación de las Mujeres de Chile (MEMCh), 1935-1949

Abstract

Abstract: Written communication between women, in the form of documents such as letters, has been one of the most common ways of overcoming physical and geographical distances. In the case of the “Movimiento pro Emancipación de las Mujeres de Chile” (MEMCh), it was also a political strategy. Under this premise, this article analyzes the role of the correspondence between MEMCh members from different regions of the country between 1935 and 1949, as part of its process of configuration as a national organization. Currently, the epistolary relationship, preserved in the National Historical Archive, is one of the most valuable documentary corpus to reconstruct the role of women in the history of Chile and Latin America. Thus, it is proposed that for the MEMCh, correspondence was the most important political-cultural strategy through which the movement was articulated. The results of this research show how the memchistas forged, from writing, their citizen participation and turned letters into their main weapons of struggle and negotiation.

Keywords: feminist movement, epistolary, political strategy, citizenship, negotiation.