In defense of hispanic culture. Carolina Marcial Dorado (1889-1941): A singular woman in the North American intellectual scene ¹

En defensa de la cultura hispana: Carolina Marcial Dorado (1889-1941): una mujer peculiar en el escenario intelectual de Norteamérica

Rosario Márquez-Macías ²

Abstract

This work examines the cultural bonds that were established between Spain and the United States in the first third of the 20th century. The rich exchanges that developed among various institutions, foundations, universities and individuals – especially involving Barnard College Professor, Carolina Marcial Dorado, will be analized. Such cultural cooperation produced extraordinary results, but it was short-lived, being seriously affected by the military situation that  began with the Spanish Civil war and continued through the Second World War.

Keywords: Spain; United States; Carolina Marcial Dorado; cultural relations; hispanic studies

Resumen

Este trabajo se propone estudiar los vínculos culturales que se establecieron entre España y los Estados Unidos en el primer tercio del siglo XX. Así analizaremos la fructífera colaboración que existió entre instituciones, fundaciones, universidades y personas —en especial la de la profesora del Barnard College Carolina Marcial Dorado—. Esta cooperación cultural obtuvo resultados extraordinarios, pero su duración fue efímera pues se vio seriamente afectada por la coyuntura bélica que dio comienzo con la Guerra Civil española y continuó con la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

Palabras clave: España; Estados Unidos; Carolina Marcial Dorado; relaciones culturales; hispanismo.

Tipología: Artículo de investigación científica y tecnológica
Recibido: 26/06/2017
Evaluado: 26/07/2017
Aceptado: 27/07/2017
Disponible en línea: 01/07/2017

Como citar este artículo: Márquez-Macías, R. (2017). In Defense of Hispanic culture. Carolina Marcial Dorado (1889-1941): A Singular Woman in the North American Intellectual scene. Jangwa Pana, 16 (1), 217 - 231. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21676/16574923.2163.

Introduction

Spain and the United States: the culture bridge

During the Cuban-Spanish-North American war of 1898, the major countries distributed highly negative perceptions of each other. However, the images were already being shaped prior to the conflict. For Spain, The United States represented all the worse features of a democratic experiment.

Both the Catholic Church and the more traditionalist sector felt that the U.S. embodied all the evils of democracy and Protestantism together. On the other hand the more progressive sectors considered this nation to be a model. The biggest pro-U.S supporters were found in the abolitionist League, the Institución Libre de Enseñanza [Institution for Free Education] and any group that was opposed to Catholic fundamentalism. Thus Spanish republicanism had been an enthusiastic admirer of the American model (Niño, 2005).

At the beginning of the 20th century, concepts of the USA also had to contend with the notion of continuous modernization and social dynamism. Both issues caused distress and uneasiness among the conservative sectors of Spanish society that preferred a more traditional model. There was also a fear among some representatives of the European intelligentsia who saw the USA as a vulgar country, lacking refinement, devoid of culture and directed by a newly rich class (Niño, 2005).

But these were not the only elements of Spanish anti-Americanism. It also was based on the historical relations between Spain and the USA in the Americas. There was evidence that the United States had taken over much of the former Spanish Empire in North America as well as the Caribbean.Pan-Americanism, the new version of its hegemonic project constituted a threat to the continuing Ibero-American community. Anti-Americanism was also associated with the radicalism of the left-wing, thus eroding the democratic image of the United States. The explanation to this double feeling settled in two competing principles characterizing them: the democratic experiment and the doctrine of manifest destiny. (Niño, 2005).

On the other hand the negative image of Spain in the United States originated in England, in the rivalries since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries between Catholic Spain and Protestant England. The Black Legend also served as national and imperial smear. So, when Cuba’s war broke out in 1895, it was not difficult to convince Americans of the atrocities committed by the Spanish and thus justify its intervention for humanitarian reasons. (Niño, 2005).

Therefore the outbreak of the 1898 conflict confirmed the previous idea in the United States that “Spain was a country of the past” and contrasted it sharply with the image of modernity of North America. At the beginning of the 20th century the destinies of both countries could not be more opposite, although at the same time projected a curious mutual attraction. America was an example of power and prosperity while Spain projected an attractive primitivism and exoticism. French and English travel literature of the 19th century, as well as some American writers such as Washington Irving disseminated this Spanish attraction.

In short, our country would end up being seen by some as exotic and mysterious offering adventures that could not be found in the more industrialized countries (Niño, 2005).

The objective of this work is to study the cultural links that were established between Spain and the United States in the first third of the 20th century, through the analysis of the figure of Barnard College professor Carolina Marcial Dorado. To carry out this research, we have resorted, first, to the examination of primary sources, using local, national and international publications as well as private correspondence located both in Spain in the Women’s’ Residence Hall papers deposited in the Ortega-Marañon Foundation, in Madrid, as well as in America, in the archives of that Hispanic institution in New York, The Hispanic Society of America. The information obtained from these documents after their corresponding reading and analysis, has provided diverse and valuable data. Similarly, from a comparative perspective, the literature has brought us closer to our subject since, although our character has not been addressed in depth by the different authors consulted, we have definitely been able to obtain valuable comparative cross-sectional information on individuals pertinent to our study. Collated this bibliography with the primary archival documentation previously indicated, therefore, has allowed us to carry out the reconstruction of the biographical and professional profile of Carolina Marcial Dorado, considering that we started a research never carried out with the sources we have used, and therefore, unpublished before now.

Carolina Marcial Dorado (1889-1941): a peculiar³ woman

Carolina Marcial Dorado (1889-1941), whose parents and grandparents were from Andalusia, was born in Camuñas (Toledo), a part of La Mancha where her father was an itinerant peddler of bibles. She was soon sent to Seville to live with her grandparents. (Fernández, 1986, p. 243). They lived at first in the Plaza de San Francisco,⁴ where the Bible Society had his office, although later the family moved to street Pedro Niño, which the professor years later described as:

A large house which was at the end of a long, narrow, shaded street ... The house had two floors ... on the ground floor a large patio ... there were many flowers and vines that climbed up the columns up to the first floor .... In the summer, we lived on the ground floor. There were bedrooms, dining room and a kitchen⁵ (Fernández, 1986, p. 242).

After her childhood in Seville, Carolina Marcial began her intellectual training in the International Institute for Girls, a pioneering Protestant institution for higher education for Spanish women, directed by Alicia Gordon Gulick (18471903), who was born in Boston and married to the Reverend Guillermo Hooker Gulick (1835-1922) in 1871 (Magallón-Portolés, 2007).

The couple was sent to Spain by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The Gulicks arrived in 1871 and established a mission, not without considerable difficulty in Santander (1877). In the beginning, Alice Gordon Gulick opened a small boarding school for girls at their residence with five students, this being the germ of the later International Institute (Huguet, 2012).

 But Santander was a city hostile to the Evangelical faith, a fact which contributed to the transfer of the boarding school shortly thereafter to San Sebastian (1892-1898) with a change of name to Colegio Norteamericano. It remained in San Sebastian for fifteen years until the 1898 American Hispanic war interrupted its activities. During those years in San Sebastian the college hosted students from across the peninsula, as well as from other countries. The war caused the transfer of the college to Biarritz and it remained in France until the autumn of 1903 (Huguet, 2012).

The Gulicks took advantage of the opportunity to establish a magnificent relationship with prominent intellectuals such as Gumersindo Azcárate, Francisco Giner and Manuel Cossío, educators who in turn openly admired the teaching methods of the Institute. They encouraged the Gulicks to settle in Madrid and to design a project that incorporated the combined teaching of Catholic and Protestant children (Huguet, 2012).

In 1903 the Institute moved from Biarritz to new offices in Madrid, at number 30 Fortuny Street. Alice Gulick, the director, died in London that same year. Despite the disappearance of the main promoter of the project, the work continued thanks to active fundraising in Boston that enabled the construction of a second building which was completed in 1910 at number 8 Miguel Angel Street (Huguet, 2012).

Relevant during this period would be the arrival of a woman with comparable qualifications as Alice, although from another era: Susan Huntington, who arrived in Spain as Director of the Institute. Susan was born in Norwich, Connecticut, in 1869, and studied at the Norwich Free Academy and at Wellesley College. In 1895 she worked as a volunteer with Alice Gulick in San Sebastian and after cooperating in the move to Biarritz in 1898 returned to the United States to finish her studies at Wellesley College, after which she was appointed to lead the Department of Pedagogy of the University of Puerto Rico. With this important background she inspired much confidence with her appointment as Dean of the International Institute when she returned to Spain in 1910. At that time her desire was to adapt the primitive gospel project to more modern and liberal times (Huguet, 2012).

The principal modification of the International Institute by Huntington between 1910 and 1916 consisted, initially, in the expansion of its programs. It was considered revolutionary to remove the teaching of religion from the curriculum in order to accept Catholic girls. That so upset the Evangelical churches that they disassociated themselves and discontinued their financial support. The Institute was forced to search for resources in the Institución Libre de Enseñanza. In this way the Institute lost its evangelical imprint as well as its American character, although not the fundamental Christianity that would continue to form the spiritual basis of its teachings (Huguet, 2012).

With her background as an educator, Susan Huntington would play an important role of cultural mediator boosting the recognition of Spain among the intellectuals not only Spanish nationals but also from the U.S. In 1925 she was elected a member of the Institute of Spain in New York in the United States. The Institute was founded in 1920 at Columbia University under the direction of Federico of Onís. In 1927, she became President of the Spanish Cultural institution, a branch of the Institute. Beside the academic sphere her work would also be important in Hispanic Broadcasting. The work of Huntington would be widely recognized throughout her life. She wrote articles in the Journal of the American Association of University Women (1934), and was a member of such associations as AAUW Women’s National Radio Committee and Women of Today (1925), dealing with educational topics. The Board of Extension Studies, in recognition of her efforts in favor of collaboration between the International Institute and Spanish organizations paid her the tribute in 1932 of naming the residence for young ladies in Madrid the Susan Huntington House. Likewise, in 1941 Columbia College created the Susan Huntington Vernon Prize (Columbia College) that recognized the work of the Hispanophiles for their contributions to the research of Hispanic cultures and the development of the Spanish and Portuguese languages. Susan Huntington died in the United States in 1945 (Huguet, 2012).

It is in this context that we return to our protagonist. In 1905 Carolina Marcial Dorado traveled to the United States to talk about the work begun by the International Institute in Spain.⁶ She returned to Madrid to complete her studies in 1907. Upon graduation she left for the United States and Puerto Rico where she completed her training and worked as an instructor, both at Wellesley College and the University of Puerto Rico (Fernández, 1986).

A short article in the newspaper, The Daily Tribune of New York, on February 20, 1910 pointed out that Marcial Dorado was in New York as an instructor of Spanish at a Wellesley College Conference on language education for girls at the International Institute founded by Mrs. Gulick.⁷ In addition, she appeared in the annual reports of Bryn Mawr College⁸ specifically those for the years 1917-18 that included this short biographical profile:

Appointed Instructor in English. Miss Dorado received the degree of Bachelor of Arts from the Instituto Cardenal Cisneros, University of Madrid, in 1907. She was a graduate student in Wellesley College from 1909 to 1910, in the University of Porto Rico from 1914 to 1916, and in the University of Madrid Summer School in 1913. She was Instructor in English in Wellesley College from 1907 to 1911; Assistant Professor of Spanish Literature in the University of Porto Rico from 1911 to 1917, and Head of the Spanish Department of Ginn and Co.⁹ from 1917 to 1918 (Jones, 2018, p. 79).

During those years she devoted herself fully to teaching in the Centre, - obtaining the license as a teacher in 1916. ¹⁰ In addition to writing textbooks for learners of Spanish and notes and articles in the Hispania magazine, where she was associate editor.¹¹

Moreover, in the Spanish area at this time was established in 1907 the Board for Extension Studies under the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, with the mission to revitalize education in early twentieth century Spain. One of its priorities was to create opportunities for the expansion of studies abroad. Therefore, it established a system of scholarships for study abroad with the purpose of that on their return to Spain, both teachers and students recipients would incorporate into Spanish teaching methods the latest scientific methods. In all this the Junta para la Ampliación de Estudios (JAE) worked in close collaboration with the International Institute for young ladies after its relocation to Madrid in the year 1910. After the First World War the relationship between the two institutions grew stronger with the sharing of buildings and projects. After 1891 The International Institute for Young Ladies offered travel stipends to students so that they could study in the U.S. thus strengthening its contacts with Spain. By 1919 the first exchange of scholars with Smith College and Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia had already begun.

With these precedents, it is essential to discuss one of the scholarship recipients of 1919, María de Maeztu, the Directress of the residence of Young Ladies since 1915 who traveled to North America that year. Before analyzing it, we will address who was this character and the institution that she operated.

María de Maeztu Whitney was born in Vitoria (Alava) on July 18, 1881, the daughter of a Cuban landowner, Manuel de Maeztu and Juana Whitney Bone, the descendant of an English diplomat. The family had five children. Beside Maria, her brother Ramiro became an important essayist, journalist, and politician. After the death of the father, the family moved to Bilbao, where the mother opened a girls’ College, and where Maria had her first contact with teaching. She studied teaching and in 1901 earned a master’s degree. Within a very short time she began to attract attention for her pedagogical interests. By 1907 she began to study philosophy and letters at the University of Salamanca, where she would be a student of Miguel de Unamuno. In 191 l she transferred to the University of Madrid and graduated in 1915 with one of the top prizes. (Vázquez, 2012).

Maria de Maeztu was extraordinarily active in those years. In 1908 she would travel to London, and the year following she enrolled in the newly created School of Advanced Studies where she was a student of José Ortega y Gasset who became her master and protector. In 1913 she won a grant from the Board for advanced studies to travel to Germany to study pedagogical issues and remained there three months. When she returned, during the 1913 - 1914 academic year she worked with distinction in the Department of Contemporary Philosophy in the Center of historical studies directed by Ortega y Gasset. Maria de Maeztu turned down a position offered by the Normal School of Teachers in Cádiz and remained in Madrid, involving herself in various intellectual circles and the JAE. Ortega was very influential in her decision to remain in Madrid (Vázquez, 2012).

The connections with Ortega, the various institutional circles and the School for Advanced Studies all helped Maeztu to get the position of director of the residence for young ladies that opened in Madrid in October 1915. As Vazquez Ramil remarked:

She was a highly qualified woman, effective and energetic, without personal ties (that is, she remained unmarried) and was an outstanding disciple of the most brilliant and cosmopolitan thinker the country had at that time. With all these qualifications she was an ideal person for the position¹² (Vázquez, 2012).

After 1917 her teaching responsibilities increased and in 1918 the Board for Extension Studies created a teaching institute as a center for experimental educational reforms and placed María de Maeztu in charge. She kept the position until 1934. During those years she not only organized and managed the residence for the young ladies and the teaching institute but also gave lectures throughout Spain and abroad.¹³ During her stay in North America she was appointed titular member of the Hispanic Society of America in New York¹⁴ and given an Honorary doctorate from Smith College (Massachusetts) (Vázquez, 2012).

The relationship between Carolina Marcial Dorado and María de Maeztu began in 1919.The first information about the nexus between the two may be found in an unpublished letter that Carolina Marcial Dorado wrote to Archer M. Huntington, President of The Hispanic Society of America. This entity emerged at the beginning of the 20th century from the growing interest in reading and Spanish literature in North America in general and New York in particular due to the aftermath of the war of 1898. After the war many romantic images of Spain began to be disseminated across North America. Among those displaying this new-found interest in Spain was Archer Milton Huntington (1870-1955) heir to an immense fortune derived from railroads steel mills. At the age of twenty he announced to his family that he was ready to devote himself to the establishment of museums and the promotion of Spanish culture. In 1892 he undertook a journey to Spain and his impressions were expressed in a poetic book: “Notebook of the North of Spain” (1898). He would return frequently and he sponsored several archaeological excavations such as those carried out by the important archaeologist George Bonsor, in Carmona (Sevilla) and by the hispanist Ellen M. Whishaw, in Niebla and the Lugares Colombinos

(Huelva) as well as the purchase of works of art or the restoration of the architectural heritage. (Verdugo, 2017).

Thanks to his patronage and his love for Spanish culture, Huntington created a foundation in 1904, The Hispanic Society of America, to build a library and a Spanish Museum:

A museum (indicated Huntington) has to include the arts, including the decorative arts, and literature, to condense the soul of Spain in its contents, through manual works as well as the spirit. It should not be a lot of objects accumulated indiscriminately but rather an artistic Assembly, the half dead vestiges of nations delivered at an orgy. What I want is to offer the epitome of a race (Naranjo-Orovio, 2014).

In 1908, he opened a new building that would house both institutions. We can say that within its walls are kept one of the best collections of Spanish art in the United States. With the patronage of King Alfonso XIII and the patronage of Huntington the Sorolla exhibition was organized in 1909 and a year later another by Ignacio Zuloaga.

He also created in 1927, within the Library of the Congress in Washington, the Hispanic Foundation, demonstrating once more his love for Spain, and charged it with purchasing modern works relevant to Spanish culture. In terms of personal relationships, Huntington had dealings with king Alfonso XIII, as well as intellectuals such as Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Ramón Pérez de Ayala -with whom maintained a prolific correspondence- as well as with Joaquín Sorolla. (Niño, 2005, p. 68). Huntington also took part in the birth of the American Association of Teachers of Spain, persuading the President of Columbia University, Nicholas Murray Butler, to hire a Spanish teacher, Federico de Onís to head the Department of language and Hispanic literature (Niño, 2005).

Within these associations, Carolina Marcial Dorado emerged as a correspondent of Archer Huntington. In one of her early letters to Huntington written between 1919 and 1929.¹⁵ Marcial Dorado first mentioned María de Maeztu. In this letter on the letterhead of Ginn and Company Publisher dated April 29, 1919, Dorado acknowledged that it had been a pleasure to see Huntington again in March as well as for the interest that he had taken in her research trip to Spain. Marcial Dorado told him about her literary production, commenting on her interest in twentieth century authors such as Benavente, Inclán, and Baroja But the main purpose of the letter was to was ask Huntington if the Hispanic Society would agree to publish their manuscripts and also if she could help in his plans to go to Spain. Finally she informs him that Maria de Maeztu would come to Bryn Mawr, and that her idea was to make this a major centre for the study of Spanish language and culture. She finally thanked him for the signed photo of the King of Spain. Huntington rapidly replied on April 30, expressing regret that at the moment the Hispanic Society could not carry out the publication of their works.

In the third communication he thanked Carolina Marcial Dorado for sending a packet with some of the brochures published by the Pro-España Bureau. This letter, dated August 5, 1925 was sent by an employee of the Hispanic Society in the absence of Huntington. In the last letter, dated 1929, the hispanist thanked Marcial Dorado for the invitation to the visit of Mr. Yanguas.¹⁶ whom he wishes her to greet on his behalf. Meanwhile, the presence of Maeztu in New York did not go unnoticed for Marcial Dorado. In addition to the letters of The Hispanic Society, there is another unpublished letter from the Professor addressed her, located in the collection of the Women’s Residence that also illustrates the friendly contact between the two. In this regard, it welcomed her award of Honoris Causa at Smith College and says that:

That distinction you more than deserve is a triple honor: for you, for Smith College, and for Spain. Your coming to America has exalted the name and the merits of our beloved homeland, and as a Spaniard I hasten to thank you for this noble, intelligent and helpful service.

To finish with deep affection she expressed: “Don’t forget that I am always at your service and whatever you wish you may count on me.”¹⁷ It is therefore obvious that both women maintained a strong relationship of friendship and respect through a constant and numerous epistolary correspondence that they maintained for many years. An example is the 1925 letter in which Carolina recounted how busy she was after assuming the responsibility of managing the newly created Pro-España Bureau:

I am so busy in addition to my work at Ginn House and at the University, I am also in charge of the office of Spanish advertising that the company maintains.¹⁸You have probably already received our New Year’s Card that describes our activities and that should make it clear that my work increases instead of becoming less. At the moment I am working on a book on Spain written in English and this keeps me, as is to be expected, very busy.¹⁹

We finish the selection of this important exchange of letters between the two with the emotional and intimate letter written in 1932 that Mary sent her friend Carolina, in which she showed her concern over the arrest of her brother:

I also have spent some very bad days because of the arrest of my brother, Ramiro, despite the fact that my concern was not too great because he was not involved in anything and did not even know about the conspiracy. I am sure that as soon as he is deposed they will let him go. But it is always unpleasant to find oneself in jail. Although he is well attended there, I am very worried about the effect on our mother who is of advanced age. Fortunately everything is already arranged and he is already freed and I can be completely at peace.²⁰

On the other hand, returning to the theme of the exchange of students through the provision of scholarships, we must mention in this context the relationship between Carolina Marcial Dorado and Zenobia Camprubí, the writer, translator and wife of the Nobel Prize-winner Juan Ramon Jimenez. If in 1919 the first exchange of scholars occurred as a result of the efforts of María de Maeztu’s first trip to North America, in 1921 under the auspices of the Board of Extension Studies, a Committee responsible for managing exchanges with the Colleges American was set up presided over by María Goyri along with María de Maeztu, Trinidad Arroyo, and José Castillejo with Zenobia Camprubí as the secretary.

Everything suggests that Zenobia and Marcial Dorado knew each other before with a greater degree of intimacy than the purely academic, and they both shared the cultural environment found in Madrid at the time. They attended conferences and cultural events. It might also be recalled that Zenobia and her husband Juan Ramón Jiménez knew Susan Huntington, when the young directress of the International Institute for Girls, invited Juan Ramon at the end of October 1914 to provide a reading of his poems during a series of engagements designed for the beginning of the course. At the last minute Juan Ramon decided to replace the reading with several chapters of Platero, with the intention of presenting attendees a first exposure, since the book had not yet been on sale. The reading took place on Tuesday, December 1, and it is likely that Zenobia was there accompanied by María Martos (CampoamorGonzales, 2014).

However, the first reference to this friendship between Carolina Martial and Zenobia comes from Carmen de Zulueta, who recounts an episode of professional friction between the two; from her position as Secretary of the Committee for the management of the grants and the problems that these presented -- the payment of passages, the ignorance of the language, and the different levels of studies. Zenobia dealt very effectively with all of those problems. She instructed Castillejo to pay the passages for the students while she negotiated a discounted price by talking directly to the president of the Trans-Atlantic company which lowered its rate by 30%. Zenobia and the president were acquaintances from Barcelona. But it is in a letter from Zenobia to Maria de Maetzu where she states that “Carolina Marcial Dorado, head of the Department of Spanish at Barnard, is saying in New York that she started the student exchange by asking for funds to pay for the trip.” As we know Zenobia urgently asked her brother, the owner of La Prensa in New York to halt the publicity campaign in order to raise funds for the venture (De Zulueta, 1993).

Despite this clash between the two, Professor Marcial Dorado’s activities relating to the exchange of students between the United States and Spain, through scholarships, are obvious in the long article by Miguel de Zárraga²¹ in its section, “ABC in New York” dated April 27,

1921, where he talks on the initiative of Marcial Dorado with respect to this issue. He adds that Carolina, a resident in the United States since early childhood, had long defended the value to Americans of Spanish women, especially in the field of education, adding that they were eight Spanish women who held professorships at top American universities, of which five were schoolmates of our protagonist. Apart from these issues, there were other initiatives of Marcial Dorado that stood out:

In her final year Professor Marcial Dorado got the Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, to grant two scholarships to Spanish young ladies, and with this precedent, obtained other scholarships at Smith College and Wellesley College. Now, Carolina Marcial Dorado wishes to bring to Barnard College another Spanish señorita. But unfortunately the budget at this school is completely exhausted, and it would require 750 pesos (Sic) needed to pay for the corresponding scholarship. Are there not in Spain a few wealthy, patriotic individuals who could help fund the scholarship? Send your donations to the Spanish Scholarship Fund, Barnard College in New York, and so continue the good work.²²

With the passing of years the contacts between Zenobia and Marcial Dorado expanded. That happened at Barnard College where our protagonist headed the Department of Spanish. On March 13, 1935 she wrote to Zenobia offering a scholarship for the academic year 1935-36, detailing the requirements and profile of the expected candidate. (Cortés, 2010).

Also among the bibliographic sources of the Foundation Juan Ramón Jiménez and Zenobia in Moguer (Huelva) is the book of Carolina Marcial Dorado: Picturesque Spain whose first page includes this dedication: “to my good friend Zenobia C. Jiménez a modest testimony of admiration and affection. Carolina Marcial Dorado. Madrid 1931”²³.

The friendship between both women would continue, as in volume 1 of the diaries of Zenobia, devoted to Cuba (1937-1939) where in thirteen records the name of Carolina appears with requests to send correspondence to the aforementioned or indicating personal meetings between the two, either alone or in the company of other people. To cite only one example, on October 1 Zenobia wrote in her diary: “Carolina came to look for me at 12:30 and took me to lunch at the Faculty Club with Helicida and Mrs. McHale” (Camprubí, 1991, p. 276).

Similarly, in the second volume of the already cited journal dealing with the United States (19391950) Zenobia mentioned Carolina ten times, once about the opportunity to teach a summer course. On the 16 of April, 1939 Zenobia wrote: “Carolina Marcial Dorado offers room and Board and $100 for six weeks in the summer (which for us is equivalent to $230.) I’d like to accept...” The reference continues on the 20th of the month that: “Letter from Carolina Marcial Dorado willing to give me until the end of June if I accept now. If I do not refuse now, Juan Ramon will convince me to do so before the end of June, so it is better to do so immediately” (Camprubí, 2006, p. 45, 50).

However, it is clear that Carolina Marcial Dorado surrounded herself in her academic and personal life academic with important figures as those just mentioned and that in the same way, during these years she was becoming more involved with the American educational intelligentsia. Her works were reviewed, both in press and in the magazine Hispania, (of which she was an Executive Advisor since its foundation in 1917 by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese) and she appeared in educational circles, as for example in Los Castillos de Torres nobles, a comedy written by Marcial Dorado in 1911 and presented in the Spanish School of Middlebury College, during their stay at the Wellesley.²⁴

Before joining as Director at the Department of Spanish at Barnard College, and while being Professor at Bryn Mawr, our protagonist would advocate summer courses for American teachers and students in Spain; Thus is evident in an article of the Hispania magazine, which in its volume of March 1920, included a work entitled summer courses in Madrid, relating to those offered to foreigners about Spanish language, literature and arts, and announcing that the ninth course would be in Madrid from July 24 to September 4,under the direction of Ramón Menéndez Pidal and sponsored by the “Board for extension studies”. The text added:

With due authorization from the “Board for extension studies”, and in order to facilitate the attendance of American teachers and students a collective trip to Spain is being organized under the direction of professors Joaquín Ortega of the University of Wisconsin, Mr. Clarence E. Parmenter of the University of Chicago, and Miss Carolina Marcial Dorado from Bryn Mawr College who are quite familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the American traveler and the peculiar characteristics of Spanish life. The will help the excursionists resolve any difficulties that may arise…Castilian will be the official language of participants from the moment the ship raises anchors in New York Harbor.²⁵

However, these courses organized by the Board of Extension studies, depended on the Ministry of Public Instruction and Fine Arts. They would also have the cooperation of the Centre for Historical Studies as well as the University of Madrid. They had no relationship to the courses set up by Carolina Marcial after she entered Barnard College in the academic year 1920-1921. Those were sponsored, as we shall see below, by the International Institute of Boston.

That was when she began her time at Barnard College, the female arm of Columbia University of New York where she took over the direction of the recently created Department of Spanish, as well as the Círculo Hispano, a club attached to the

Department that was founded in November 1920.²⁶  Almost immediately Marcial Dorado got the idea of taking American students on summer courses in Spain. This time support came not from the Center of Historical Studies but from the International College Tours based in Boston. So in July 1921, she got in touch through communication with the Rector of the University of Barcelona, Marquis de Carulla, telling him that:

Every day the desire to learn Spanish language literature grows in the United States and so, taking into account that the geographical location of Barcelona is far superior to Madrid in the summer, it has been decided to send a group of students to which end the building occupied by the school of engineers electricians on Bonanova Avenue has been rented.²⁷

The request included a curriculum and requested the support to the Rector, who replied positively and offered the support as the University.

So it began and after this first meeting, the “Summer School of the Pyrenees”, would definitely begin in the summer of 1922. Newspapers at the time, both national and regional, as well as North American, noted the arrival in July 1922 of 55 students from the United States who wished to improve the study of Spanish language and literature, as well as the appointment as director of Carolina Marcial Dorado, Professor of Barnard College, New York, and Mr. Romera Navarro, of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.²⁸ The course officially began on July 17 and ended on 12 August and enjoyed the teaching support of important members from Spanish universities and other educational institutions. An interesting article published in Hispania magazine in May of that same year described both the organization and the subjects to be taught.²⁹ Once the course was over, the students and their teachers made different excursions around Spain, to Palma de Mallorca and Seville, where they were greeted by local authorities and visited the monuments most representative of those cities.³⁰

Sources connecting Carolina Marcial to these summer courses in Barcelona before March 1924 are missing but in that year an announcement for the following year’s summer school appeared in the Barnard Bulletin describing the offerings and the excursions to cities such as Seville, Madrid, Granada, Toledo, etc, as well as its important monuments and listing her as the appropriate contact for information about them.³¹ However, during the summer of 1924, our protagonist, paradoxically, did not participate in those organized by the International Institute of Boston in Barcelona as she did in 1922, but she returned to that held in Madrid by the historical studies centre run by Menéndez Pidal. This is reflected in an article in the newspaper The Military Correspondence of July of that year:

Yesterday, at seven o’clock in the evening, the city of Madrid begun the annual reception that our municipality offers to numerous foreign, especially American teachers who attend the language and literature courses started thirteen years ago that are organized by the Centre for Historical Studies in Spanish literature. The director of this program is the philologist Don Ramón Menéndez Pidal, and the day to day operations are entrusted to the wise phonetics teacher of Don Tomás Navarro Tomás. The instruction and lectures are given by specialists and professors from the university. In the absence of the president who is ill, the housing arrangements are handled by the same Don Leopoldo Palacios along with Doña María de Maeztu, and several professors of the Centre. The Centre for Historical Studies is represented by Don Manuel Gómez Moreno, Don Tomás Navarro Tomás, and several of the teachers who offer classes. Most of the teachers who attend the course are organized by Miss Carolina Marcial Dorado, a professor of Spanish at the University of Columbia, and Don Joaquín Ortega, a professor at the University of Wisconsin and Secretary of the Spanish Institute in New York City...³²

Back to New York, she continued with the activities in the Department, offering new courses on contemporary Spanish culture and literature,³³ as well as working at other educational tasks.

After 1925 our protagonist combined her teaching and professional activities with promoting hispanism in the United States, being in charge of the Pro-España Information Bureau, sponsored by the International Telephone and Telegraph Company. Her professional tasks at Barnard College and her social life in New York would continue in the following years. ; She devoted herself to the Barnard College Círculo Hispano, of which she was the founder and sponsor, and she organized other Hispanic-related receptions, conferences and cultural meetings,³⁴ as well as literary gatherings, exhibitions of Spanish painters, and tributes to outstanding individuals. After 1926 the famous Spanish opera singer, Lucrecia Bori,³⁵ would become her collaborator in some activities such as the creation of the Spanish residence for students at Barnard College, which we will discuss later. This was attended by important personalities such as the Spanish Mezquita painter, José Camprubí,³⁶ Alejandro Berea, (Consul General of Spain) and the Professor of Hispanic Studies at Columbia University, William R. Shepherd, among others.³⁷

On the other hand, her trips to Spain remained constant. In 1931 her native town, Camuñas (Toledo) paid her a tribute. Professor Marcial Dorado was accompanied by her brother José, an adopted son from this village and Deputy to the Constitutional Court in Sevilla. The entire town received Carolina at the entrance and escorted her to the town hall which hosted a banquet in her and the mayor, Don Gerardo Aranda, the secretary, Mr. Figueroa and the municipal judge took the floor Don Fidencio Escribano all toasted her.The proceedings ended when the illustrious teacher gave a speech from the balcony about “where, when and how to make social revolution.”³⁸ Today it is said in Camuñas that any record of the event disappeared with the civil war and also that existed in Camuñas a street with the name of Carolina Marcial Dorado, nowadays called Veracruz street.

Throughout the 1930s, at the height of the economic recession due to the crash of 1929 she continued with her teaching activities. Nevertheless, the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War was significant. The military uprising surprised Carolina Marcial Dorado who was vacationing in Spain and she had to flee to Biarritz in France. The Barnard Bulletin collects various articles on the experience suffered by our protagonist until she managed to get safely back to New York.³⁹

During the Spanish Civil War, the Hispanic Circle would welcome many different Spanish academic exiles such as María de Maeztu, who settled in Barnard College in 1937 as a guest teacher, giving lectures and courses. ⁴⁰ Similarly, Zenobia Camprubí, exiled in New York with her husband the Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez, visited the Barnard Hispanic Center in October 1938.⁴¹ Carolina Marcial Dorado continued to be active in her educational pursuits and as the head of the Hispanic Center head until, at the early age of 51, on July 25, 1941, she died from a heart attack at her home at 39 Claremont Avenue, in New York.⁴²

Virginia G. Gildersleeve, the Dean of Barnard College, wrote an admiring and touching article in the Barnard Bulletin of October 1941:

With the death of Professor Carolina MarcialDorado, founder and head of our Department of Spanish, Barnard College has lost one of its great teachers and great personalities. So full of enthusiasm and vitality was she that it is almost impossible to realize that her vivid and brilliant presence is not still with us. She came to us from Bryn Mawr in 1920. Shortly after that, I remember, the distinguished President of Bryn Mawr told me that in all her long life in the academic world Miss MarcialDorado was the most brilliant teacher she had ever known. The highest form of teaching is just the communication of a spark which sets alight in the student the flame of enthusiasm and purpose and energy. This Miss Dorado preeminently did. She actually got her students talking Spanish with astonishing rapidity. Whenever a distinguished Spanish visitor come to Barnard,-- and under her guidance nearly every distinguished Spaniard who visited New York did come to Barnard -- she could always assemble a group of her North American students to keep him charmingly in creditable Spanish. She conveyed to her classes also an appreciation of the beauties of Spanish culture on its many sides, the charm of the Spanish people, and that real spirit of Spain which has persisted through all these last tragic years. She was well known in Spanish America, partly through the wide circulation of her text-books. It is chiefly to her that we owe the creation of a Latin American Centre at Barnard, to which students have come from most of the Latin American countries and to which we have welcomed Visiting Professors from those lands. A few years ago, the Pan American Society of New York gave us a luncheon in recognition of Barnard’s great service in the cause of Latin-American relations. Most of all we shall remember her gallant spirit, which during her later years drove on through all the painful handicaps of bad health. At the perilous time of the Spanish Civil War, she flew into Spain - contrary to all laws and regulations-- to rescue her aged mother. So she would have flown, in the face of all the powers of darkness, in the service of those she loved and the crusade for her ideals. Such a spirit does not die. It is built into the personality of the college she served so long and there it lives on always.⁴³

To complete this biographical anecdote it should be added that the report on the work carried out by our protagonist was perpetuated in the scholarships that, sponsored since 1953 by the Department of Spanish of the Barnard bear her name: The Carolina Marcial Dorado Spanish Scholarship Fund.⁴⁴

Conclusion

With this research we have brought to light from the very beginning of her teaching in the United States, the work done   by Carolina Marcial Dorado as an advocate of everything Hispanic. Until now very little of this has appeared in the historiography of culture or the history of women.  Our subject transcends the gender line, since as Zulueta (1992) wrote, at the end of the 19th century, the problem of education in Spain affected women, since with an overall illiteracy rate approaching 75%, they represented the largest disadvantaged group.

This, no doubt, helped Catholic prejudices that retarded changes in female educational action since despite the freedom of worship approved

in the Constitution of 1869, in the Spain of the last third of the 19th century female education would not achieve great advances, in contrast to the Protestant world and in particular that of the Anglo-Saxon, which would use less restrictive methods to include women in their educational system. (Huguet, 2012)

We can frame our protagonist in this Anglo-Saxon profile, since as we have demonstrated in the text, she was educated at the International Institute for Girls, a pioneering Protestant institution in higher education for Spanish women. (Magallón, 2007). The study of the educational system used and relations carried out by the International Institute to develop its work in a society ultra-Catholic as the Spanish of the time (Huguet, 2012), allowed us to carry out our research and achieve the indicated objectives to highlight the educational work carried out by Carolina Marcial Dorado, beginning with her Protestant education.

On the intellectual scene of North America, Carolina Marcial Dorado would carry out a job of teaching and cultural exchange between the United States and Spain which would be reflected in the various facets of the academic world in which she worked.  On the one hand, her publications reflected her Spanish learning. There were training manuals both in United States and in Latin America where she projected an image of Spain charged with topics illustrating an excessive quixotic vision of life in our country. In this regard, it must be taken into account that Marcial Dorado spent very little time in Spain since after 1910 she would reside in the United States. In that case it is possible that her vision of the Spanish reality may have been little out of date. At the same time, our protagonist would contribute, as we have made patent in the text and, from her teaching position to exchanges of students through scholarships, thereby facilitating cultural reciprocity between Spain and the USA. Her relations with the residence of young ladies, and in particular it’s Director María de Maeztu, as well as with other important women in the Spanish educational field such as Zenobia Camprubí and Susan Huntington would establish an important network that greatly promoted female education.   Her Hispanic work in North America would lead her to the position of head of the Spanish editorial division of Gin & Company, Boston, and the director of the Bureau of Pro-Spanish Information in New York, an agency created by the International Telephone & Telegraph Company (ITT), for tourist and cultural promotion of Spain in the U.S. Finally it should be added that  a memorial to the work of our subject has been perpetuated through scholarships offered since 1953  by the Department of Spanish at Barnard College that actually bear her name until the present: The Carolina Marcial Dorado Spanish Scholarship Fund.

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