Juana Paula Manso: Educational Reformer during the Rise of Liberalism in Argentina

This paper traces the life history of nineteenth-century Argentinian activist Juana Paula Manso, whose life mirrored post-independence challenges and the rise of a broader education reform movement in North America. This included the increasing role of middle-class women in creating expanded access to schooling. Most of her organizing was limited to the southern cone of South America as Ms. Manso, a once-abandoned wife and mother who eked out a living as a teacher, worked with Sarmiento before and during his presidency. She would also forge connections with activists elsewhere, most famously with the American Horace Mann. Public and political action by women was arguably even less appreciated in this period in South America than in the United States, but this paper will show how and to what effect Juana Manso drew from local and international networks to pursue her vision of accessible education as the bedrock of a democratic Argentina. Her indirect, but effective style of social action moved the Argentine educational system, and to some degree the acceptance of female public activity, in a more progressive direction.