Concepción Arenal

Category: Writer, political activist
Birth Date: 31st January 1820 († 4th February 1893)
Birth Place: Ferrol
 Curriculum

She spent part of her chilhood in A Coruña and the last period of her life in Vigo. Her father, who was a political secretary of the Government of Galicia in the reign of Fernando VII, was persecuted and died when he was very young. Concepción Arenal moved to Santander together with her mother and sisters. In 1834 one of her sisters died and then they settled down in Madrid to study in a good College, as her mother wished. She went to University disguised as a man because women were discriminated at that time. In 1848, she married Fernando García Carrasco, whom he met at University and they were persecuted by the Government for defending their political ideas. In 1854 her first daughter died and her husband in 1875. She was a woman with new ideas and very independent from the political, social and religious point of view. She thought that the only steady basis for society is justice but not intimidation.

 Work & Activities

Her literary production started in 1851 publishing Fábulas y romances. Together with her husband she collaborated in 1854 in the liberal newspaper Iberia. In 1858 she wrote ¡Dios y la libertad!. In this book, which was not published, she reflected the deep sorrow because of her father's death. In most of her books she always reflected her longing for justice, the right to education, abolition of discrimination and so forth. Here are her most important works: El visitador del pobre (1860), Beneficencia, Filantropía y Caridad (1861), La mujer del porvenir (1861), Cartas a los delincuentes (1865), El reo, el pueblo y el verdugo, o la ejecución política de pena de muerte (1867), A todos (1869), Examen de las bases aprobadas por las Cortes para la reforma de las prisiones (1869), Cartas a un obrero (1871), Cartas a un señor (1875), La pena de deportación (1875), Estudios penitenciarios (1877), La cárcel llamada Modelo (1877), La instrucción del pueblo (1878), El derecho de gentes (1879), El derecho de gracia ante la justicia (1880), La mujer de su casa (1881), Observaciones sobre la educación física, intelectual y moral de Herbert Spencer (1882), La igualdad social y política (1882), El pauperismo (1885), La instrucción del obrero (1892), La educación de la mujer (1892), El delito colectivo (1892)... On the contrary, she wrote few books about Galician themes. We can mention the book Hay Irlanda, pero no Cobden (1880)