SOURCE: Garrels, Elizabeth. “Sarmiento and the Woman Question: From 1839 to the Facundo.” In Sarmiento, Author of a Nation, pp. 272-93. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

In the following essay, Garrels analyzes Sarmiento's many writings that relate to women and the evolution of his opinion regarding women's rights.

In 1839, with the founding of the Santa Rosa school for girls in San Juan, Argentina, Sarmiento inaugurated his lifelong public commitment to the education of women. A few texts of an institutional nature still survive from this early project: the Prospecto de un establecimiento de educación para señoritas (Prospectus for an Educational Establishment for Young Ladies); the Constitución del Colegio de Señoritas de la Advocación de Santa Rosa de América (Constitution for the School for Young Ladies of the Appellation of Saint Rose of America); and five speeches delivered by the director (Sarmiento) and four...