Collection of Propaganda Photographs of the Sección Femenina. 1939-1944

38 photographs from the Falange propaganda department archives. ​26 from the spring of 1939 document cultural activities in Barcelona and the 2-day departure of thousands of women to the first national Sección Femenina (SF) rally at the organization’s new headquarters in Medina del Campo. The rally was held to mark the end of the civil war and refine the role of women in the new, (Fascist-Catholic) Falangist society. Together with 12 photos from October 1944 depicting union selections by women working in rural factories and farms for the national organization which regulated all labor relations under Franco, the Organización Sindical Española. The two groups of images offer differing but related images of idealized femininity under the Falange: one for urban, bourgeois women and another for rural, working-class women. Although deeply antifeminist, the Sección Femenina advocated for women’s education and some civil rights.

Includes 12 photos of rehearsals and performances of a Sección Femenina concert of Spanish folkloric music and dance at the National Theater of the Falange (a.k.a. the Palacio de la Musica Catalana, Barcelona) and at least one photo of Pilar Primo de Rivera, the SF’s founder and leader.

The photographer, Carlos Pérez de Rozas y Masdéu, was a contributor to numerous Nationalist and Falangist publications. He was the first generation of a family of photojournalists; in 2007 an exhibition of their work was held at the Palau Robert in Barcelona. Most photos approx. 4 x 6 in., pencil inscriptions and dates verso, photos were once collected in an album, the original handwritten captions are included with the group (loose).