Auxilio Social. A space for intergenerational transmission of political commitment during the immediate Spanish post-war

Abstract

This article analyses the political commitments deployed by some women within Auxilio Social, the main welfare institution of Franco’s regime during the immediate post-war period. We will focus, specifically, on the spaces of control that this institution articulated around children and women in the Women’s Social Service. We will also take as an object of study a woman who exercised command responsibilities in the institution: Josefina Sánchez Pedreño, the first provincial delegate of Social Aid in the province of Murcia. With regard to the first case, we will analyse the children’s canteens installed in the urban periphery of the city of Madrid. We will see how these spaces were conducive to the intergenerational transmission of the different political cultures that made up the Republican coalition, at least during the early stages of the post-war period; with regard to the second case, we will take as a reference the life story of Josefina Sánchez Pedreño. We will define her political commitment in Murcia in the 1930s, which drifted from progressive positions to fascist positions, in order to confirm that the possibilities of intergenerational transmission of political commitments were subject to the prevailing gender dynamics in each political culture.