Education and the children’s colonies in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939): the images of the community ideal

Abstract

At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War the republican authorities started organising what came to be known as “children’s colonies”. These children’s colonies became both home and school for all the children who were evacuated from Madrid. The purpose of this article is to study in depth the transformation of many of these children’s colonies into educational communities. The teachers accompanying the children often shared the republican ideals of active citizenship and strove to make conscious citizens out of these children. The educational model chosen for achieving this aim was the community model, based on the transformation of every children’s colony into a self-sufficient community of teachers and students, along the lines of similar experiences organised by the international New Education movement in the 1920s and ’30s. The article discusses the iconic experiences of children’s colonies during the Spanish Civil War and the ways in which their different concepts of “community” were represented. By studying the photographic collection put together from different public and private archives alongside the written information preserved in unpublished diaries we are able to develop a methodological model for analysing the construction and/or destruction of the community ideal in these educational experiences.

Keywords:

• Spanish Civil War
• children’s colonies
• educational community
• visual archives
• visual methodologies

Notes

¹ Valentina Fernández Vargas, “Madrid: ciudad sitiada (1936–1939),” in Madrid. Atlas histórico de la ciudad. 1850–1939, ed. Virgilío Pinto Crespo (Madrid: Lunwerg, 2001), 446–75; Valentina Fernández Vargas, Memorias no vividas. Madrid qué bien resiste (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2002); Ramón Guerra de la Vega, Madrid 1931–1939. II República y Guerra Civil (Madrid: Street Art Collection, 2005) and Fernando Cohnen, Madrid 1936/1939. Una guía de la capital en guerra (Madrid: La Librería, 2013).

² “¡Evacuación! Hay demasiados niños en Madrid,” Amigos de la Escuela, no. 3 (1937): 5.

³ “La evacuación de niños y su acogida en residencias infantiles,” El Magisterio Español, no. 6737 (1937): 635.

⁴ “Las colonias en Levante,” El Magisterio Español, unnumbered (1936): 35.

⁵ Federación de Trabajadores de la Enseñanza, Les professionnels de l’enseignement luttent pour la libération du peuple espagnol (Paris, 1937), 18–19.

⁶ J.F., “Por la defensa de Madrid. El trabajo y los planes del Delegado de Evacuación,” Mundo Gráfico, no. 1312 (1936): n.p.

⁷ Pierre Marqués, “Ayuda humanitaria y evacuaciones de niños,” in El exilio de los niños, ed. Alicia Alted Vigil, Roger González Martell and María José Millán (Madrid: Fundación Pablo Iglesias/Fundación P. Largo Caballero, 2003), 48.

⁸ Rosalía Crego Navarro, “Las colonias escolares durante la Guerra Civil. (1936–1939),” Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, no. 2 (1989): 305–08.

⁹ Ministry of Public Education. National Council for Evacuated Children, Children’s Colonies (Paris: Imp. “La Productrice”, 1937), 25–27.

¹⁰ “España. Labor del Ministerio de Instrucción Pública en la evacuación de niños,” El Magisterio Español, no. 6741 (1937): 684.

¹¹ “La labor del Ministerio de Instrucción Pública. Una visita a la Delegación Central de Colonias,” El Magisterio Español, no. 6696 (1937): 300–02.

¹² José Ignacio Cruz Orozco, “Colonias escolares y Guerra Civil. Un ejemplo de evacuación infantil,” in A pesar de todo dibujan... La Guerra Civil vista por los niños, ed. Alicia Alted and Roger González (Madrid: Biblioteca Nacional, 2006), 41.

¹³ María del Mar del Pozo Andrés, “La infancia en peligro: las colonias escolares en Valencia (1936–1939),” in València, capital cultural de la República (1936–1937). Congrés Internacional, ed. Manuel Aznar Soler, Josep L. Barona and Javier Navarro Navarro (València: Universitat de València, 2008), 507–41; Ángel Llorca y García, Comunidades Familiares de Educación. Un modelo de renovación pedagógica en la Guerra Civil (Madrid: CIDE/Octaedro, 2008); Cristina Escrivá Moscardó, Els horts solidaris: les colonies escolars de Picanya, 1937–1939 (València: Ajuntament de Picanya, 2011); Cristina Escrivá Moscardó and Rafael Maestre Marín, De las negras bombas a las doradas naranjas. Colonias escolares 1936–1939 (Valencia: L’Eixam Edicions, 2011); María del Mar del Pozo Andrés, Justa Freire o la pasión de educar. Biografía de una maestra atrapada en la historia de España (1896–1965) (Barcelona: Octaedro, 2013), 139–72; Cristina Escrivá Moscardó, La infancia, el tesoro de la segunda república. La colonia infantil de Bellús, 512 escolares salvados de la guerra (Valencia: Ulleye, 2014); and Andrea Moreno Martín and Pau Olmos Benlloch, “Infancia Evacuada: La colonia escolar de Villa Amparo de Quart de Poblet (1937–1938),” La Linde, no. 3 (2014), http://www.lalindearqueologia.com/index.php/crea-articulo/49-edicion-numero-3/resultados-3/130-villamparo (accessed 15 February 2015).

¹⁴ Carlos Salinas Salinas, “Las colonias escolares durante la Guerra Civil en el Vinalopó,” Revista del Vinalopó, no. 12 (2009): 33–44 and Carlos Salinas Salinas, “Lugares de memoria de la guerra civil. Las colonias infantiles en la provincia de Alicante,” CLIO. History and History Teaching, no. 40 (2014), http://clio.rediris.es/n40/articulos/salinas2014.pdf (accessed February 15, 2015).

¹⁵ Siân Roberts, “‘In the Margins of Chaos’: Francesca Wilson and Education for All in the ‘Teachers’ Republic’,” History of Education 35, no. 6 (2006): 653–68.

¹⁶ Enrique Satué Oliván, Los niños del Frente (Huesca: Museo Pedagógico de Aragón, 2007).

¹⁷ Adrià Casademont Reig, “Les colònies infantils a Catalunya durant la Guerra Civil (1936–1939)” (Bachelor’s thesis, Girona University, 2014).

¹⁸ Juan M. Fernández Soria, “La asistencia a la infancia en la Guerra Civil. Las colonias escolares,” Historia de la Educación, no. 6 (1987): 114.

¹⁹ “Informe de la Delegación Española pro niños evacuados a la Conferencia organizada por el Comité Internacional de coordinación y de ayuda a la España Republicana a últimos del pasado Noviembre,” El Magisterio Español, nos. 6770–6771 (1937): 946; “Colonias Infantiles del Ministerio de Instrucción Pública,” in Viejos papeles de Don Ángel Llorca. Archive of the Foundation Ángel Llorca; “Ministerio de Instrucción Pública y Sanidad. Dirección General de Primera Enseñanza. Delegación Regional de la Infancia Evacuada en Valencia. Relación de las Colonias existentes en esta fecha,” (n.d.), in Viejos papeles...; Justa Freire, “Mi labor general y notas grales [sic] de la colaboración prestada a las colonias escolares de Perelló − Valencia (21 January--11 September 1937),” in Viejos papeles...; Justa Freire, “Diario (22 September 1937--28 July 1938),” in Viejos papeles...; Justa Freire, “Labor Personal (1 September 1938--January 1939),” in Legado Justa Freire (LJF) and Justa Freire, “Colonias visitadas − por fechas,” in LJF. Archive of the Foundation Ángel Llorca, and International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (IISH), Archive Segundo Blanco, 103C, 33A, and 32C.

²⁰ L.C., “Dejad que los niños se acerquen a mí,” Amigos de la Escuela, no. 16 (1938): 8.

²¹ Consejo Nacional de la Infancia Evacuada, “A las colonias escolares de la infancia evacuada” (January 1938), in Viejos papeles de Don Ángel Llorca.

²² Children’s Colonies, 13–14.

²³ Circular 11 November 1937, in Historia de la Educación en España. IV. La educación durante la Segunda República y la Guerra Civil (1931–1939) (Madrid: Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, 1991), 286.

²⁴ Generalitat de Catalunya. Consell de l’Escola Nova Unificada, Projecte d’Ensenyament de l’Escola Nova Unificada (1936), 17.

²⁵ CNT/AIT, Orientaciones Pedagógicas (Valencia: Sindicato Único de la Enseñanza de Valencia, undated, but 1937), 106.

²⁶ “La labor del Ministerio de Instrucción Pública. Una visita a la Delegación Central de Colonias,” El Magisterio Español, no. 6696 (1937): 302.

²⁷ “Whereas definitive concepts provide prescriptions of what to see, sensitizing concepts merely suggest directions along which to look”. Herbert Blumer, “What is Wrong with Social Theory?,” American Sociological Review, no. 18 (1954): 7.

²⁸ Elizabeth F. Loftus and John C. Palmer, “Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction: An Example of the Interaction between Language and Memory,” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 13 (1974): 585–89.

²⁹ Rudolf Dekker, Egodocuments and History: Autobiographical Writing in its Social Context since the Middle Ages (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2002).

³⁰ Justa Freire o la pasión de educar, 154–57.

³¹ Entry of January 18, 1938. Justa Freire, “Diario (22 September 1937--28 July 1938),” in Viejos papeles... and Justa Freire, “Colonias visitadas − por fechas,” in LJF. Archive of the Foundation Ángel Llorca.

³² Entry from 10 April 1937. Justa Freire, “Mi labor general....,” in Viejos papeles…

³³ The photographs in the AGA were organised in a rather clumsy way: photographs of the same colony were not together in one folder, but divided among several boxes. A first archive box mainly contained 1206 small prints, organised in 22 envelopes with the name of the colony written on top of it. In a second archive box we found 1133 photographs in 46 envelopes, again marked with the name of a colony. These pictures were often printed in a larger format (9×13 cm) than the pictures in the first box and they were quite often marked on the back with pencil or with stamps. Finally, in a third archive box we found another set of about 1000 photographs, all of them copies of the ones found in the first two boxes. AGA, 51/21131, 51/21132 and 51/21133.

³⁴ Entry for 17 February 1937. Justa Freire, “Mi labor general...,” in Viejos papeles…

³⁵ Román Gubern, Val del Omar, cinemista (Granada: Diputación de Granada, 2004) and Manuel J. González Manrique, Val del Omar, el moderno renacentista (Granada: Fundación Ibn-al-Jatib, 2008).

³⁶ Cristina Escrivá, Los ojos de Walter Reuter (Valencia: L’Eixam Edicions, 2012).

³⁷ Decree of 21 April 1937, Gaceta de la República, no. 117, 27 April 1937, 405–06.

³⁸ BN, Serie “Retratos Infantiles”, GC-CARP/220/3.

³⁹ The photographs of Spanish school colonies gathered in the MML have been studied by Siân Roberts. We thank her for all the valuable information she has given us about the English archives. Siân Roberts, “Activism, Agency and Archive: British Activists and the Representation of Educational Colonies in Spain during and after the Spanish Civil War,” Paedagogica Historica 49, no. 6 (2013): 796–812.

⁴⁰ Memorial Marx Library, Box A-5, A/19.

⁴¹ The weekly and monthly journals that were analysed are Amigos de la Escuela (1937–1938), Mundo Gráfico (1936–1938), El Magisterio Español (1936–1938), Boletín de Educación (1937) and Estampa (1937–1938).

⁴² “La labor del Ministerio de Instrucción Pública. Una visita a la Delegación Central de Colonias,” 302.

⁴³ A chi-square test in which the distribution of the sample of 92 colonies by province is compared with the distribution of the population of 160 produced a p-value greater than 0.050, indicating that these distributions do not differ significantly.

⁴⁴ Mari Cruz Garrido Pascual, El corro de las niñas, el círculo de las mujeres. Un repaso al juego del corro desde sus orígenes como elemento de la cultura femenina (Madrid: Horas y Horas, 2010), 45, 158–66.

⁴⁵ Children’s Colonies, 11, 15, 19 and 29.

⁴⁶ MML, Box 33, Book 9/38a; Book 9/40a.

⁴⁷ MML, Box 33, Book 9/34a.

⁴⁸ MML, Box 33, Book 9/38b.

Additional information

Funding

This work forms part of the project “Educational Progressivism and School Tradition in Spain through Photography (1900–1970)” [EDU2014-52498-C2-1-P], funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness within the framework of the National R&D and Innovation Plan.