Women’s Suffrage in Argentina Crowd at the Promulgation of Law 13.010 with Juan and Eva Perón 1947

Juan Peron

Photograph

Press photograph of the public celebration of Argentine women’s suffrage, 1947, documenting the mass political ceremony surrounding the enactment of Law 13.010, which established equal national political rights for Argentine women. Congress sanctioned the measure on September 9, 1947, and President Juan Domingo Perón formally promulgated it on September 23; the law declared that Argentine women would possess the same political rights and obligations as Argentine men. The ceremony also placed Eva Perón prominently within the public narrative of the legislation, although the achievement belonged to a longer history of Argentine women’s activism that included figures such as Alicia Moreau, Julieta Lanteri, and Elvira Rawson. The photograph therefore provides primary-source visual evidence for the study of women’s enfranchisement, Peronism, mass political mobilization, and the public presentation of women’s citizenship in mid-century Argentina.

Vintage gelatin silver press photograph, 1947, approximately 7 x 9 inches. The black-and-white image shows a large crowd gathered before the presidential palace during the suffrage ceremony. An original press caption adhered to the verso reads in part, “Argentines cheer women’s suffrage decree,” and states that a crowd of approximately 100,000 watched as President Juan D. Perón signed the measure granting Argentine women the right to vote; the caption further identifies the legislation as one of the major projects associated with Eva Perón. Contemporary and official records place the formal promulgation on September 23, 1947, rather than September 16. During the public ceremony Eva Perón received the enacted law and addressed the assembled women, reinforcing her highly visible association with the campaign while the legislation itself emerged from a broader and longer suffrage movement. Press stamps and pencil annotations appear on the verso.

The photograph captures the point at which women’s suffrage moved from legislative enactment into public political ritual. Its significance lies not simply in the size of the crowd but in the convergence of law, presidential ceremony, female political mobilization, and mass-media representation: a press image such as this circulated an immediate visual account of women’s new political status to audiences beyond the Plaza de Mayo. Argentine women exercised the new national voting rights in a presidential election for the first time in 1951, making the 1947 ceremony a foundational event in the transformation of women’s formal participation in national electoral politics. Slight warping to the lower right quadrant; press caption, stamps, and pencil annotation on verso; overall very good. A substantive contemporary photographic record of the public enactment of women’s suffrage in Argentina and of the political imagery through which that achievement was presented to a national and international audience.

Item #16531

Price: $75.00