Elena Mederos
{{Short description|Cuban activist, feminist and social reformer}}
Elena Inés Mederos y Cabañas de González (13 January 1900 - 25 September 1981) was a Cuban human rights and women's rights activist, a feminist, and social reformer.{{sfn|Stoner|1991|p=ix}} She was the first Minister of Social Work in Cuba.
Mederos founded several organizations including the School of Social Services at the University of Havana; the Foundation for Social Services, which developed programs for children's organizations in Cuba; "Of Human Rights" (New York City, 1961);{{sfn|Ruiz|Korrol|2006|p=22}} and a Cuban exile lobby that worked for the release of political prisoners. A suffragist,{{sfn|Pedraza|2007|p=62}} Mederos was a co-founder of the Alianza Nacional Feminista,{{sfn|Stoner|1991|p=143}} a suffragist organization active in Cuba during the 1920s. She was the founding vice president of the National Association of Cuban American Women (NACAW).{{cite news|last1=Nardone|first1=Christine|title=Being honored National Cuban women's association gives UC educator award|url=http://hudsonreporter.com/view/full_story/2379814/matchbin|access-date=9 September 2015|publisher=Hudson Reporter|date=15 March 2002|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304065321/http://hudsonreporter.com/view/full_story/2379814/matchbin|archive-date=4 March 2016|url-status=dead}} Mederos is "considered the most prominent Cuban woman of the 20th century".{{sfn|US Congress|2011|p=7593}}
Biography
Mederos was born in Havana on 13 January 13, 1900. Her father, a well-to-do tobacco merchant, gave Mederos and her sister tobacco estates, which allowed each of the daughters to live a comfortable life without dependence on a husband for financial support. Her education included a Ph.D. in pharmacology. She married Hilario González Arrieta, a young lawyer, in 1924.{{sfn|Stoner|1991|pp=45-46}}
The Sixth Pan American Union conference was held in 1928 in Havana. Attended by a large assembly of Cuban women led by Mederos, the conference established the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM).{{sfn|Stoner|1991|p=187}} Representing Cuba, Mederos was a member of the first CIM conference which met in Havana in 1930.{{sfn|Smith|2008|pp=595-596}} In September 1959, Mederos served for five months as first Minister of Social Work in Cuba, under Fidel Castro's provisional government.{{sfn|Pedraza|2007|p=110}} She arrived in the US in 1961 with her daughter María Elena González Mederos, where she worked for UNICEF. Mederos died 25 September 1981 in Washington, DC.{{cite web|title=Elena Mederos Papers|url=http://proust.library.miami.edu/findingaids/?p=collections/findingaid&id=252|publisher=University of Miami Cuban Heritage Collection|access-date=9 September 2015}} The Elena Mederos Award was established in her honor by the NACAW.{{sfn|US Congress|2011|p=7593}}
References
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Bibliography
- {{cite book|last=Pedraza|first=Silvia|title=Political Disaffection in Cuba's Revolution and Exodus|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QCSJ61F4j34C&pg=PA110|date=17 September 2007|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-86787-0}}
- {{cite book|last1=Ruiz|first1=Vicki L.|last2=Korrol|first2=Virginia Sánchez|title=Latinas in the United States, set: A Historical Encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_62IjQ-XQScC&pg=PA22|date=3 May 2006|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=0-253-11169-2}}
- {{cite book|last=Smith|first=Bonnie G.|title=The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History: 4 Volume Set|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EFI7tr9XK6EC&pg=PA595|year=2008|publisher=Oxford University Press, USA|isbn=978-0-19-514890-9}}
- {{cite book|last=Stoner|first=Kathryn Lynn|title=From the House to the Streets: The Cuban Woman's Movement for Legal Reform, 1898–1940|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KMkqI4Ur26oC&pg=PAix|date=9 May 1991|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=0-8223-8168-0}}
- {{cite book|author=US Congress|title=Congressional Record, V. 153, PT. 6, March 26, 2007 to April 17, 2007|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MkekTS4_k_sC&pg=PA7593|date=January 2011|publisher=Government Printing Office|isbn=978-0-16-087164-1}}
External links
- [http://www.contactomagazine.com/mederos100.htm "Elena Mederos, una Figura Histórica del Siglo XX"] by Aleida Duran in Contacto Magazine (in Spanish)
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20160304195758/http://www.sigloxxi.org/Archivo/emweb.htm La Fundación Elena Mederos] (in Spanish)
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Category:Cuban human rights activists
Category:Cuban women activists
Category:Women human rights activists
Category:Cuban women's rights activists