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María Luisa Arcelay (December 23, 1893-October 17, 1981), was an educator, businesswoman and politician who on November 1932, became the first woman in Puerto Rico and in all of Latin America to be elected to a government legislative body.

Early years

Arcelay was one of five siblings born to Ricardo Arcelay and Isabel de la Rosa in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. There she received her primary and secondary education before moving to the then town of Rio Piedras where she earned her teachers certificate.

Educator

Arcelay began her career as an educator when she was hired as an English language teacher at Theodore Roosevelt High School. Later she taught at the Jose de Diego High School, both schools located in the City of Mayagüez. During her spare time she worked as a book keeper for various commercial firms in the area.

Businesswoman and politician

By 1920, Arcelay abandoned her career as an educator and together with Lorenza Carrero founded a needlework workshop which evolved into a needlework factory. Her company employed many of the local women who had no other means to sustain themselves economically. She was an activist who defended the island's needlework industry in various public hearings which were held in New York City and Washington, D.C..

Arcelay was member of the Partido Coalicionista de Puerto Rico (The Puerto Rican Coalition Party) and in the elections of November 1932, she was elected to represent the district of Mayagüez in the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico, thereby becoming the first Puerto Rican and for that matter the first woman in all of Latin America to be elected to a government legislative body. She used her position as president of the Agriculture and Commerce Commission to continue her defense of the needlework industry before local and federal authorities and played an instrumental role in making the industry compatible with others which were already established in the United States market by going against any measure which would raise the salaries of the common worker in the industry. In August 1932, the needleworkers went on strike requesting higher salaries for their work. Police, who were called to protect employer properties, killed and wounded some strikers who stoned the workshop of Arcelay Puerto Rican musician Mon Rivera wrote a song titled "Quien Nama" (loosely translated as "Hello, Who' Calling?", sometimes referred to as "Que Sera") which describes the seamstress' strike and mentions Arcelay in the song. In 1934, she presented a Bill before the Puerto Rican legislature which established the Lottery of Puerto Rico. She was reelected in 1936, during which time she introduced the bills which established the an orphanage home for children and a Juvenile court. She also presented bills before the legislature to establish teachers a pension and a School of Medicine at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez.

She was named president of the Prices and Rationing Board #49 of Mayagüez and was the director of the Victory bonds program in Puerto Rico during World War II. During the decades of the 40s and 50s, under her leadership, Puerto Rico's needlework industry grew to become the island's second largest industry (Puerto Rico's largest industry was agriculture)

Legacy

Arcelay also participated in civic orientated organizations such as the Women's Civic and Cultural Club of Mayagüez and was the founder of the Altrusa Club of that same city. She served in the government until 1940 and in 1965 retired from her business career.

She died on October 17, 1981, in her hometown Mayagüez and is buried in Mayagüez's Old Municipal Cemetery,. The city named a school in her honor. There is a Portrait of Maria Luisa Arcelay at the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe Institute. On August 22, 2005, the Camera of Representatives of Puerto Rico, by the act R.de la C. 2631, named one of the halls of Puerto Rico's Capital Building "Maria Luisa Arecelay" in her honor.

Further reading

• Arcelay, Carmen L. (January 2004). Alo, Quien Llama?, Maria Luisa Arcelay: Pionera de La Legislatura Olvidada En El Tiempo. S.N. ISBN 0975510770.

See also

• List of famous Puerto Ricans

References

1. ^ Biografia
2. ^ "Camara de Representantes de Puerto Rico
3. ^ "Latino thought"; By: Francisco Hernández Vázquez, Rodolfo D. Torres; page 182; ISBN-13: 9780847699414
4. "Home to work: motherhood and the politics of industrial homework in the ..."; By Eileen Boris; page 233; Publisher: Cambridge University Press; ISBN-13: 9780521455480
5. Mon Rivera
6. Maria Luisa Arcelay School
7. Harvard University Library

• 1893 births
• 1981 deaths
• Puerto Rican businesspeople
• Puerto Rican educators
• Puerto Rican politicians
• People from Mayagüez, Puerto Rico