As Néstor Ferioli pointed out in his seminal work¹ , La Fundación Eva Perón has two parallel histories, one official and one unofficial. The official trajectory of the Fundación can be found in legal documents, archives, newspapers and books. The unofficial history of the Fundación has entered into the realm of folklore, both Peronista and antiPeronista.
The deepest roots of the Fundación can be found in Evita’s childhood when she learned from her mother to reach out to those in need. Evita was a mirror image of Doña Juana, a widow who sewed day and night to support her five children, yet never turned down their requests for a few coins or a hot tea to help those for whom no safety net existed.
In the small pampas towns of Los Toldos and Junín where she grew up, Evita met the homeless (El Señor “Buendía” who lived in the hedgerows but always greeted her with a cheerful “Buendía, mi hija”), the mentally ill (la Mujer del Niño Muerto who year after year asked for money to bury her dead child), and people with disabilities (Doña Asunción who applauded from her wheelchair Evita’s acrobatic attempts to make her laugh)² .
She was to continue to meet their counterparts throughout her life and especially after Perón’s inauguration as President on June 4, 1946.
From the very beginning in the Secretaría de Trabajo y Previsión where he had worked as Secretary of Labor from 1943-1945, Perón had established a direct personal relationship with those who recurred to him: Perón-People. He personally met with not only union leaders but with any individual worker who asked him for an audience.

After Perón’s inauguration as President, the workers lost and missed their direct contact, their personal relationship with him. Although he could no longer attend to them himself, the workers and the poor knew where he lived and began to ring the doorbell of the Presidential Residence in Buenos Aires³. Evita had already decided that she would not be a traditional First Lady (a title that Jacqueline Kennedy said sounded like the name of a horse); she began to find ways to meet the needs of the people who crowded the sidewalks outside her house.
By September the mail averaged 3,000 letters a day and long lines of mothers with babies in their arms and toddlers clutching at their skirts, of older people and people with disabilities, the forgotten and forsaken of society, daily converged on the Residence. Evita knew she had to find a way to offer them immediate help. She began to buy food and clothing with her own money and stack the boxes and bundles in an unused garage on the Residence property. When the labor unions found out, they began to send contributions - everything from shoes to sugar.
After Perón went to bed at night, Evita, her private secretary, Atilio Renzi, her maid, Irma Ferrari, the cook, Bartolo, and two waiters, Sánchez and Fernández, would work until dawn to package the merchandise. One day Perón visited the garage, and was surprised to find that all the items were brand new.
“Of course,” Evita replied. “I’m buying some things with my own money and some are donated by people who want to help.”
“Well, this is a real delight for the needy! “(“Es una verdadera delicia para los necesitados!”) exclaimed Perón, and from then on the garage was known as “La Tienda de las Delicias” or “The Store of Delights.”
In his book, Del Poder al Exilio,⁴ Perón reminisced about the official beginning of the Fundación Eva Peron:
“One night at the dinner table, [Evita] explained her program. She sounded like a calculator.
I asked her, ‘And the money?’
She looked at me in amusement. ‘That’s easy,” she replied. “I’ll start with yours.’
‘With mine? What money of mine?’
‘Your salary as President.’ ”

On a spring day in September of 1946, when the scent of the jacaranda filled the air around Plaza de Mayo, Evita began to meet people in the same office Perón had once occupied as Labor Secretary⁵. Hoping to fill the vacuum his absence had created, she kept to the same open door policy; both workers and “descamisados” knew where to find her when they needed her.
Even though Evita never took “time off” to sit down and formally design an organization that would meet the many and varied needs of the people who came to her with their problems, she did realize that soon she would require more hands and minds, more structure and more space than were readily available. The people who looked to her with faces full of trust had long lived with no safety net for health care or housing; the price to be paid for years of neglect would be high; the personal price higher than she could ever have imagined at the time.
In 1947, Evita went to Europe with the idea that Europe would teach her how to meet the needs of the most destitute of her country. What she discovered in the war-ravaged Old World disillusioned her. Most of the institutions she visited had been created by the state or by the wealthy... “and the rich, when they think of the poor, think poorly.”⁶ Evita came back from Europe with the goal of thinking richly, of creating works that the rich would design for themselves, would consider good enough for their children to live in, learn in, play in, and be sick in. And she succeeded.
On June 19, 1948, degree number 220.564 established the María Eva Duarte Social Help Foundation ( In 1950, this name was simplified into the Fundación Eva Perón, the Eva Perón Foundation, just as the bouffant hairstyles and big hats of the ‘40’s streamlined into the elegant chignons and tailored suits of the ‘50’s).
The Foundation had five goals, summarized here:
1. To loan money, provide tools, establish scholarships for deserving people who lack resources.
2. Construct housing for needy families.
3. Construct educational establishments, hospitals, recreational facilities and / or any other edifice which the Foundation considers necessary.
4. Construct buildings for the common good which can be transferred with or without charge to National, Provincial or Municipal governments.
5. Contribute or collaborate by any means available to the realization of works constructed for the common good and which help meet the basic needs of the least favored social classes.

Even though she had teased him about it, Evita did not make use of Perón’s salary; she used $10,000 pesos of her own money as the Foundation’s first patrimony.
Nestor Ferioli points out that
“Evita constructed the Foundation rapidly, in the same way that she would later organize the Peronista Women’s Party [el Partido Peronista Feminino]. She thought it best so as to be able to work quickly to have a verticalist, pyramid structure which gave her absolute freedom to make decisions and enabled her to escape from the bureaucracy she so detested. That is why people say that Evita wouldn’t tolerate “second fiddles” around her. That is also why the Foundation did not have any irrelevant rules or administrators until 1953 [after Evita’s death].” ⁷


From its beginnings in an unused garage to its destruction in 1955 at the hands of those who, when they think of the poor, think poorly, the Foundation played an almost magical part in Argentine history; it was an anchor, a harbor, a door which opened when all other doors had been slammed shut. Many people in Argentina today wish they could find the key to open that door and be comforted by the face on the other side of it.

¹ Nestor Ferioli, La Fundación Eva Peron/ 1, Centro Editor de America Latina, 1990.

² Erminda Duarte, Mi Hermana Evita, Centro de Estudios Eva Peron, 1973.

³ The President of Argentina works in Government House, the Pink House “la Casa Rosada”.Perón and Evita lived in the Presidential Residence, the “Palacio Unzue”. Because Perón and Evita had lived there, and Evita had died there, the mansion was razed by the military after the 1955 Coup d’Etat which overthrew Perón. At present, the National Library occupies the site.

⁴ Juan Perón: Del Poder al Exilio , p.72.

⁵ This beautiful building graced with a clocktower is now the Consejo de Deliberante.

⁶ Eva Peron, La Razon de Mi Vida, p. 180

⁷ Ferioli, op.cit., p. 36

Just a few days ago-last June 19th -the New Argentina celebrated the sixth anniversary of the "creation" of the Eva Perón Foundation.
Strictly speaking, what we have commemorated has simply been the... date in which the institution...was legally constituted as a Foundation.
Evita’s work did not begin on June 19, 1948, but rather during the second half of the year 1946;  ... it actually began to show tangible results just after General Perón was inaugurated as President on June 4, 1946.

How did Evita’s work of love begin?
Evita herself explained in chapter 29 of La Razón de mi Vida   when she refers to the beginnings:
"But before just wages and worthy working conditions could give their fruits of comfort, it was necessary to remedy the grief of so many years.
"Everywhere homes, clothes, health were lacking.
"That is why I had gone out into the streets to say:
‘Here I am. I want to be of some use to my people.’
"When I noticed that my country’s descamisados had listened to my then timid voice; when I began to see that letters arrived, and more letters, and men and women, youths and children and the elderly began to knock on the doors of our private residence, only then did I realize what the "appeal from my heart" would signify.           
"Although I had already foreseen that it was an almost impossible undertaking, I was convinced of it when the full meaning of the task became apparent to me.
"Yet Perón had already taught me many things, and among them was to delete the word impossible from my dictionary.
"He, who flew "high and alone like the condors" (I use the words he is wont to apply to the men of genius he admires: San Martín, Alexander, Napoleon), had taken me out of the "flock of sparrows" and had given me my first lessons.
"One, the first perhaps, was to make me forget the word impossible.
"And we began. Bit by bit. I could not say exactly on what day. What I do know is that at first I attended to everything myself. Then I had to ask for help. And finally I was obliged to organize the work, which in a few weeks had become extraordinary.
"It is true that from the first day I relied on the moral and material help of the President, but it was never a case of leaning too much on him who had other and much more serious problems than mine.
"I remember at one time we were wondering whether it was expedient that I undertake the task, or whether perhaps it should be handled by some State organization.
"And it was Perón himself who told me:
‘Peoples much smitten by injustice have more confidence in persons than in institutions.
‘In this, more that all the rest, I am frightened  of the bureaucracy.
‘In the government it is necessary to have much patience, and to know how to wait for everything to get going.
‘But in works of social welfare it is not possible to wait for anyone.’
"This reasoning, logical and simple like all of Perón’s, confirmed me in the post which he, the descamisados and I together had chosen for me."

In those days the foundations of the future Fundación Eva Perón were laid in the small garage of the Presidential Residence, later nicknamed "Las Delicias" or "The Delights."

Everything began simply and without ceremony.

Just as Evita said: " And we began. Little by little. I couldn’t tell you exactly on which day. What I can tell you is that at first I took care  of everything myself."                                                                      ........

Why was the place called "Las Delicias"?
A modest man, one of the workers who was with Evita from the beginning, tells us.
"Evita’s Social Work began immediately after General Perón became President... One of the garages of the Presidential Residence was the first Foundation warehouse. There the first shelves were filled with the first articles of clothing that Evita bought and the first donations that she received."
"And why was the place called "Las Delicias"?
"Because of something the General said... I remember it was a Saturday afternoon in September or October of 1946... There were two or three of us Residence employees helping Evita classify and pile up clothes on the shelves when a beaming General Perón approached us and we heard him say, "Let’s see how the Social Work is coming along." We started to show him the different things we were storing. Pleasantly surprised, [he] exclaimed,  "But this is all new clothing!"
"Naturally," Evita answered happily. "This is all clothing I buy myself or is bought by people who want to help."
Then the General said,  "This is a real delight for the needy!  Son una verdadera delicia para los necesitados!"

From that day forward Evita and all of us called the old garage "Las Delicias" and we could count on one more enthusiastic helper:  General Perón, who constantly  worked next to us and helped us open up packages...."
...[In] the actual warehouse of the Fundación,  an imposing building located at José Evaristo Uriburu 920,   six large stories are totally filled with all kinds of merchandise. There, on the first floor, is an exact reproduction of "Las Delicias," with the shelves placed in the same way that they were in the garage of the Presidential Residence. The maintenance of this replica is the responsibility of one of those employees who [first] worked in the garage... .
"For how long has this storehouse been here?" we asked the man in charge.
"When la Señora [Evita] returned from Europe in September of 1947, the old place "Las Delicias," was too small to hold all the donations which were coming in, so we moved here. Even this large space was soon filled up... but in this corner we have conserved... an exact  reproduction of "Las Delicias." For us it will always be "Las Delicias."
We looked up... [at] a big sign on top of a pile of boxes:
"Las Delicias":  the Fundación Eva Perón began under  this name in the Presidential Residence."
            And he adds, his eyes looking towards the horizon of his memories, "I was there from the beginning with Evita.. . I worked together with other employees in the "Delicias" at the Presidential Residence. We received the orders signed by Evita during her exhausting days  of social work first in an office of the Central Post Office and later in the historic office of the Secretaría de Trabajo y Previsión. How many things we have given to the poor at [Evita’s] indication!"
            He accompanies us as we visit the different stories:the ground floor is for housewares and toys;  the first floor is the women’s section;  the second and third floors are for boys and girls; the fourth has men’s clothing;  the fifth has shoes and the sixth has books and articles destined for international shipment.            Even in the midst of her exhausting daily schedule, Evita always found time to inspect the works under construction and to inaugurate the Shelters, Schools, Polyclinics, and other establishments which are unique in the world... .
            On April 3, 1948, the Hogar de Tránsito #1 (Women and Children’s Shelter) was inaugurated at 102  Carlos Calvo Street.
            On June 19, 1948, the Hogar de Tránsito #2 was inaugurated at 2988 Lafinur Street [the future site of the Museo Evita].
            On August 14, 1948, the Hogar de Tránsito #3 was inaugurated at 2562 Austria Street.
            On October 7, 1948, the Senior Citizens’ Home Coronel Perón was inaugurated in Burzaco.
            On December 30, 1949, the Women Employees Home General Jose de San Martín was inaugurated at 809 Avenida de Mayo.
            On July 14, 1949, the Children’s City was inaugurated at 955 Echeverría .
            On September 13, 1959, the Nursing School was inaugurated at 1218 Callao Avenue.
            What is the Eva Perón Foundation today?
            The central office of the Foundation is in two huge buildings on Paseo Colón, one at 533 and the other in front of it at 568.
            The first one has eleven stories and is where the Consejo meets [as well as other administrative offices]. The medical and tourism offices are on Colón 568.
            Also,the Social Action and Sports Departments, Construction, and Cinema are located in the building at 591 Avenida de Mayo; and the Supplies Warehouse is on the sixth floor of  501 Diagonal Norte.
            The headquarters for the grocery stores is at 340 Almafuerte;  this headquarters manages the 140 grocery stores that the Fundación Eva Perón has established in different neighborhoods of the Capital.            The Fundación also has storage places... in the Buenos Aires Port.
            Besides the establishments already mentioned, the Fundación also has the following:
            The "Student City President Perón" in the Buenos Aires suburb of Belgrano; the Polyclinic President Perón in Avellaneda, Buenos Aires Province;  Polyclinic Evita in Lanus, Province of Buenos Aires;  Polyclinic Eva Perón in San Martín, Buenos Aires Province;  Polyclinic August 22nd in Ezeiza, Buenos Aires Province; Children’s  Polyclinic "President Perón" in the province of Catamarca; regional polyclinics in Jujuy, Salta, Tucumán, Catamarca, La Rioja, Mendoza, San Luis, Santiago del Estero, Santa Fe, Corrientes and Entre Ríos; Burn Institute at Viamonte 2189, Buenos Aires; Home School "Evita" in Ezeiza; Home School "Coronel Juan Perón in the capital city of Jujuy; Home School "Evita" in Termas de Reyes, Jujuy;  Home School "Juan D. Perón" in the capital city of Salta; Home School "President Perón" in Tucumán; Home School October 17th" in Catamarca; Home School "Coronel Perón" in La Rioja; Home Schools "Coronel Juan Perón" and "Governor Ruperto Godoy" in San Juan; Home School "October 17th" in Mendoza; Home School in Santa Rosa, Eva Perón Province; Home School "August 22nd" in Mercedes, San Luis; Home School "President Perón" in Santiago del Estero; Home School "Coronel Perón" in Córdoba; Home School in Resistencia, President Perón Province; Home School "Coronel Juan Perón" in Granadero Baigorria, Santa Fe Province; Home School "President Perón" in the capital of the province of Corrientes; Home Schools in Paraná,Entre Ríos and Comodoro Rivadavia; International Hotel in Ezeiza, Buenos Aires Province; Tourism hotels in Chapadmalal; Hotel Puente del Inca, Villa Eva Perón, Mendoza; Hotels and Cottages in Embalse Río Tercero, Córdoba.
            Works that are under construction and will be inaugurated soon: "University City" in Mendoza;  "University City" in Córdoba; "University City" in Ezeiza; Children’s Polyclinic in Warnes, Buenos Aires [this hospital for children, which would have been the largest in Latin America, was abandoned by the military after the 1955 Coup d’Etat and was taken over by derelicts and thieves]; Regional Polyclinics in Paraná, Entre Ríos and in Neuquén, and the Senior Citizens Complex in Santa Fe.
            This is an outline of the Fundación Eva Perón now.
            It is an enormous enterprise ... and its work to promote social justice is far reaching.

 
From Beneficence to Social Justice

     In order to understand the social action undertaken by Evita within the framework of Perón's first presidential term and especially with reference to the Fundación Eva Perón, it is necessary to understand the meaning of the revolution in social policy inserted "into the tendency of the governments which sprang from the June 4, 1943 Revolution to modernize, restructure and amplify the state apparatus, establishing a greater control over some institutions and putting into practice a social policy essentially opposed to that which had existed until that moment." (8)
    The era of Argentine social policy which Perón initiated from the Secretaría de Trabajo y Previsión and which later marked his Presidency remained forever linked to Evita.
    The fact that the First Lady made an incursion into the realm of "social welfare" should not surprise anyone. All first ladies had done so.
    Men considered this a privileged way in which women could manifest "the lovely qualities which the beautiful sex [women] possess to a high degree" ; the institutions within this orbit were entrusted from the beginning to the high society ladies of Buenos Aires.
    The primordial objective which guided the government at that time - "moral perfection and the cultivation of the spirit in the beautiful sex and the dedication of that same sex to what is called industry" (9)
    The trajectory of this institution, which was funded by donations, state subsidies (10) (*10b), collections and social events, was not exempt from social conflicts with its employees who received very small wages and whose right to days off was not respected. (11)
    This matter was taken under consideration just after Peronismo came into power. On June 14, 1946, 200 employees of the Society of Beneficence signed a petition in which they made their situation known. A few days later, the matter was brought up in the Senate, where Senator Diego Luis Molinari introduced a request for intervention, transmitted to the Executive Branch on July 25.
    As Marysa Navarro has stated very well, "all of these institutions were adequate for prePeronista Argentina, but were an anachronism, a profound contradiction to the society being gestated after Perón assumed the presidency." (12)
    Therefore, Degree 9414/46 declared that the Society of Beneficence of the Capital was to be intervened "so as to restructure its organization and adjust its function towards the technical norms and principles of assistance and social welfare inspired by government policy" ; Dr. Armando Méndez San Martín was designated auditor.
    The opposition connected the intervention to Eva Perón, whom they believed to be angry because the Society ladies had rejected her; she was seen as the deciding factor in the executive decision. Mary Main's story,(*2b) which has been profusely repeated and is the basis of much literature, is an example of this version:
   "It was customary for the wife of the President to become the honorary president of the Benevolent Society.
   "When Perón was inaugurated the good ladies were in a dilemma. They could not possibly invite "that woman" to be president of their society. It would mean establishing some sort of social contact with her and, really, she was the sort of person who should have been at the receiving end of charity! It was unthinkable, so they made no move.
    "But Eva was not the one to allow herself to be passed over so easily. She sent to inquire why they had not come to offer her the presidency of their society. With their unfailing urbanity they replied that she was, alas! too young, that their organization was one which must be headed by a woman of maturity.
   "Eva at once proposed that they should make her mother, Doña Juana, president - a suggestion that almost makes one credit her with a sense of humor.
                                                               .....
"This rebuff had consequences which these ladies, who had for so long occupied an impregnable position, could not possibly have foreseen. Eva set out to destroy both them and their Society, and out of this fury of destruction there rose the plan for her own charitable organization... ." (13)
    Argentine historian Fermín Chávez relates the following anecdote told by Dr. Esteban Rey: "As is known, there was a conflict which became public and which culminated with the intervention of the Society by the Peronista government. Dr. Leloir, who was a relative of the last president of the Society, echoed the worry the ladies had in the sense of not having their reputations besmirched in the eyes of posterity by what was being said about them. Therefore, he was the bearer of an invitation to Evita (and was invited to accompany her) to visit his relative. At first the meeting was very tense, but as tea was being served, Evita's joviality and charm won over the ladies... . The president, after having expressed her satisfaction at the way the meeting was going, said to her, "Señora, we have decided that from now on we will support your work, and to start off, we have just programmed a bridge party at the Plaza [Hotel] ... ." She could not finish her sentence. Evita stood up and said brusquely, "Absolutely not! You must realize that in this country the sorrows of the poor will never again serve as entertainment for the rich. Good day, ladies!" (14)

    To be strictly truthful, the fate of this traditional institution had been conceptually sealed since 1943, that is to say much before Evita could have had any influence. Beneficence, as it was understood and practiced until then in our country, was over; it would give way to social justice.
     "...Perón has taught me," Eva would say in My Mission in Life, "that what I do for the humble of my country is nothing more than justice.
     "...It is not philanthropy, nor is it charity, nor is it alms, nor is it social solidarity, nor is it benevolence. It is not even social welfare, although, to give it a more nearly appropriate name I have called it so.
     "To me it is strict justice. What made me most indignant when I commenced it was having it classified as "alms" or "benevolence."
    "For alms, as far as I am concerned, was always a pleasure of the rich: the soulless pleasure of exciting the desires of the poor without ever satisfying them. And so that alms should be even meaner and crueler, they invented "benevolence" and so added to the perverse pleasure of giving alms the pleasure of enjoying themselves happily with the pretext of the hunger of the poor. Alms and benevolence, to me, are an ostentation of riches and power to humiliate the humble.
    I think that God must often be ashamed of what the poor receive in His name!" (15)

The Task Begins

    "Before starting on the subject," Eva Peron would say in My Mission in Life, "it is well to remember that Perón is not only President of the Republic; he is also the Leader of his people.
    "This is a fundamental condition, and is directly related to my decision to handle the role of wife of the President of the Republic in a manner different from any President's wife who had preceded me.
                                                              ...
    "I had to have a double personality to correspond with Perón's double personality. One, Eva Perón, wife of the President of the Republic, whose work is simple and agreeable, a holiday job of receiving honors, of gala performances; the other, "Evita," wife of the Leader of a people who have placed all their faith in him, all their hope and all their love." (16)
    With this conviction, Evita began to develop her activity as a bridge between Perón and his people immediately after Perón's inauguration on June 4, 1946. She interceded in favor of the workers, visited marginalized neighborhoods, distributed clothes and food to needy families, solved problems which people told her about in letters which they sent to the Presidential Residence and attended to people who came to the door.
    Even though she had some idea of the difficulty of the endeavor even before she began to undertake it, it was only after she had begun that she realized the magnitude of her task.But by then she had deleted from her dictionary the word "impossible." (17)
    "At first I attended to everything personally. Then I had to ask for help. Finally I was obligated to organize the work which in just a few weeks had become extraordinary." (18)
    From the beginning Evita counted on the help of the Residence employees. Atilio Renzi, in charge of Residence personnel, would become her right hand.
    One of the garages was converted into a storehouse. "When Eva Perón returned from a trip to the Province of Santa Fe," he remembered, "she became enthused with the idea of creating a great social help organization. And when the labor unions began to send her donations (sugar from the people of Tucumán; clothes and material from the textile unions; leather and shoes from the leather workers union), we had to find a place to store everything: an old unused garage. The cook, Bartolo, the waiters, Sánchez and Fernández, the maid Irma and I baptized the place "The Delightful Store, La Tienda de las Delicias." (*3b)
     After Perón had gone to bed, we would stay up with Eva until dawn to package the merchandise. The sugar was our biggest problem: in her enthusiasm, la Señora [Evita] spilled more on the floor than she packaged into paper bags." (19)
    In September, Evita began work in what had been the Secretaría de Trabajo y Previsón, in the same office where Perón had worked from 1943 to 1945, a highly symbolic act as she herself manifests in her autobiography.
    The multiplicity, diversity and urgency of the matters brought before her caused her working day to lengthen each day more.
                                                                .....
    A little later, the until then titled "Social Help Crusade" or "María Eva Duarte de Perón Social Work" would give way to the "María Eva Duarte de Perón Social Work Foundation" as a consequence of the amplitude with which Evita's activities in society had increased and of the necessity of establishing a legally constituted organism which could centralize and control these activities. (20)
    
La Fundación Eva Perón

    The María Eva Duarte Social Help Foundation was established on June 19, 1948. Degree number 220.564 on July 8, 1948, gave it legal jurisdiction and approved its Statutes.

⁸ Navarro, Marysa: Evita, pg. 239

⁹ Act of Installation of the Society of Beneficence. Buenos Aires, abril 12, 1823.

¹⁰ Of the $17,130,839 dedicated to social welfare in the 1938 Budget, $9,989,890 went to the Society of Beneficence. In 1946, the Society received from the National Budget the sum of $21,889,406 for salaries and administrative expenses.

¹¹ See Diary of the Sessions of the Chamber of Deputies, 1939.

¹² Navarro, Marysa: op.cit. pg. 242.

¹³ Main, Mary: The Woman with the Whip, pg. 102.

¹⁴ Chávez, Fermín: Eva Perón Sin Mitos, pgs. 189-190.

¹⁵ Perón, Eva: My Mission in Life, pg. 126.

¹⁶ Ibid, pgs. 60-61.

¹⁷ Ibid, pg. 116.

¹⁸ Ibid.

¹⁹ Borroni-Vaca: La Vida de Eva Perón. Vol. 1, pg. 226.

²⁰ CFerioli, Néstor: La Fundación Eva Perón. Vol. 1, p.15.

^(*1b) Translator's note: In 1939 the Congressional Representative Juan Antonio Solari told about Society employees who routinely worked 12 to 14 hur days with a day off only every 10 to 15 days and were paid from 45 to 90 pesos when a fair minimum wage was considered to be 120 pesos. See Diario de Sesiones, 1939, vol. 7.

^(*2b) Translator's note: Mary Main's biography of Evita has no footnotes, no bibliography, no documentation of any sources or references; however, it is often cited and is the basis of the opera Evita.

^(*3b) For another version of how "Las Delicias" got its name, see the Mundo Peronista article. Click here

Bibliography

Borroni, Otelo, and Roberto Vacca. La Vida de Eva Perón. Buenos Aires: Galerna, 1971.
Chávez, Fermín. Eva Perón Sin Mitos. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Theoría, 1996.
Ferioli, Néstor. La Fundación Eva Perón. Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1990.
Main, Mary. The Woman With the Whip. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1980.
Navarro, Marysa. Evita. Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1994.
Perón, Eva. My Mission in Life. Translated by Ethel Cherry, New York: Vantage Press, 1953.