The image that heads these lines is part of the

Alfonso

exhibition

. Care with memory

, recently inaugurated in the Canal de Isabel II Room and dedicated to the famous saga of photographers who took the pulse of 20th century Spain. Curated by Ana Berruguete and Chema Conesa, this second influences the fact that

the Madrid of the Alfonso is Madrid throughout its history

: the one that encompasses both the raising of its foundations as well as "republican idealization" and "the destruction of war." "Always under the leadership of citizens, their life problems and their desire to celebrate the slightest breath."



Scenes like this one, starring a group of dressmakers dressed in the typical shawl, account for that desire to celebrate. The image, dated 1933 on Gran Vía, shows them ready to

celebrate the feast of San Antonio

. The tradition says that, every June 13, workers of this union got up early to visit the hermitage of the saint, to whom they addressed their prayers to find a husband.

In the year in which the photograph was taken, the average wage for a dressmaker could range from one to three pesetas.

Accustomed to working in poorly ventilated, poorly lit, and often clandestine workshops,

the introduction of the eight-hour day and a minimum wage was

still something to be fought for.

They spared no time or energy to raise their voices.

To try to associate.

With arms akimbo and gaze forward, as they pose in the image.

This is confirmed by the chronicles of the time that are preserved today.

"How much do you earn?" Josefina Carabias asks a dressmaker with whom she meets in 1935, on the pages of the now-defunct newspaper

La Voz

.

-Don't talk about that, because you want to start crying. One peseta, two pesetas, ten reais ... Those who are some wonderful officials and are lucky enough to be placed in a posh fashion house, because they earn a durito, and they are going to burn! I earn two pesetas, which, discounting Sundays and if one day there is a lack of money, as they are about ten dollars a month wrongly counted. Imagine the month that I have to buy some shoes, well ... Convince yourself that this being a dressmaker is a bad business.

The newspaper library does not lie, nor do the images of Alfonso, whose archive defines Conesa as an

"artifact of memory

.

"

"In this country it is almost impossible to study history through these documents given their disappearance and, in the best of cases, their dispersion in institutions and private collections", laments the photographer.

"The Alfonso archive has been saved, but what about the hundreds of photographers who worked before and after the Alfonso? Perhaps politics is not interested in memory, it is not going to be that they change his speech."

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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