María Luz Morales. The ‘Grand Dame of the Press’. Biographical recovery and contributions to the history of journalism

Abstract

María Luz Morales (A Coruña, 1890 - Barcelona, 1980) stands as one of those female figures whose place in the collective memory of journalism began to fade as soon as the Spanish Civil War came to an end. She became the first woman to direct a nationwide newspaper in Spain, assuming the leadership of La Vanguardia between 1936 and 1937. This milestone brought severe consequences: imprisonment, political purging, and a prohibition from practising her profession. Prior to that, she had achieved prominence in every sphere of journalism, a field to which she was only officially allowed to return two years before her death. Nevertheless, she never abandoned her vocation. In addition to her journalistic career, she was a prominent pioneer in the film industry, an important contributor to children’s literature, as well as a translator, writer, lecturer, and a leading figure in numerous associative initiatives. This thesis rescues, for the first time in Spain, her complete biography and compiles and analyzes the entirety of her journalistic work in some of the most significant publications of the period: El Hogar y la Moda, Lecturas, El Sol, La Vanguardia, and Diario de Barcelona. Furthermore, it examines her feminist and political dimensions and redefines her cultural and political connections with her native Galicia, repositioning her in her rightful historical place as a pioneering newspaper editor and a singular example of journalistic brilliance in the twentieth century.