Mujeres de la élite y los saberes científicos en Chile: El Club de Señoras de Santiago y su rol en la ciencia (1916-1926)

This paper analyzes the work carried out by the Ladies Club of Santiago to weave a bridge between upper-class women and the scientific community in Chile at the beginning of the 20th century. The study uses as its main source the program of scientific conferences developed in the Club’s premises in its first ten years of operation, in which the attempt to bring these women closer to university academics and scientific authorities can be observed. This materializes through certain identified strategies. Among them, the visibility that these women were necessary for the academic scientific community, so that the latter could develop theories and scientific projects, especially in the field of hygiene; and on the other, the promotion of a discourse that defended the compatibility of scientific and academic activities with the domestic responsibilities traditionally attributed to women of this social class.