‘These Ladies Out-radical the Radicals’: María de Maeztu, Victoria Kent and Victoria Ocampo

The article begins by analysing an excerpt from a letter, dated Madrid, 20 October 1921, from North American Hispanist Caroline Bourland to the President of Smith College, Massachusetts. The paragraph in question describes a private dinner at the Residencia de Señoritas, to which Bourland had been invited by María de Maeztu along with Spanish politician Victoria Kent and Argentine intellectual Victoria Ocampo. The purpose of this article is to consider exactly what Bourland meant when she claimed that those three women appeared to ‘out-radical the radicals’. Included in the study is the intriguing tale of the passion felt by María de Maeztu for Victoria Ocampo and her jealousy of Victoria Kent. The article thus demonstrates the need to investigate female homoeroticism within the milieu of the Residencia de Señoritas.