Born: 21 October 1850, Dominican Republic
Died: 6 March 1898
Country most active: Dominican Republic
Also known as: NA
Dominican poet Salomé Ureña was an early advocate for women’s higher education in the Dominican Republic.
Born to parents who provided their daughter with an early education, Salomé was influenced by literature from a young age, particularly Spanish and French classics. She began publishing her first works when she was 17, and soon became known for her spontaneity and tenderness. Her poetry later became more tragic with poems like “En horas de angustia” (In Hours of Anguish) or very patriotic in poems like “La Patria” (The Motherland) and “Ruinas” (Ruins). She included more personal themes in her work, as seen in “Mi Pedro” (dedicated to her son), “La llegada del invierno” (The Arrival of the Winter), and her popular book “Steven”, in which she talks about her country, her family, plants and the island itself.
In 1880, she married Dr. Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal; their four children would later become respected as writers, philosophers, poets, and critics of the arts.
Around 1881, Salomé opened “Instituto de Señoritas”, one of the first higher education institutes for young women in the Dominican Republic. Within five years, the first teachers had graduated from the Institute, uncommon for women at the time. The graduates included journalist, poet and activist Mercedes Laura Aguiar, as well as Leonor M. Feltz, Altagracia Henríquez Perdomo, Luisa Ozema Pellerano, Catalina Pou, and Ana Josefa Puello.