Epistolary and Commodity Exchanges in Nineteenth-Century Argentina, or Mariquita Sánchez de Mendeville’s Agency

Sánchez de Mendeville’s life was profoundly meshed into the fabric of Argentina’s early republic. Her tertulias gathered the most important voices of Argentinean politics and culture and there she forged alliances and friendships that would last her lifetime. In this chapter, Mocchi-Radichi studies Mariquita’s correspondence with her daughter—Florencia Thompson de Lezica—as a sort of emotional anchor for her exiled self. It is through the discussions about finances and the control that she could exercise over her material well-being where Mocchi-Radichi finds her most explicit assertion of political agency. Moreover, it is in the letters addressed to her daughter where Mariquita questions most overtly the economic dependence of women and the roles assigned in society.