Background
Carlota Matienzo Román was born in Barcelona, where her parents had met and married while her father was in law school. They settled in Mayaguez, where her father built his law practice and became active in politics.
Carlota Matienzo Román was born in Barcelona, where her parents had met and married while her father was in law school. They settled in Mayaguez, where her father built his law practice and became active in politics.
In 1907, Carlota Matienzo graduated from the University of Puerto Rico, among the first generation of students after the university was founded. She subsequently went to New York City for graduate work, where she studied philosophy at Columbia University.
She is credited with working for reform of the public school system in Puerto Rico, and as one of the founders in 1917 of the Puerto Rican Feminine League and in 1921 of the Suffragist Social League. He was Rosendo Matienzo Cintrón from Puerto Rico. In the beginning of the 1880s, the family returned to Puerto Rico from Barcelona.
She returned to Puerto Rico to become a teacher.
In her professional life, Matienzo worked on reform in the public school system in Puerto Rico in order to extend education to all classes of children. She also became active in other political issues.
In this period women"s rights groups were active throughout Latin America as well as in the United States. In 1921, Carlota Matienzo was one of the founders as the group changed its name to the Suffragist Social League and began to work directly for women"s voting rights.
Its members included medical doctors, writers and other intellectuals.
She helped organize major conferences in San Juan, Ponce, Puerto Rico and Arecibo. She was among the leaders who took women"s concerns to the legislature. After allying with the Popular Feminist Association of Working Women of Puerto Rico, the League supported universal suffrage.
The dissidents recruited members from the Union Party and Republican-Unionist Alliance.
Matienzo Román continued as one of the League"s prominent members until 1924, when it divided into two organizations, split largely along grounds of political party affiliation of its leaders. Those who remained with the League favored the Pure Republican Party and the Republican-Socialist Coalition.
In 1904 he was elected from the district as a member of the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico.