A Feisty Woman in Nineteenth-Century Mexico: Laura Méndez de Cuenca (1853–1928)

This article deals with the history of Laura Méndez de Cuenca (1853–1928)—a teacher, pedagogue, writer, and Mexican representative to many international meetings on education. She was one of the first feminists in the country. This article is based on numerous sources and takes its inspiration from the theory and methodology of the history of daily life. It also takes into account the “nouvelle histoire” posited by the historian Jacques Le Goff, and therefore includes a fluid and literary narrative armed with psychological insight and a bit of fiction when needed to fill in the gaps in the historical record. Both the “truth” and the “believable”—the factual versus fictional/imagined narrative—are utilized to recreate the life of Laura, a technique now accepted by many historians and biographers. I believe that women biographers produce works of greater intensity because of our commitment to understanding a woman’s life and to redressing the under-representation of this type of biography.