Born: 14 June 1881, Spain
Died: 31 July 1926
Country most active: United States (Puerto Rico)
Also known as: Carlota Matienzo Román
The following is excerpted from “400 Outstanding Women of the World and the Costumology of Their Time” by Minna Moscherosch Schmidt, published in 1933.
Born in Barcelona, Spain, June 14, 1881. Died in Flushing, Long Island, July 3, 1926. Carlota Matienzo y Roman, although she happened to be born in Spain and to die in Long Island, was daughter of a family in many ways illustrious in Puerto Rican history. She was one of those great teachers whose ideals persist, take root, and bear fruit, long after all immediate personal influence has passed away.
Carlota Matienzo was graduated from the University of Puerto Rico in 1907, later continuing her studies in Columbia University in New York; and she dedicated to the rejuvenation and enlargement of the insular system of public schools her rare intellectual and administrative gifts, along with the fructifying force of a rich, winning and noble personality. Her fame as a teacher spread rapidly, far beyond the borders of her own country; but, except for a period of several years on the faculty of Tassar and of Columbia University, she steadfastly refused, in order to devote herself to educational problems at home, the offers of professional advancement that came to her from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mexico and the United States. She was a true feminist, and supported ardently the principle of equal rights for women. She helped notably in the struggle to obtain votes for women in Puerto Rico, but died before success crowned the suffrage endeavor in 1932.
With her untimely death in 1926, Puerto Rico lost one of its most devoted and constructive citizens. Acceding to the petition of the Puerto Rican Association of Women Suffragists, Carlota Matienzo’s Alma Mater, the University of Puerto Rico, bestowed her name in 1927 upon the beautiful Hall for Women Students, the Carlota Matienzo Residence, unique in Hispanic America, one of the most imposing of the University buildings. The name of Carlota Matienzo is also commemorated in the Carlota Matienzo Prize, awarded every year to the member of the graduating class of the College of Education of the University who shows most aptitude for teaching and highest endowment of those qualities of heart and mind which flowered so richly in Carlota Matienzo herself.