Born: 13 December 1895, Spain
Died: 2 June 1970
Country most active: Spain
Also known as: Luciano de San Saor
The following bio was written by Emma Rosen, author of On This Day She Made History: 366 Days With Women Who Shaped the World and This Day In Human Ingenuity & Discovery: 366 Days of Scientific Milestones with Women in the Spotlight, and has been republished with permission.
Lucía Sánchez Saornil is known for co-founding the Mujeres Libres organization with Mercedes Comaposada and Amparo Poch y Gascón. She was passionate about self-education and wrote poetry (under the male pen name Luciano de San Saor) about industrialism, religion, marriage, anarchism, and economic revolution. She also expressed lesbian desire in times when queerness was not only not accepted but risked arrest.
In 1931, she joined the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and became part of the Spanish anarchist movement. However, she encountered sexism within it, prompting her to establish Mujeres Libres with Comaposada and Poch y Gascón to promote anarchist feminism.
During the Spanish Civil War, she stayed devoted to Mujeres Libres and served as the Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista (SIA) secretary. She advocated for international support for the Republican cause and briefly went into exile after Catalonia fell. Later, she returned clandestinely to Francoist Spain and lived in Valencia in hiding until her death.
Sánchez Saornil dedicated her later life to caring for her sister Conchita, who suffered from a chronic condition. She shared her life with her partner, América Barroso, for 30 years. Lucía Sánchez Saornil died in 1970, a few months after her sister’s death. Barroso engraved a poignant line from one of her poems on her gravestone:
“But can it be true that hope has died?”