Female Sociability and Archive: A Study on Three Women's Albums in Nineteenth-Century Colombia

Objective: This article analyzes the friendship albums of three nineteenth-century women in Colombia: Agripina Samper, Lastenia Soffia and Maria Gregoria de Haro. Methodology: The analysis is carried out from the primary sources indicated, adopting a gender perspective and with a cultural and a social history approach, considering also studies on material culture and women's sociability. Originality: This work contributes to the historical knowledge of nineteenth-century Colombia. The analysis of the albums, which until now have not been studied in-depth, proposes a new line of study that allows us to understand the functions that women played in the social life of the time. Conclusions: The albums present support for women's social networks at the same time that they allow the study of different forms of knowledge and information on the local and global culture, and discuss education, literature and history, gender roles, among other aspects. In the albums we can hear the voices of the three women who shaped and kept these albums, and that were silenced by the hegemonic historical archive. Their albums, as well as the objects and texts included in them, are material and discursive evidence of the strength and importance of women's networks, as well as their role in the political and cultural scene of nineteenth-century Colombia.