Salomé Ureña

Among her most notable works are: Offering to the Homeland, The bird and the nest and Shadows, To my mother, among others.

• Name — Salomé Ureña • Birth Name — Salomé Ureña Díaz • Born — 11 October 1850 • Birthplace — Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic • Died — 6 March 1897 • Place of death — Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic • Resting Place — National Pantheon of the Dominican Republic • Occupation — Writer • pedagogy • Years Active — 1867–1881 • Spouse — Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal • Parents — Nicolás Ureña de Mendoza and Gregoria Díaz de León • Children — Francisco Noel Henríquez Ureña, Pedro Henríquez Ureña, Maximiliano Henríquez Ureña, Camila Salomé Henríquez Ureña

She was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic on October 21, 1850. She was the daughter of writer Nicolás Ureña de Mendoza and Gregoria Díaz de León both from Santo Domingo, their marriage union lasted five years. Her father was a politician and journalist who held positions in the judiciary and congress. Despite the separation of her parents, the relationship of Salomé with her father was endearing and undoubtedly fundamental in her intellectual and moral formation. Salomé learned to read with her mother and at the age of four, which reveals the care of both parents, who gave a solid training to Salomé. She attended the elementary schools of her time, while her studies as a teenager was done under the guidance of her father, from whom she received extensive literary instruction. Salomé learned the verses of her father's favorite bards, her cultural level was nourished by Spanish classics as well English and French literature. She began writing verses at the age of fifteen, later publishing her first works at the age of seventeen, with a characteristic imprint of spontaneity and tenderness. In 1867 she published her first works under the pseudonym "Herminia", a name she used until 1874. On February 11, 1880, at the age of twenty-nine, she married the doctor and writer Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal, a politician who achieved the presidency of the Dominican Republic. She had four children with him: Francisco, Pedro, Max and Camila. Her children's would later become highly respected figures of contemporary literature of the mid- and late twentieth century as writers, philosophers, poets, humanists and art critics.

• Illustration — Statue of Salomé Ureña in the Ciudad Colonial of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Around 1881, Salomé with the help of her husband opened one of the first centers of higher education for young women in the Dominican Republic, which she named "Instituto de Señoritas". The first secondary institution offering co-educational schooling in the country had been opened by Socorro Sánchez del Rosario before 1870 in Santiago de los Caballeros and Sánchez then opened the Colegio La Altagracia (High Grace College) for women in Santo Domingo in 1881, graduating the first licensed teacher of the nation, Dolores Rodríguez Objío, in 1883. Within five years, the first six female teachers had graduated from the institute, something uncommon at the time. The first graduating class included Mercedes Laura Aguiar, Leonor M. Feltz, Altagracia Henríquez Perdomo, Luisa Ozema Pellerano, Catalina Pou, and Ana Josefa Puello.

Ureña died on March 6, 1897, at age 46, due to complications of tuberculosis. Buried in the church of Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes and then, in 1972, she was transferred to the Pantheon of the Homeland. • Illustration — Pantheon National with mausoleum of Salome Urena, Santo Domingo.

• José E. Marcano selection • PUCMM selection • Los-poetas.com selection

• 1873 – The glory of progress • 1876 – Ruins • 1877 – The arrival of winter • 1878 – Faith in the future • 1880 – Anacaona • 1880 – Poetry of Salomé Ureña de Henríquez • 1881 – Shadows • 1897 – My Pedro • 1902 – Herminia

• Castro Ventura, Santiago. Salomé Ureña: Jornada fecunda. Santo Domingo: Editora de Colores, 1998. • Céspedes, Diógenes. Salomé Ureña y Hostos. Santo Domingo: Secretaría de Estado de Cultura and Biblioteca Nacional Pedro Henríquez Ureña, 2002. • Cocco DeFilippis, Daisy, selection and prologue. Sin otro profeta que su canto: Antología de poesía escrita por dominicanas. Santo Domingo: Taller, 1988.