Eva Perón

María Eva Duarte de Perón (née Duarte; 7 May 1919 – 26 July 1952), better known as Eva "Evita" Perón, was an Argentine politician, activist, and actress who served as First Lady of Argentina from June 1946 until her death in July 1952, as the wife of Argentine President Juan Perón. She was born into poverty in the rural village of Los Toldos, in the Pampas, as the youngest of five children. In 1934, at age 15, she moved to Buenos Aires to pursue a career as a stage, radio, and film actress. She married Perón in 1945, when he was still an army colonel, and was propelled onto the political stage when he became President of Argentina. She became a central figure of Peronism and Argentine culture because of the Eva Perón Foundation, a charitable organization perceived by many Argentinians as highly impactful.

She met Colonel Juan Perón on 22 January 1944 during a charity event at the Luna Park Stadium to benefit the victims of an earthquake in San Juan, Argentina. The two were married the following year. When Perón became president, Eva Perón became powerful within the pro-Peronist trade unions, primarily for speaking on behalf of labor rights. She ran the Ministries of Labor and Health, founded and ran the Eva Perón Foundation, championed women's suffrage in Argentina, and founded and ran the nation's first large-scale female political party, the Female Peronist Party.

In 1951, Eva Perón announced her candidacy for the Peronist nomination for the office of Vice President of Argentina, receiving great support from the Peronist political base, low-income and working-class Argentines who were referred to as descamisados or "shirtless ones" (similar to the term sans-culottes during the French Revolution). Opposition from the military and bourgeoisie, coupled with her declining health, ultimately forced her to withdraw her candidacy. In 1952, shortly before her death from cancer at 33, she was given the title of "Spiritual Leader of the Nation of Argentina" by the Argentine Congress. She was given a state funeral upon her death, a prerogative generally reserved for heads of state.

Perón has become a part of international popular culture, most famously as the subject of the musical Evita (1976). Cristina Álvarez Rodríguez has said that Perón has never left the collective consciousness of Argentines. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the second female president of Argentina, claims that women of her generation owe a debt to Perón for "her example of passion and combativeness". Immediately after her death, mourners flocked to Buenos Aires on self-styled pilgrimages, and the city and sites associated with her have continued to attract pilgrims ever since.

Early life

Early childhood

Perón's 1951 biography, La Razón de mi Vida, contains no dates or references to childhood occurrences and does not list the location of her birth or her name at birth. According to Junín's civil registry, a birth certificate shows that one María Eva Duarte was born on May 7, 1922. Her baptismal certificate lists her date of birth as May 7, 1919, under the name Eva María Ibarguren. It is thought that in 1945 Perón created a forgery of her birth certificate for her marriage.

Perón spent her childhood in Junín. Her father, Juan Duarte Manechena Etchegoyen (1872–1926), was descended from French Basque immigrants. Her mother, Juana Ibarguren Nuñez (1894–1971), was descended from Spanish Basque immigrants. Juan Duarte, a wealthy rancher from nearby Chivilcoy, already had a wife Adela D'Uhart Hiriboronde and eleven children there. At that time in rural Argentina, it was not uncommon for a wealthy man to have several families.

When Perón was one year old, Duarte returned permanently to his legal family, leaving Juana Ibarguren and her children in abject poverty. They were forced to move to the poorest area of Junín. Los Toldos was a village in the dusty region of Las Pampas, with a reputation as a desolate place of poverty. To support herself and her children, Ibarguren sewed clothes for neighbours. The family was stigmatized by the abandonment by the father and by the illegitimate status of the children under Argentine law, and was consequently somewhat isolated. A desire to expunge this part of her life might have been a motivation for Perón to arrange the destruction of her original birth certificate in 1945.

When Duarte suddenly died and Ibarguren and their children sought to attend his funeral, there was conflict. Although Ibarguren and the children were permitted to enter and pay their respects, they were promptly directed out of the church. Duarte's widow did not want her late husband's mistress and children at the funeral. As she was the legitimate wife, her orders were respected.

Junín

Before he abandoned Juana Ibarguren, Duarte had been her sole means of support. Biographer John Barnes writes that, after this abandonment, all Duarte left to the family was a document declaring that the children were his, thus enabling them to use the Duarte surname. Soon after, Juana moved her children to a one-room apartment in Junín. To pay the rent on their single-roomed home, mother and daughters took up jobs as cooks in the houses of the local estancias.

Eventually, owing to Eva's older brother's financial help, the family moved into a bigger house, which they later transformed into a boarding house. During this time, young Eva often participated in school plays and concerts. One of her favourite pastimes was the cinema. Though Eva's mother wanted to marry her off to one of the local bachelors, Eva dreamed of becoming a famous actress. Eva's love for acting was reinforced in October 1933, when she played a small role in a school play called Arriba Estudiantes (Students Arise), which Barnes describes as "an emotional, patriotic, flag-waving melodrama". After the play, Eva was determined to become an actress.