The procession stops at the door of the hotel. They are attended by a man who
‘peered at us through thick spectacles over a small shiny red nose and rubbed his hands’.
They are given two rooms on the third floor, even though the man insists on giving them one because it is normal for families, especially when there is a daughter. By the way, Ruth is portrayed in a mural by Gonzalo Vilas that is in the interior today. Let’s now go to the Tránsito dos Gramáticos. Look at the plaque on the building, they only mention the names of two men who stayed at the Hotel Suízo. Today, we will complete the story by mentioning at least two women.
Thanks to several photographs of Ruth, we know that her room faced this way. In her father’s room, they took another one where photographs are shown hanging from a string, in the process of being developed. It can be seen that, out of necessity, they develop where they can. Alfred writes in his diary that
‘Saturday night we developed 50 and hung them up to dry on a string stretched from one end to the other of my room (…) We have no running water, but we have the maid fetch us a big can of water (…). I have never developed more comfortably in my life’.
Let’s go back to day one. The uncomplaining porter picks up their bags, and Ruth and Alfred go for a walk. Let’s take this opportunity to explain what the Hispanic Society is and what Ruth’s mission is.
At the end of the 19th century, the United States was an emerging empire. Spain represents decadence and is no longer a threat after losing the war of 1898. Hispanophilia is growing in popularity: the romantic idea of an exotic, primitive Spain populated by bandits, beggars and friars; a paradise of gypsies, noblemen and mysterious women. What is interesting about Spain is its past, traces of its old ways of life are still to be found, frozen in time, in the rural areas.
Ruth’s boss, New Yorker Archer Milton Huntington, grows up in this environment; his father is a railroad and shipyard magnate and his mother, an art collector, instils in him a love of museums. Huntington travelled throughout Europe and Spain, and thus ‘caught’ the ‘Hispanophilia‘ fever and published the book Note-book of Northern Spain, where he says that Santiago is ‘the early Christian Cordova‘, although desolate and poor. Despite the book’s stereotypes, he notes the diversity of Spain’s regions, unlike other visitors. He also goes to A Coruña, where a street bears his name.
Like other philanthropists, Huntington created a museum and library in Manhattan, The Hispanic Society of America, with the aim of ‘condense the soul of Spain into meanings, through works of the hand and spirit‘. He does not want to plunder the Peninsula and buys books and art outside of it. He is also well-related. In fact, a newspaper of the time says that Afonso XIII shows Huntington, ‘particular and unlimited consideration’, at a stage in which the monarch promotes a ‘peaceful invasion’ of American investment.
Huntington commissions Sorolla to paint about the Spanish traditions of the different regions. Among them, there is one on Galicia. His will be the first Hispanic Society exhibition and becomes a huge success. After the World War, Huntington focuses on cataloguing and making monographs, and after bad experiences with male scholars, he only hires women, many of them deaf, somewhat innovative for the time. He offers them training and specialization in various cultural fields.
Huntington, aware of the importance of photography and its museum value, sends female researchers on training expeditions in which the function of photography is more didactic than artistic. He wants them to frequent fairs and parties, to mix and listen to people, and to become aware of their clothes and the way they wear them. Thus, Ruth goes to Spain for the first time in 1923 with other colleagues, without reaching Galicia. It is at that moment that she begins to learn Spanish. Once their training is advanced, some of these photographers will make specific expeditions to document everyday life of Hispanic culture in different territories both on the Iberian Peninsula and in Latin America and Africa. Among them is Ruth, who has been cataloguing and taking photographs of objects for three years at the Hispanic Society.
Let’s now move on to Rúa Tras San Fiz de Solovio.