Two photographs by María Egües Ortiz (1917-2008): a periscopic gaze in times of misty silence

Abstract

María Egües (1917-2008) was a researcher and technologist in the field of optical instruments and an essential player in understanding the development of optical engineering in the first decades of the Franco regime. Based on two photographs, until recently unpublished, that reflect two crucial moments in her professional life, this essay offers a reflection on how a woman like Egües saw herself at a time when the mere presence of a woman in the techno-scientific system was, more often than not, rejected or ignored. Using the metaphorical resource of submarine periscopes, which allow us to see without being seen, this technologist, like a submarine, was able to progress in institutions like the CSIC, the university, and the army, the real technological pillars of the Francoist state, in the face of hostile or suspicious gazes. Even that regime, with its, in the words of Pedro Laín “atrocious dismemberment”, which had chopped down so much of the tree of Spanish science, could not allow itself to disregard the participation of at least some women, such as Egües, who were essential in the reconstruction of a techno-scientific system, so necessary for the survival of the system itself, despite certain atavistic rhetoric. This was the case with the development of a not-inconsiderable industry of optical instruments, especially, of course, those for military use. In this field, Egües, with forced discretion and persevering effort, would reach one of the most notable milestones: the design and manufacture of the first purely Spanish periscopes of the twentieth century.