And Ernestina, born in 1896 and died in 1976, may very well, at least after publication next year of the biography that D\u00edaz-Marcos has penned about her life, finally get a Wikipedia entry \u2013 maybe even a movie.<\/p>\n
Because the story of Ernestina and her husband Leo Fleischman is colorful enough for the silver screen. It\u2019s one of bravery, exile, tragic love, sorority, espionage, and activism during a time when the Spanish Civil War shaped their lives.<\/p>\n
\u2018So powerful and so committed\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\nIn 2021, D\u00edaz-Marcos says she was doing research in La voz for a digital humanities project on feminism and antifascism<\/a>. She\u2019d arranged with the New York Public Library, then closed during the pandemic, to get PDFs of the paper\u2019s women\u2019s page sent to her, so she could continue her work.<\/p>\nIn one of those packets, the headline \u201cMujeres a la Lucha,\u201d or \u201cWomen to the Fight,\u201d caught her attention, she says. The article opens with two words – Ernestina Gonz\u00e1lez \u2013 and goes on to talk about a speech she gave before a packed theater and her thoughts on the responsibilities of Spanish, Hispanic, and Latina women in the city at that time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so powerful and so committed. I mean, the words are on fire,\u201d D\u00edaz-Marcos says of the speech. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe I never heard of her, not a single word, and I\u2019m a feminist scholar.\u201d<\/p>\n
With her initial project wrapped, D\u00edaz-Marcos says she turned toward Ernestina, finding only a small article about her and her sister, who were both librarians born in Burgos, Spain.<\/p>\n![\"Black-and-white](\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\")
A photo of Ernestina and Leo Fleischman. (Courtesy of the Vic\u00e9ns family)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThen more digging uncovered an April 1938 photograph<\/a> from the Library of Congress depicting a crowd of 3,000 women who\u2019d traveled by train from New York to Washington, D.C., to urge the neutral United States to support Republican Spain in its civil war with the Nationalists lead by Gen. Francisco Franco.<\/p>\nThe photo\u2019s cutline says, \u201cThe widow who headed the delegation was Mrs. Ernestina Gonzales, PH.D., and former Director of the Madrid University Library.\u201d<\/p>\n
D\u00edaz-Marcos says she thought Gonz\u00e1lez\u2019s efforts \u2013 after all, she\u2019d mobilized thousands of women to march on the National Mall – merited at least some academic attention. But she started digging and couldn\u2019t stop.<\/p>\n
\u201cErnestina was one of the most important activists in New York from 1937 when she moved there after her husband was killed until 1953 when she fled to Mexico during McCarthyism. Even then, she was advocating nonstop against Franco, fascism, and colonialism. She never stopped,\u201d D\u00edaz-Marcos says.<\/p>\n
During those 20 years in New York, Ernestina published work as a journalist in Spanish language newspapers and directed a radio program, all while conducting grassroots activism against the Franco regime.<\/p>\n
Surveilled for 20-plus years<\/strong><\/h4>\nErnestina came to the U.S. in 1926 as a Spanish lecturer at the University of Lincoln in Nebraska, D\u00edaz-Marcos says. Her FBI file \u2013 oh, that\u2019s right, she has two dossiers totaling 1,500 pages \u2013 indicates her contract wasn\u2019t renewed because she didn\u2019t fit what the school was looking for.<\/p>\n
Despite her 5-foot-3 frame, she was a firecracker – liked to party, smoked on campus, cut her hair into a bob \u2013 and the students gossiped about her, according to the department chair who the FBI interviewed as part of its surveillance of her.<\/p>\n
The FBI file places her in New York by 1929.<\/p>\n
D\u00edaz-Marcos says she got the idea to request the file after talking with a colleague, who also had a fellowship<\/a> with the UConn Humanities Institute<\/a> last year, about making freedom-of-information requests.<\/p>\nShe knew Ernestina moved in leftist circles and had been interrogated by the House Un-American Activities Committee, so it was reasonable to assume there might be a file. Turns out, she was under heavy surveillance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were covering her mail. They were talking to the janitor, the superintendent, and the postman. Everything is documented in a declassified document of 600 pages that I received,\u201d D\u00edaz-Marcos says, explaining the rest of the file was archived in Maryland and not readily accessible.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was under surveillance for more than 20 years, even into her second exile in Mexico,\u201d she goes on to say. \u201cThe FBI had all her associates under watch not because of what was happening in Mexico, but the implication it would have for Soviet espionage or communism in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not to mention that her sister was living and raising a family in Moscow.<\/p>\n
But before any of this, Ernestina met Leo, cousin to the Fleischmann yeast family and nephew of Minnie Untermyer, a prominent New Yorker whose husband Samuel was the first American lawyer to earn a $1 million fee on a single case. He gave the estate in Yonkers, New York, that today is the Untermyer Gardens Conservancy<\/a>.<\/p>\nD\u00edaz-Marcos says she doesn\u2019t know exactly how the two met, or precisely when. She managed to discern that Ernestina was taking English classes in New York for a summer and had a friend who got engaged to a wealthy American who was Jewish.<\/p>\nAna Mar\u00eda D\u00edaz-Marcos, a Spanish professor in UConn’s Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, has written a biography of Ernestina Gonz\u00e1lez Fleischman, one of the most important activists in New York City in the 1930s. (Contributed photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIt\u2019s possible this woman\u2019s family and the Fleischmans were connected through their social circle, thus bringing together Ernestina and Leo. It\u2019s also possible the two came together because they both spoke Spanish; Leo had spent time in Peru as a mine engineer.<\/p>\n
She does know they married in 1932 and moved to Ernestina\u2019s home country of Spain the following year.<\/p>\n
In one of those packets, the headline \u201cMujeres a la Lucha,\u201d or \u201cWomen to the Fight,\u201d caught her attention, she says. The article opens with two words – Ernestina Gonz\u00e1lez \u2013 and goes on to talk about a speech she gave before a packed theater and her thoughts on the responsibilities of Spanish, Hispanic, and Latina women in the city at that time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so powerful and so committed. I mean, the words are on fire,\u201d D\u00edaz-Marcos says of the speech. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe I never heard of her, not a single word, and I\u2019m a feminist scholar.\u201d<\/p>\n
With her initial project wrapped, D\u00edaz-Marcos says she turned toward Ernestina, finding only a small article about her and her sister, who were both librarians born in Burgos, Spain.<\/p>\n Then more digging uncovered an April 1938 photograph<\/a> from the Library of Congress depicting a crowd of 3,000 women who\u2019d traveled by train from New York to Washington, D.C., to urge the neutral United States to support Republican Spain in its civil war with the Nationalists lead by Gen. Francisco Franco.<\/p>\n The photo\u2019s cutline says, \u201cThe widow who headed the delegation was Mrs. Ernestina Gonzales, PH.D., and former Director of the Madrid University Library.\u201d<\/p>\n D\u00edaz-Marcos says she thought Gonz\u00e1lez\u2019s efforts \u2013 after all, she\u2019d mobilized thousands of women to march on the National Mall – merited at least some academic attention. But she started digging and couldn\u2019t stop.<\/p>\n \u201cErnestina was one of the most important activists in New York from 1937 when she moved there after her husband was killed until 1953 when she fled to Mexico during McCarthyism. Even then, she was advocating nonstop against Franco, fascism, and colonialism. She never stopped,\u201d D\u00edaz-Marcos says.<\/p>\n During those 20 years in New York, Ernestina published work as a journalist in Spanish language newspapers and directed a radio program, all while conducting grassroots activism against the Franco regime.<\/p>\n Ernestina came to the U.S. in 1926 as a Spanish lecturer at the University of Lincoln in Nebraska, D\u00edaz-Marcos says. Her FBI file \u2013 oh, that\u2019s right, she has two dossiers totaling 1,500 pages \u2013 indicates her contract wasn\u2019t renewed because she didn\u2019t fit what the school was looking for.<\/p>\n Despite her 5-foot-3 frame, she was a firecracker – liked to party, smoked on campus, cut her hair into a bob \u2013 and the students gossiped about her, according to the department chair who the FBI interviewed as part of its surveillance of her.<\/p>\n The FBI file places her in New York by 1929.<\/p>\n D\u00edaz-Marcos says she got the idea to request the file after talking with a colleague, who also had a fellowship<\/a> with the UConn Humanities Institute<\/a> last year, about making freedom-of-information requests.<\/p>\n She knew Ernestina moved in leftist circles and had been interrogated by the House Un-American Activities Committee, so it was reasonable to assume there might be a file. Turns out, she was under heavy surveillance.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were covering her mail. They were talking to the janitor, the superintendent, and the postman. Everything is documented in a declassified document of 600 pages that I received,\u201d D\u00edaz-Marcos says, explaining the rest of the file was archived in Maryland and not readily accessible.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was under surveillance for more than 20 years, even into her second exile in Mexico,\u201d she goes on to say. \u201cThe FBI had all her associates under watch not because of what was happening in Mexico, but the implication it would have for Soviet espionage or communism in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n Not to mention that her sister was living and raising a family in Moscow.<\/p>\n But before any of this, Ernestina met Leo, cousin to the Fleischmann yeast family and nephew of Minnie Untermyer, a prominent New Yorker whose husband Samuel was the first American lawyer to earn a $1 million fee on a single case. He gave the estate in Yonkers, New York, that today is the Untermyer Gardens Conservancy<\/a>.<\/p>\n D\u00edaz-Marcos says she doesn\u2019t know exactly how the two met, or precisely when. She managed to discern that Ernestina was taking English classes in New York for a summer and had a friend who got engaged to a wealthy American who was Jewish.<\/p>\n It\u2019s possible this woman\u2019s family and the Fleischmans were connected through their social circle, thus bringing together Ernestina and Leo. It\u2019s also possible the two came together because they both spoke Spanish; Leo had spent time in Peru as a mine engineer.<\/p>\n She does know they married in 1932 and moved to Ernestina\u2019s home country of Spain the following year.<\/p>\n![\"Black-and-white](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/FotoErnestinayLeo.jpg\")
Surveilled for 20-plus years<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"Ana](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Ana-Maria-Diaz-Marcos-218x300.jpg\")