Nursing asylum in Valencia It is an institution founded in 1878 in Valencia, launched in the 80's and that was located in 1909 in a building from the time of the Regional Exhibition that survives until today. I was destined to nursery for the children of the workers of the Tabacalera, which stood next door.
Which reminds me of a concept that I have talked about in the blog on occasion, the issue of daycare at work. Obviously, the working conditions of today do not have to do with that of the early nineteenth century, and I do not want to imagine the hours that babies would be in the asylum (days close to 12 hours), surely without being able to see their mothers , who would not have too many "breaks."
But it is possible that precisely these precarious conditions and the large number of women who worked in the cigar makers (more than two thousand at that time) gave them strength to make certain demands: the salary issue and the improvements in working conditions were demanded in the Different factories throughout Spain for these women. Would nursing home be one of your claims?
According to a study dedicated to the employment status of women in cigar makers, nursing homes responded to a more beneficial than social issue (this was the precarious situation of these workers), so that the children were treated close to the mothers ( they were taken care of by Franciscan nuns).
Some time ago we talked about a building with a curious history, the nursing home in Barcelona where, curiously, the main figure of the facade appears offering a bottle. But in that case there were mothers who offered their milk to the babies of others in exchange for remuneration, and they also cared for orphans and children in need.
The Nursing Asylum of Valencia is the work of the architect Ramón Lucini Callejo, and follows the constructive tradition of the 19th century with the survival of academicism, and a certain historicist modernism. It is built from a brick factory with lists of tile bands in blue and white tones. Nowadays it has gone to a much more relaxing function, since it houses the Alameda Spa, an urban spa.
In any case, the image that accompanies these lines, taken in the Fallas of Valencia, does not correspond to what should be usual in Nursing home of Valencia: Many babies and children served and fed by nuns while their mothers worked in the factory next door.
