In 1915 the Women’s Group of the Residencia de Estudiantes, better known as
Residencia de Señoritas, opened its doors in Madrid, dependent on the Board for Expansion of
Studies and Scientific Research. The Residencia de Señoritas, located in several buildings in
Fortuny Street, is presented as a place of accommodation for women who came to Madrid to study
in the multiple centers of the capital or to expand their culture and as a means of intellectual and
moral formation. The success of the Residencia, run by María de Maeztu, is immediate, and since
1919 it establishes contacts with the International Institute for Girls in Spain, an American missionary
institution dedicated to the education of women. This relationship will give rise to an interesting
flow of exchanges which draws a model of women student relations between Spain and the United
States profoundly original and unparalleled. The aim of this contribution is to show the pioneering
exchanges of university women between the Residencia de Señoritas and the most relevant women
colleges of United States. In the study it has been used primary documentation of the Archive of the
Residencia de Señoritas, deposited in the Ortega y Gasset-Marañón Foundation, hemerographic
sources and complementary bibliography. The main conclusion is that since 1919 there was an
innovative policy of exchanges of university women from Spain to United States and vice versa,
very enriching intellectually and humanly, which will not be repeated until the most advanced post Francoism.
