Isabel Vilà Pujol was a republican, a fighter for the workers rights, and considered the first catalan trade unionist. She had five siblings and in the fifties the family had to move to Llagostera, the cork industry center, because of economic problems. Her father died, who worked in the cork industry, and she didn’t know how to read and write, so she dedicated her youth to working, taking care of ill people and getting instructed, as she wanted to be a teacher, getting to know more republican circles.

In the zone, the life and working conditions of the people who worked in the industry were clearly exorbitant. In the middle 1800, the working class had a life expectancy around sixty four years old, while the priests could get to live until they were around forty years old. The strike right didn’t even exist, neither the association one, the boss of the industry fired who he wanted the way he wanted without any reason or payment, women were paid half of the salary that men earned, day laborers’ children entered in the industries at the age of six and earned only eight or ten pennies (0’1€ approximately), alimentation was insufficient and working conditions in wet garages where they normally manipulated toxic substances, added illnesses and working accidents.

The 1868 Revolution broke out when she was twenty-five years old. The republicans wanted to use weapons, and although she was against it, she helped with the preparation of the sanitary equipment. A concentration of all the federals was done in “la Bisbal” to walk all together to Girona. On their way, they passed through Calonge, where the really known “Foc de la Bisbal” (Fire of la Bisbal) broke out, where she attended the injured ones and she didn’t want to go until they removed the last injured one, her uncle.

She was known as Isabel Cinc Hores (Isabel Five Hours) because of her claim of the five hours workday for the under thirteen boys and for the under seventeen girls. She took part in a campaign related to that, she requested a library for the people from Llagostera, she fought to get the five hours workday for the children that worked in the industries, etc. so she was recognised as a paradigmatic woman for her times. She took part in the establishment of the International Association of Workers (AIT) in Baix Empordà and created the Local Foundation of the International Association of Workers in Llagostera.

In 1847, with the coup d’etat of the general Pavía and the legalization of the International, a arrest warrant was sent out to Vilà, so she went into exile to Carcassonne. There she was taken in by a masons family and she was able to do her teaching studies while she taught Spanish. In 1880 she returned to Catalunya to work as a teacher and she founded an school in Barcelona. Later she became the director of a girls school of the Sabadell Free Teaching Institution, where she died.

She is considered the first catalan woman to be a trade unionist and her name has been recognised by the politic from “la Bisbal” Pere Caimó, and later by Carles Rahola. Her name has been honored and different catalan towns (as Calonge and Sabadell) have public spaces that have her name. There’s also a musical inspired in her life, directed by Kim Planella.