Signed Spanish Fan

During the Civil War, many soldiers followed the custom of inscribing group signatures on the reverse of the traditional Spanish folding fan – el abanico.  The fan was then a record and a keepsake marking their time together and the struggle they were engaged in.  Many of these artefacts returned home with the International Brigade volunteers to be given to friends, relatives and supporters.   

This example was donated to Museum of Vancouver in early 2026 by the family of Mary Erickson (1894-1960). Erickson was widowed in 1926—with four children between two and nine years of age—when her longshoreman husband was killed in a Vancouver waterfront accident. During the Spanish Civil War, she volunteered with the Friends of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. The group raised funds and sent packages of comforts like socks, chocolates and cigarettes to the volunteers in Spain. It is surmised that through these connections she came to possess the abanico.

The fan was most likely created in Albacete, the headquarters of the Brigades, in the autumn of 1937.  The 35  names set out on the varillas - the wooden ribs of the fan (second photo), are those of Canadian volunteers in the XVth International Brigade, most of whom were from British Columbia, and who fought in the ranks of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battallion, or “Mac-Paps” as the Canadian volunteers came to be known. 

It is a testament to the savagery of the war and the overwhelming difficulty faced by the loyalist Republican forces, that of the 35 men whose names are inscribed on this fan, 13 would die in battle and most of the remainder would be wounded. 

Similar inscribed abanicos are found in museums in Arizona USA, Manchester England, Ottawa Canada, and Tarazona de la Mancha, Spain. 

DY