To some extent, I agree with your assessment. The praise lavished on her, going so far as to call her a saint, goes beyond the scope of her accomplishments. She didn’t end poverty in Argentina. She didn’t destroy inequality. She didn’t create an worker-centered economy that withstood the shocks of modernity. And she didn’t somehow prevent the period of state terror that rocked Argentina in the coming decades (how could she after all?).

However, I think the accomplishments you mentioned are still worthy of significant praise. First, one cannot understand Eva without contextualizing her position within the Peronist system. The recent historiography on the Peróns demonstrates that their system offered tangible financial and workplace benefits for the average person. The working classes were not manipulated by eloquent demagogues saying whatever the people wanted to hear; their followers had a lot more agency in this movement than is often acknowledged. The working classes adored Juan and Eva because they offered viable change for people that had previously been excluded from Argentine political discourses. As a central figure of this movement, she gained a massive following who regarded her in many ways as “one of them.” Her speeches captivated audiences and rocketed her to fame because the message of the Peróns was one that people wanted to hear. She died at the peak of her popularity, which in some ways allowed Juan to use her image as a symbol that transcended her legitimate legacy.

But when we examine her accomplishments from a historical perspective, Eva contributed some important changes beyond worker involvement that resonated throughout twentieth century Argentine society. Though not the only woman involved, she played a significant role in the women’s suffrage movement, helping to break down a culture heavily influenced by machismo. She was also one of the first Argentine women to take center stage in the political arena for which she was initially ridiculed. She formed the Partido Peronista Femenino, which eventually helped more women serve in Argentina’s congress than at any other time in Argentina’s history. She championed anti-discrimination laws that guaranteed equality of the sexes before the law and within marriages. Though women’s rights struggled following Perón’s downfall, these changes were adopted by later Argentine governments. She also worked to protect the rights of the elderly, who had largely been ignored by previous governments; this included writing equality into the Argentine constitution.

In terms of welfare, her foundation constructed dozens of hospitals, retirement homes, shelters, and schools around Argentina, distributed millions of charitable items each year to needy families, and found jobs for hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers in the provinces. Her foundation also provided free medical check-ups for over 300,000 needy children. According to Tomás Eloy Martínez in Santa Evita, “in the first six months of 1951, Evita gave away twenty-five thousand houses and almost three million packages containing medicine, furniture, clothing, and toys.” All of this in less than a decade before she passed away. The effects of this state welfare resonated in Argentine political culture throughout the twentieth century as the government struggled to strike an appropriate balance between free market economics and the welfare culture that Eva helped establish. It would be wrong to say that Eva was the sole contributor to this phenomenon, but she certainly contributed to a period whose effects still reverberate both positively and negatively.

In this light, it is hard to ignore her influence, especially in the area of women’s rights and political culture. And perhaps this illuminates a little bit the place of women’s history in our imaginations. How much should we value personal and political accomplishments in the historical narrative? What is the place of individuals and their complicated legacies when they don’t fit as well in our traditional definitions success and failure?