[1] Social welfare in Argentina was highly underdeveloped before Juan Perón was elected President in 1946 and his wife, who had been born into the working classes, was aware of this.

The orphans whose care the Sociedad controlled had to wear blue smocks and have their heads shaved; at Christmas they were put out onto the streets of Buenos Aires with collecting tins.

Its opening charter declared that it was to remain ‘in the sole hands of its founder… who will… possess the widest powers afforded by the State and the Constitution.’[3] The Foundation's aims were to provide monetary assistance and scholarships to gifted children from impoverished backgrounds, build homes, schools, hospitals and orphanages in underprivileged areas and ‘to contribute or collaborate by any possible means to the creation of works tending to satisfy the basic needs for better life of the less privileged classes.’[4] Initially work began with nothing more than garden parties for single mothers or Evita’s personal trips to the ghettoes of Buenos Aires to hand out aid parcels.

It had funds of over three billion pesos, $200 million on the controlled exchange rate, employed over 14,000 workers, purchased 500,000 sewing machines, 400,000 pairs of shoes and 200,000 cooking pots for distribution annually and it had succeeded in building numerous new houses, schools, hospitals and orphanages.

There was, however, only one example of Evita targeting the landed aristocracy and this was when the Foundation received most of the 97 million pesos which the Bemberg dynasty were forced to pay after they had attempted to evade tax after their patriarch died abroad.

The ten six-meter high statues on the roof of the headquarters, representing the "descamisados", were designed and sculpted from Carrara marble by the Italian sculptor Leone Tommasi and installed in 1950.