The great war for emancipation

Abstract

This dissertation examines the Italian women's movement from the founding of theNational Council of Italian Women (Consiglio Nazionale delle Donne Italiane - CNDI) in 1903 through the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) conference held in Rome under Fascist rule in 1923. This study focuses on the two decades leading up to the Rome Congress, examining the development of women's organizations amid Italy's turbulent transition to modernity -- a transition marked by political clashes between left and right, a delayed and contested entry to World War I, and ultimately the rise of Fascism. In doing so, it demonstrates the deep connections between feminist activisms and World War I, as the war provided women an unprecedented political visibility and voice in national and international debates. By placing Italian organizations at the center, the study also shows that integral components of Italian history cannot be understood outside their international and transnational contexts. Lastly, with its concentration on the development of women's activisms nationally and transnationally to meet the social, political, and economic challenges of the war years, it reveals feminism's role in shaping the lived experience of war in Italy and worldwide. My dissertation research was conducted at the Central State Archives in Rome (Archivio Centrale dello Stato - ACS), the National Women's Union in Milan (Unione Femminile Nazionale - UFN), and the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. The primary source documents held in the ACS and UFN archives include unpublished reports, correspondences, and ephemera generated or collected by the two primary Italian women's organizations at the center of this study, the CNDI and UFN. By analyzing these documents alongside published materials such as books, newspapers, and magazines written by4 influential Italian feminists, my dissertation reconstructs the multiple forms of activism undertaken by Italian women at the regional, national, and international levels to achieve political and social objectives designed to improve the standing of women in Italian society. Comparing feminist activity in Italy and through international and transnational feminist networks before, during, and after the First World War, I argue that Italian women amplified their activist work to meet the needs of their national and international communities. My approach to women's feminist activism in the periods of 1903-1911, 1912-1918, and 1919-1923 analyze different branches of the women's movement, separating the leftist branch, the practical feminist sector centered in Milan through the UFN, and the moderate and nationalist segments centered in Rome from one another. By treating each separately, I will demonstrate that the political and organizational affiliations shaped the divergent experiences of activist women over the course of the war and in its wake. Beginning with the Italian entry to the war in 1915, practical feminist women adapted their existing social programs to fit in a national wartime framework that increased access to state resources and minimized state interference against dissenters. Interventionist individuals and groups developed new means of engaging with national discourse, expanding their conception of the feminine national role through their propaganda efforts. Finally, leftist feminists concentrated in the Italian Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Italiano- PSI) became the primary voice of dissent, aligned with the Socialist Women's International that strongly opposed the war and operated within the constraints of the PSI's position of neither supporting nor sabotaging the war effort.--Author's abstract