Margherita Ancona
|
---|
Ancona in 1923
|
Born
| (
1881-09-03
)
3 September 1881
|
---|
Died
| 1966 (aged 84–85)
|
---|
Nationality
| Italian
|
---|
Occupation
| teacher
|
---|
Margherita Ancona
(3 September 1881 ? 1966) was an Italian teacher and active in the
women's suffrage
movement in Milan. She was the secretary and later president of the radical bourgeois
Comitato lombardo pro suffragio
(Lombard Suffrage Committee) and member of the Italian branch of the
International Woman Suffrage Alliance
(IWSA). One of the leaders of the Italian women's suffrage campaigns, she was the only Italian woman to serve in her era on the board of the IWSA and was as a delegate to the
Inter-Allied Women's Conference
of 1919.
Early life
[
edit
]
Margherita Ancona was born, as a twin with her sister
Luisa
, on 3 September 1881 in
Palermo
, on the island of
Sicily
in the
Kingdom of Italy
to Maria (nee Basevi) and Camillo Ancona.
Her family were of
Jewish heritage
.
After attending
gymnasium
studying the
classics
in
Messina
in 1901,
the twins relocated to
Milan
to further their education and became some of the first women graduates in Italy.
Luisa was the second woman to enter university studies in Italy, behind
Maria Montessori
, and would become an eye doctor.
Career
[
edit
]
Ancona became a teacher of letters at the
Liceo Cesare Beccaria
[
it
]
and was a strong advocate for women's suffrage, belonging to the
Comitato Pro-Voto Milanese
(Milanese Pro-Voting Committee).
Lombardy
was the center of the early feminist movement in Italy, as after the
Italian unification
, women who had previously had the right to vote under
Austrian rule
of the
Kingdom of Lombardy?Venetia
, lost their enfranchisement.
In 1906, when Montessori wrote a proclamation favoring women's suffrage, committees in favor sprung up throughout the country,
Maria Cabrini, Carlotta Clerici,
Ersilia Majno
[
it
]
,
Linda Malnati
, and
Nina Rignano
were some of the founding members of the
Comitato Pro-Voto Milanese
,
for which Ancona would become secretary.
She also joined the
Associazione per la donna
(Association for Women), attending the conference hosted by the organization in Rome in October 1917,
where she presented a paper on the state of suffrage in Italy.
Ancona believed that the vote was essential for women to attain social and economic reforms and expressed her views in the January 1919 edition of the journal
Attivita femminile sociale
(Women's Social Activity).
In February 1919, she attended the
Inter-Allied Women's Conference
hosted in Paris, which opened on the 10th, to develop women's topics for the
Paris Peace Conference
.
By June 1919, she was serving as president of the Lombard Suffrage Committee and urging lawmakers to amend the law on women's emancipation.
Publishing articles in the journal
Voce nuova
(New Voice), Ancona espoused a liberal suffragism, which rejected nationalism and racism. When the paper began publishing articles by
Teresa Labriola
, a feminist in favor of Italian national expansion and racial superiority, Ancona withdrew from further collaboration with the publication.
Ancona was the opening speaker of the Suffrage Conference hosted in Milan between 23 and 29 April 1920, which called together prominent men from all of Italy's political parties to discuss women's enfranchisement.
At the
Eighth Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance
, hosted in June 1920 in
Geneva
, Ancona became the first Italian woman elected to serve on the IWSA board.
That same year, when the
International Federation of University Women
was founded in London, she pressed for the Italians to organize a chapter. The first three organizational meetings were held in Rome, another in 1922 and by 1923, first federal assembly of the
La Federazione Italiana e Laureate Diplomate Istituti Superiori (FILDIS)
[
it
]
(Federation of Italian Women Graduates and Diplomates) was held and bylaws adopted.
The group was an affiliate of the
Consiglio Nazionale delle Donne Italiane
(National Council of Italian Women)
and worked both to promote women's professionalism and to open educational and employment opportunities to women.
In 1923, Ancona was elected to the post of vice president on the international board and was the only Italian woman to have held such a high post in the IWSA.
Her influence and regular correspondence on the vigorous campaign for enfranchisement in Italy, led to the selection of
Rome
as host for the
9th IWSA Conference
.
Ancona and
Alice Schiavoni Bosio
of the
Federazione Nazionale Pro-Suffragio Femminile
(National Federation in favor of Women's Suffrage) in Rome opened the conference of 2,000 women and welcomed
Benito Mussolini
, who was in attendance.
She was re-elected to the international board of the IWSA in 1924, serving with
Germaine Malaterre-Sellier
,
Franti?ka Plaminkova
, and
Adela Schreiber
, among others.
After conflicts arose between Ancona and
Ada Sacchi Simonetti
, in 1928, who became president of the
Federazione Nazionale pro Suffragio
(National Federation in favor of Suffrage) which would become the
Federazione Italiana per il Suffragio e i Diritti delle Donne
(Italian Federation for Suffrage and Women's Rights), Ancona withdrew from active participation in the struggle for the vote.
Later life and death
[
edit
]
Through 1938, Ancona taught Latin and Greek in the upper grades at the Liceo Cesare Beccaria.
Her family was affected by
Italian racial laws
, passed in that year by the
Fascist regime
and little else is known of her history.
She died in Milan in 1966.
References
[
edit
]
Citations
[
edit
]
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Brigadeci, Concetta; Cattaneo, Marina; Cirant, Eleonora; Franchini, Giuliana, eds. (20 October 2016).
"Il voto alle donne: non solo 70 anni!"
[The Vote for Women: Not Just 70 Years!]
(PDF)
.
unionefemminile.it
(in Italian). Milan, Italy: Presso White sas for the Unione Femminile Nazionale. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 26 January 2019
. Retrieved
26 January
2019
.
- Gerhartz aus Hornbach, Katja (2003).
Le madri della Patria: Burgerliche Frauenbewegung, Nationalismus und Krieg in Italien (1900?1922)
[
The Mothers of the Fatherland: Women's civil movement, nationalism and war in Italy (1900?1922)
]
(PDF)
(PhD) (in German). Dusseldorf, Germany:
University of Dusseldorf
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 26 September 2009.
- Guarino, Antonio (2012).
Trucioli di bottega: ricordi qua e la di uno storico del diritto
(PDF)
(in Italian). Naples, Italy: De Frede Editore.
ISBN
978-88-89976-77-7
.
- Guerra, Elda (13 July 2012).
L'Associazionismo internazionale delle donne tra diritti, democrazia, politiche di pace 1888 ? 1939
[
International Women's Rights Associations, Democracy, Peace Policies 1888 ? 1939
]
(PDF)
(PhD) (in Italian). Viterbo, Italy:
Universita degli Studi della Tuscia
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 28 April 2017
. Retrieved
23 January
2019
.
- Harper, Ida Husted, ed. (1922).
History of Woman Suffrage
. Vol. 6: 1900?1920. Rochester, New York: J. J. Little & Ives Company for the
National Woman Suffrage Association
. p.
8
.
OCLC
963795738
.
- Isastia, Annamaria; Crociani, Piero; Ducci, Paola; Fichera, Ada; Formiconi, Paolo (2015).
"Atti del Congresso di studi storici internazionali: Stato maggiore della difesa, Congresso di Studi Storici Internazionali, Roma, 25?26 novembre 2015, Roma, Piazza della Rovere, 83"
[Women in the First World War: from the advanced lines to the internal front: the Great War of the Italians].
Le donne nel primo conflitto mondiale: dalle linee avanzate al fronte interno: la Grande Guerra delle Italiane
(in Italian). Rome, Italy: Centro Alti Studiper la Difesa.
OCLC
1002803728
.
- Lanfranchi, Sania Sharawi (2014).
Casting off the Veil: The Life of Huda Shaarawi, Egypt's First Feminist
. London, England:
I.B. Tauris
.
ISBN
978-1-78453-276-5
.
- Scomazzon, Francesco (2016).
"Concordia parvae res crescunt, discordia maximae dilabuntur: l'Unione Femminile Nazionale in tempo di guerra (1915-19)"
[Harmony makes small things grow, in discord great things decay: National Women's Union in time of war (1915?19)]
(PDF)
.
Deportate, Esuli, Profughe
(in Italian) (31). Venice, Italy:
Universita Ca’ Foscari
: 36?53.
ISSN
1824-4483
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 14 September 2016
. Retrieved
31 January
2019
.
- Sharp, Ingrid; Stibbe, Matthew, eds. (2011).
Aftermaths of War: Women's movements and female activists, 1918?1923
. Vol. 63. Leiden, The Netherlands:
Brill Publishers
. p. 200.
ISBN
978-90-04-19172-3
.
- Stein, Arthur (1902).
"Der Usurpator Domitianus"
[The Usurper Domitianus].
Wiener Studien
(in German).
24
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OCLC
654613877
. Retrieved
26 January
2019
.
- "La Federazione Italiana Laureate Diplomate Istituti Superiori (FILDIS): Cenni storici di Fiorenza Taricone"
[Italian Federation of Baccalaureates and High School Graduates: History of Fiorenza Taricone]
(PDF)
.
provincia.fr.it
(in Italian). Frosinone, Italy: Provincia di Frosinone. 2000. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
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. Retrieved
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2019
.