Revolutionary Domesticity in the Italian Risorgimento: Transnational Victorian Feminism, 1850–1890 3030755444, 9783030755447

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ITALIAN AND ITALIAN AMERICAN STUDIES

Revolutionary Domesticity in the Italian Risorgimento Transnational Victorian Feminism, 1850–1890 Diana Moore

Italian and Italian American Studies Series Editor Stanislao G. Pugliese Hofstra University Hempstead, NY, USA

This series brings the latest scholarship in Italian and Italian American ­history, literature, cinema, and cultural studies to a large audience of ­specialists, general readers, and students. Featuring works on modern Italy (Renaissance to the present) and Italian American culture and society by established scholars as well as new voices, it has been a longstanding force in shaping the evolving fields of Italian and Italian American Studies by re-emphasizing their connection to one another. Editorial Board Rebecca West, University of Chicago, USA Josephine Gattuso Hendin, New York University, USA Fred Gardaphé, Queens College, CUNY, USA Phillip V.  Cannistraro†, Queens College and the Graduate School, CUNY, USA Alessandro Portelli, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, Italy William J. Connell, Seton Hall University, USA More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14835

Diana Moore

Revolutionary Domesticity in the Italian Risorgimento Transnational Victorian Feminism, 1850–1890

Diana Moore City University of New York New York, NY, USA

ISSN 2635-2931     ISSN 2635-294X (electronic) Italian and Italian American Studies ISBN 978-3-030-75544-7    ISBN 978-3-030-75545-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75545-4 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the ­publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and ­institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © ZU_09 / Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To Bretton, with all my love.

Acknowledgments

Though I have been working on this project in one form or another for over seven years at this point, I still sometimes cannot believe that I wrote a book. My parents, however, are not surprised. Though neither of them graduated from college, they always made it clear to me that they believed I could reach the greatest heights of academic excellence. When I went off to school in the mornings, my mother would casually call to me, “Be brilliant!”—fully expecting that I would be. Their unstinting emotional and financial support allowed me to attend Fordham University, where I developed my first real sense of a scholarly community in the Honors Program at the Rose Hill campus. The immersive interdisciplinary curriculum of the Honors Program gave me the solid foundation I needed to pursue my work as a historian and made me an all-around better thinker and writer. I would particularly like to express my gratitude to our director Harry Nasuti, who cultivated a strong community of friendship and intellectual curiosity, as well as my history professors Sarah Peirce, Nicholas Paul, David Myers, and David Hamlin. I must also thank Silvana Patriarca for guiding me through my senior thesis and for later serving on my dissertation committee as well. The greatest influence on this project and book has been my advisor, Mary Gibson. Not only did she see my potential as an undergraduate and support my admission to the Graduate Center but she also provided constant guidance throughout the many phases of this project, from research proposal through book manuscript. Moreover, through the model she provided of her own career and scholarship, as well as her careful and vii

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heartfelt mentoring, she has reinforced my belief in the importance of the fields of Italian history and women’s history. I would also like to thank the other brilliant professors who shaped this work while I was a graduate student. My dissertation committee of Kathleen McCarthy, Timothy Alborn, Silvana Patriarca, and Francesca Bregoli provided insightful comments and criticisms at the defense. Randolph Trumbach served as a wonderful mentor while I worked as his research assistant. He allowed me to see what advanced scholarly work looked like, nurtured my academic curiosity over our many lunches, and helped me to develop my interest in religious history. This project would also not have been possible without the guidance of my other professors at the Graduate Center, including Dagmar Herzog, Benjamin Hett, and Helena Rosenblatt. In many ways, my work is a product of the collaborative environment of the Graduate Center. Though we had to navigate high teaching loads while finding time to do our own research and develop our voices as scholars, we always did it together. My first-year cohort, Kat Mahaney, Chelsea Schields, Ky Woltering, and Greg Zucker, provided much-needed friendship when I was overwhelmed by academia. My fellow adjuncts at John Jay, including Kyle Francis, Katrina Wheeler, Arman Azimi, and Jeremy Randall, helped sustain me while I learned to balance teaching and research. Finally, the members of our Italian history dissertation group, Francesca Vassalle, Antonella Vitale, Sultana Banulescu, Victoria Calabrese, and Davide Colasanto, provided excellent feedback on my chapters, even when they were long and messy, as well as so many wonderful models for me to emulate. I developed my work through numerous conferences, workshops, and talks. The New York State Association of European Historians was an early supporter of my work and allowed me to present multiple times, as did the Society for Italian Historical Studies, the Nineteenth-Century Studies Association, and the Calandra Italian American Institute. Most recently, the Interdisciplinary Network for Nineteenth-Century Italian Studies has helped me develop my research. The New York Historical Society Center for Women’s History Early Career Workshop not only introduced me to an amazing group of scholars of women’s history but helped me to reframe my dissertation project for a larger audience. I must also thank Konstantina Zanou for giving me an opportunity to present on my work and rethink its potential focus at the Italian and Mediterranean Colloquium at Columbia University.

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I have been lucky enough to find myself in another writing group as I revised the dissertation into a manuscript. Victoria Calabrese stuck with me through so many versions of the same argument and always helpfully stayed one step ahead of me so I could follow in her example. Kara Peruccio allowed me to benefit from her insight, perspective, and amazing copy-editing skills. Finally, I in some ways owe this work to Jessica Strom, my first friend in Italy and constant ally on research trips. I will never tire of our discussions of obscure Risorgimento figures or how much we love Aurelio Saffi’s handwriting. I am also grateful to the organizations and institutions that have financially supported my writing, research trips to Italian archives, and attendance at conferences. The Graduate Center was generous enough to offer not only a Provost’s Summer Research Award and Doctoral Student Research Grant but also a Carell Dissertation Fellowship and the Cammett Award for Italian Studies. Within the Graduate Center, the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society’s William Randolph Hearst Endowment Fund Graduate Assistantship also helped to fund a much-needed trip for research in Milan. Finally, the Adjunct Faculty Travel Award from the CUNY Academy funded my attendance at conferences and helped me feel as though I could still produce scholarship and contribute to my field while working as contingent faculty. All the staff, archivists, and librarians who assisted me during my research trips to Italy and helped me work through the variety of different Italian bureaucratic systems also made this book possible. I would especially like to thank those at the Museo Centrale Risorgimento di Roma, the Archivio Museo Risorgimento di Milano, the Archivio Centrale dello Stato di Roma, the Biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio in Bologna, and the Biblioteca di Storia Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome. I cannot fail to mention the family and friends who have kept me going during this journey with their love and understanding. My beloved friends, many of whom have been with me since our days in the Honors Program at Fordham, have been a constant source of affection and inspiration. In particular, the models my female friends provide of strong and independent twenty-first-century women making careers as educators, philanthropists, activists, and lawyers have fueled my studies of their nineteenth-century equivalents. I also thank my parents, Frank and Adrianne, for their unceasing support. My mother, who shares my love of travel, was always willing to tag along on a research trip, keep me company, and make sure I ate more than cured meats and cheese in my room for dinner.

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My greatest source of support and my number one fan, however, has been my husband Brett. I could not have completed this project without him. I wrote most of this book as an adjunct and parent, first with minimal childcare and then entirely without it due to the pandemic, which has been difficult to say the least. I will always appreciate how he let me run off to Starbucks on weekend mornings to write in caffeinated peace before the world shut down and how he never made me feel like my work was unimportant, even when it was unpaid and largely unread. Lastly, I want to acknowledge Jane, my feisty, determined, clever girl. Though I am proud of this book, she is my greatest creation.

Praise for Revolutionary Domesticity in the Italian Risorgimento “This book captures the lure and romance of Italy for British women during the struggle for Italian Unification. Presenting the perspectives of five very different women, all active in the cause, Revolutionary Domesticity provides a fascinating re-interpretation both of Victorian feminism and the key role of women fighting for the cause of a united Italy.” —Sarah Richardson, University of Warwick, UK “Exploring how a small group of English and Italian women activists in the cause of Italian independence in the mid-19th century came to have an influence that went far beyond conventional Victorian gender boundaries, Diana Moore’s brilliant study is a major and innovative contribution to our understanding of the role of women in shaping the transnational political cultures of 19th century nation building.” —John Davis, Emeritus Professor of History at University of Connecticut, USA “Making excellent use of untapped archives, Moore demonstrates how the ‘revolutionary domesticity’ of the women who form this collective biography inspired material and emotional support for the Risorgimento alongside of British working-class support of Mazzini and Garibaldi. All played integral roles in the Italian imperial phenomenon that was the Risorgimento; even if these Anglo-Italian women activists could not always reconcile ‘the apparent contradiction’ of their ‘support for the politics of emancipation and revolution and simultaneous use of domestic and imperial discourses.” —Maura O’Connor, University of Cincinnati, USA

Contents

1 Introduction: British Women in the Italian Risorgimento  1 2 Presents and Passports: Friendship and the Formation of Revolutionary Networks 29 3 Bazaars for Bullets: Fundraising for the Revolution 65 4 Reforming Revolution: Cultural Translation in the Propaganda Campaign101 5 Emancipating Education: Primary Education in the New Italian State139 6 The Personal is Political: Companionate Marriage, Republican Motherhood, and the Campaign Against State-Regulated Prostitution177 7 From Scrapbooks to State Archives: Memorializing the Radical Risorgimento213

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8 Conclusion: Continuing the Legacy After 1890245 Bibliography253 Index269

Archival Abbreviations

ACS BAB MCRR MRM

Archivio Centrale dello Stato (Central State Archives) Biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna (Library of the Archiginnasio of Bologna) Museo Centrale del Risorgimento di Roma (Central Museum of the Risorgimento in Rome) Museo del Risorgimento di Milano (Risorgimento Museum of Milan)

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Introduction: British Women in the Italian Risorgimento

In January 1862, Julia Salis Schwabe, the widow of a Manchester factory owner, wrote to Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi about her plans to send him stockings, stating, “I wish to send you a dozen pairs of our English manufacture, so as to put you at once into marching order- Tell me whether you prefer woolen thread or cotton?”1 Schwabe intended these stockings to be used by Garibaldi in his future military endeavors, noting in another letter that she was sending “one dozen pair thin thread socks for the warm weather and six pair of fine and 6 pair of thicker woolen ones,” which “I hope will still reach you on your glorious march to review and animate the victorious armies of the future.”2 She also planned for these socks, along with the silk handkerchiefs she was sending, to be used in cultivating and maintaining Garibaldi’s celebrity. Recognizing that many of the frequent visitors to Garibaldi’s island home of Caprera demanded souvenirs of their encounter with the famed patriot, Schwabe determined the best way she could support him was by ensuring a ready supply of those personal mementos. She explained that, “knowing that the relic hunters who pursue you, in taking leave, ‘leave not a rock behind,” she was sending, “a packet of seven silk pocket handkerchiefs to help in supplying the continual diminution of those articles by means of your  Julia Salis Schwabe to Giuseppe Garibaldi, 31 January 1862, MCRR, Busta 890, N.43(3).  Schwabe to Garibaldi, 18 April 1862, MCRR, Busta 890, N. 43(5).

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generous gifts to all who like a remembrance of you.”3 Through the purchase of these gifts, Schwabe used her domestic skills as a consumer to involve herself in radical foreign politics. While the connection between a middle-class English widow and a radical Italian patriot may seem tenuous or unusual, Schwabe was actually one of many middle-class British women in the nineteenth century who contributed to the process of Italian Unification and state-building, more often referred to as the Risorgimento. This book explores the connections between Victorian feminism and the Italian Risorgimento by examining the interrelated lives of five of these women: Jessie White Mario (1832–1906), Giorgina Saffi (1827–1911), Sara Nathan (1819–82), Julia Salis Schwabe (1819–96), and Mary Chambers (c.1823–81). All of these women were living in Great Britain in the 1850s when they came into contact with exiled Italian patriots, most notably the left-wing revolutionaries Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–72) and Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–82). Inspired by the feminism of Mazzini, and to a lesser extent of Garibaldi, as well as the emancipatory and civilizing discourse of the Risorgimento, these women became deeply involved in the cause and developed a lifelong connection to Italy. Like many women of their class, these reformers felt confined by traditional expectations of femininity and used the Protestant rhetoric of a woman’s civilizing mission to organize and involve themselves in  local, national, and foreign politics. Finding a surprising welcome for their activity and initiative among the patriots of the Italian left, they repurposed traditionally feminine behaviors for revolutionary ends and made substantial contributions to the Italian Risorgimento. White Mario, Saffi, and Nathan constructed quasi-familial bonds of trust with Italian exiles through a network of gift exchanges and emotional support, which they then used to plan patriotic uprisings in the Italian peninsula. Chambers and the others funded these uprisings through seemingly commonplace and innocuous behaviors like fundraising subscriptions and charitable bazaars. After the creation of the Italian state, Nathan, Saffi, and White Mario then nationalized the feminine domestic practice of memory collection and scrapbooking by publishing Mazzini’s letters, writing biographies of their comrades, and constructing archives to ensure that their radical legacy was not forgotten in a more moderate political era. In doing so, they transcended the boundaries of acceptable behavior for respectable 3

 Schwabe to Garibaldi, 14 March 1862, from Berlin, MCRR, Busta 890, N. 43(4).

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middle-class women and engaged in feminist practices currently understudied in traditional histories of Victorian feminism. By drawing attention to their activities, this book adds to our understandings of Victorian feminism and reveals how these activists achieved their most revolutionary goals under a veil of more conservative language.

British Women and Italian Unification The Italian Risorgimento is generally understood as the process of struggle and negotiation through which the Italian state came into being. Prior to the mid-1850s, the Risorgimento was primarily a dream of the revolutionary left, with patriots like Mazzini and Garibaldi organizing uprisings and revolutions to bring about an independent, unified, and republican Italy. Mazzini was the preeminent intellectual of the radical left. As a young man, Mazzini had joined the Carbonari, a secret revolutionary society in Italy, and, after participating in one of their failed uprisings in 1827, went into exile where he would spend most of his adult life. One of his earliest significant achievements was the founding of Young Italy (1831), an organization dedicated to creating a unified nation based on the ideals of Liberty, Equality, and Humanity. Believing that every nation was “destined by the law of God and humanity” to form an egalitarian republic, he then expanded the organization into Young Europe and promoted nationalist movements in multiple European contexts.4 Throughout the 1830s and early 1840s, Mazzini worked alongside other radical exiles to publish texts calling for revolution and to organize a series of failed conspiracies. Garibaldi was one participant in these failed revolutions. Born in Nice, which at the time was considered part of the heterogeneous conglomeration of states that made up the Italian peninsula, Garibaldi traveled as a merchant during his youth and met numerous French political exiles and Italian revolutionaries, including Mazzini, who inspired a heightened political awareness in the young trader.5 This burgeoning political activism led to participation in a failed uprising in 1834, after which Garibaldi fled 4  Giuseppe Mazzini, Joseph Mazzini: His Life, Writings and Political Principles, With an Introduction by William Lloyd Garrison (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1872), 64. 5  In 1860, Cavour made an agreement with Napoleon III to cede Savoy and Nice to France in exchange for the ability to annex Tuscany and Emilia to Piedmont. The loss of his homeland infuriated Garibaldi, but he was forced to accept it as military campaigns in the south demanded his attention and diverted his focus.

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to South America. There he met his wife Anita Garibaldi, who would act as his partner in various revolutionary campaigns. In 1848–49, republicans staged nationalist revolts in Milan, Venice, and, most notably, Rome. Disappointed by Pope Pius IX’s refusal to support the Italian nationalists in the north in their fight against the Catholic Austrian Empire, Italian patriots assassinated the Papal States’ Minister of Justice Pellegrino Rossi on November 15, 1848, drove Pius into exile, and declared the formation of a Roman Republic on February 9, 1849. Mazzini, Aurelio Saffi (1819–90), and Carlo Armellini (1777–1863) formed the Triumvirate of the Republic and attempted to usher in an era of modernizing reforms, including the establishment of freedom of religion. Hearing of the uprisings, the Garibaldis returned to Italy to defend the Republic. From his exile, Pius IX launched his campaign to retake the city and found a key ally in French President Louis Napoleon, who sent troops to Rome in April. Garibaldi led a valiant but ultimately unsuccessful defense against the French troops and fled in early July 1849. As she had in their previous battles, Anita Garibaldi fought alongside her husband in the final siege and tragically died during their escape from Rome.6 Following these disappointments, radical republicans continued to organize small-scale revolts throughout the 1850s, while more moderate diplomats worked toward an alternate solution. It was these middle-class liberals, after 1859 led by Count Camillo de Cavour, the Prime Minister of Piedmont, who worked through the channels of diplomacy and conventional warfare to bring about an Italian state under the auspices of Piedmont’s monarchy. The first major step in this process came in March 1860 when the northern states of Parma, Modena, Tuscany, and the Romagna voted in highly staged plebiscites for annexation to Piedmont. The major turning point in the battle for Italian Unification came in 1860–61 with Garibaldi’s famed campaign of the Thousand. Though Garibaldi’s small group of volunteer fighters was underprepared and undersupplied, they successfully liberated the territories of southern Italy from the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Marching across Sicily, defeating Bourbon troops and cultivating popular support, the patriots captured Palermo by the end of May 1860 and Naples in early September, thereby placing all of southern Italy under Garibaldi’s control. As Garibaldi’s victories mounted, however, Cavour sent Piedmontese troops 6  After her death she was immortalized as a martyr for Italy and reminder of all that Garibaldi gave up for the love of his nation.

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toward Naples and put pressure on Garibaldi to give up control of the south in favor of Italian Unification. In late October, Naples and Sicily held plebiscites leading to the unification of the majority of the Italian peninsula under Piedmontese control.7 On March 17, 1861, the newly formed Italian parliament declared King Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont-­ Sardinia the king of Italy and Cavour the first Prime Minister of Italy. While some histories of Italian Unification stop in 1861 with this moment of the creation of an Italian state, the process extended throughout the 1860s as Italians worked to gain control of Venice and its surrounding territories from the Austrians as well as the city of Rome from the Papacy. Though radical forces led multiple campaigns and armed insurrections to recapture Rome and Venice, ultimately both cities were obtained as the result of the same moderate forces, Realpolitik strategizing, and government-mandated fighting with regular troops that had led to unification in 1861. Venice became part of Italy in 1866 as a result of Italy’s maneuverings during the Austro-Prussian War.8 The conquest of Rome similarly resulted from the larger Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, which forced the French to call back their troops guarding the Eternal City for the Pope. With the French removed, the Italians were able to march in and overcome the resistance of lingering Papal forces. When the state subsequently moved the capital from Florence to Rome, many Italians felt that the Risorgimento was complete. Traditional histories of the Risorgimento have focused on this narrative of Italian male generals, diplomats, and politicians. More recent scholarship, however, has acknowledged the role of transnational forces in Italian Unification as well as that of non-traditional actors, including women. These works move beyond the standard depiction of women as wives, mothers, or supporters of important male actors, or as symbols in the imagery of Italian Unification.9 Historians like Elena Doni and Laura 7  Christopher Duggan, The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796 (London: Penguin Books, 2008), 208–11. 8  Duggan, 249–53. 9  Cesare Guglielmo Pini, Garibaldi (Livorno: Raffaelo Giusti Editore, 1907); Giacomo Emilio Curàtulo, Garibaldi e le donne: Con documenti inediti (Roma: Imprimerie Polyglotte, 1913); Giacomo Emilio Curàtulo, Giuseppe Garibaldi: Lettere ad Anita e ad altre donne (Roma: A.F. Formaggini Editore, 1926); Giuseppe Mazzatinti, Lettere di Giuseppe Mazzini ad Aurelio Saffi e alla famiglia Craufurd (1850–1872) (Milano: Società editrice Dante Alighieri, 1905); Giuseppe Mazzatinti, Mazzini’s Letters to an English Family, 3 vols. (London: John Lane, 1920).

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Guidi have increasingly recognized women’s agency and contributions, revealing how women held salons where political thinkers discussed their ideas and concepts, raised funds to support patriots, and provided emotional support.10 Some recent works have even shown how women fought in battles for the Risorgimento, assuming male roles during a time of chaos and intensively challenging gender norms, but these works are necessarily limited by the relatively small number of women who took up arms in the military battles for unification.11 Numerous scholars have also acknowledged the general transnational character of the Risorgimento, recognizing how international forces impacted the development of the Italian nation and its sense of self. Works like Silvana Patriarca’s Italian Vices have emphasized the role of international perceptions in shaping Italian national identity, while others, like Maurizio Isabella’s Risorgimento in Exile, highlight the importance of the exile experience for Risorgimento patriots.12 Noting the extensive amount of time men like Garibaldi and Mazzini spent abroad, these scholars argue that foreign political philosophy and culture strongly impacted the 10  Elena Doni, Donne del Risorgimento (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2001); Marina D’Amelia, La Mamma (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2005); Gian Luca Fruci, “Cittadine senza cittadinanza. La mobilitazione femminile nei plebiscite del Risorgimento (1848–1870),” Genesis: Rivista della società italiana delle storiche 5, no. 2 (2006): 21–55; Laura Guidi, “Nobili o Maledette? Passioni del Risorgimento fra tracce biografiche, narrazioni canoniche, riscritture,” Meridiana 69 (2010): 115–22; Gianni Fazzini and Caterina Lucarelli, Cortigiane ed eroine: Storie di un altro Risorgimento (Roma: EdUP, 2011); Isabella Fabbri and Patrizia Zani, Anita e le altre: Amore e politica ai tempi del Risorgimento (Bologna: La Linea, 2011); Maria Teresa Mori et al., eds., Di generazione in generazione. Le italiane dall’Unità a oggi (Roma: Viella, 2014). 11  Laura Guidi, Vivere la guerra: Percorsi biografici e ruoli di genere tra Risorgimento e primo conflitto mondiale (Napoli: ClioPress, 2007); Benedetta Gennaro, “Women in Arms: Gender in the Risorgimento, 1848–1861” (Brown University, 2010). 12  C.  A. Bayly and Eugenio F.  Biagini, eds., Giuseppe Mazzini and the Globalisation of Democratic Nationalism 1830–1920 (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press for The British Academy, 2008); Charles A. Coulombe, The Pope’s Legion: The Multinational Fighting Force That Defended the Vatican, 1st ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); Lucy Riall, Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008); Maurizio Isabella, Risorgimento in Exile: Italian Emigres and the Liberal International in the Post-Napoleonic Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); Gilles Pécout, “The International Armed Volunteers: Pilgrims of a Transnational Risorgimento,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 14, no. 4 (2009): 413–26; Silvana Patriarca, Italian Vices: Nation and Character from the Risorgimento to the Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010). Coulombe’s work is quite interesting as he has explored the transnational movement to oppose the Risorgimento and support the Pope.

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­ evelopment of the patriots’ political philosophies. Mazzini’s time among d different nations, for instance, reinforced his vision of cosmopolitan nationalism. He believed the nation was simply a building block in the larger project of improving humanity. Nations were not to be pitted against each other and pride in a nation did not necessarily exclude pride in or loyalty to another nation.13 While later nationalisms were much more competitive, exclusive, or race-based, cosmopolitan nationalism was more welcoming and grounded in a spirit of international cooperation. It was not, therefore, illogical or inconsistent for a British citizen to take up the cause of the Italian nation, and many did. Many transnational histories of the Risorgimento focus on the numerous relationships between Italian patriots and their British supporters. These works recognize Britain’s long-standing interest in Italy’s legendary past, how the popularity of the Grand Tour and Romanticism in the nineteenth century only increased this interest, and how Italy offered a place for British artists and writers to practice their craft.14 Moving the focus away from the state level, these scholars emphasize support for the Italian Risorgimento, and for Garibaldi and Mazzini in particular, among the middle and working classes.15 In her work in this field, historian Marcella Pellegrino Sutcliffe emphasizes sustained support for Mazzini among the working class as a way to challenge the commonly-held belief that Mazzini lost the majority of his British followers after 1850.16 In understanding British support for Italian Unification, scholars like Nick Carter and Danilo Raponi have increasingly emphasized the importance of British anti-Catholicism. Raponi has argued that British support 13  Bayly and Biagini, Giuseppe Mazzini and the Globalisation of Democratic Nationalism 1830–1920. 14  Catherine Waters, Michael Hollington, and John O.  Jordan, eds., Imagining Italy: Victorian Writers and Travellers (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2010); Alison Chapman, Networking the Nation: British and American Women’s Poetry and Italy, 1840–1870 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); Patricia Cove, Italian Politics and Nineteenth-Century British Literature and Culture (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019). 15  Derek Beales, “Garibaldi in England: The Politics of Italian Enthusiasm,” in Society and Politics in the Age of the Risorgimento: Essays in Honour of Denis Mack Smith, ed. Denis Mack Smith, John A. Davis, and Paul Ginsborg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 184–216; Elena Bacchin, Italofilia: Opinione pubblica brittanica e Risorgimento italiano, 1847–1864 (Torino: Carocci editore, 2014). 16  Marcella Pellegrino Sutcliffe, Victorian Radicals and Italian Democrats (New York: The Boydell Press, 2014).

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for Italian Unification directly resulted from a desire to spread Protestantism in the peninsula and was inextricable from British anti-Catholicism.17 In his edited collection, Britain, Ireland, and the Italian Risorgimento¸ Carter similarly claimed that “the Risorgimento in Britain was above all (as in Ireland) a Protestant cause, one that was intimately bound up with not only deep-rooted popular anti-Catholicism, but also the so-called ‘Irish question’ and popular British anti-Irish sentiment.” He added that it “is difficult to exaggerate the strength of anti-Catholicism in mid-nineteenth-­ century Britain.”18 This book supports Raponi and Carter’s arguments and adds to the growing field of scholarship, promoted by historians like Wolfram Kaiser and Christopher Clark, arguing that the nineteenth century was not a predominantly secularized period but rather one in which religious identity greatly shaped both personal and private decisions.19 I argue that the Risorgimento was a spiritual phenomenon by drawing attention to the importance of Protestant anti-Catholic and radical anticlerical religious sentiment in its propaganda campaign. Many supporters of the Risorgimento—British and Italian alike—hoped that unification would bring with it not only a move away from despotic governments but also a curtailing of the Pope’s influence in Italy. This Liberal anticlerical rhetoric resonated with British anti-Catholic sentiment and drew British men and women to the cause of the Italian Risorgimento. However, it simultaneously reinforced negative stereotypes about Italians and gave the British justification for their belief that the Italians needed the British civilizing mission. British involvement in Italian politics was undeniably part of their civilizing mission and connected to their growing Mediterranean empire. During the nineteenth century, the British engaged in a project of imperial expansion into the Mediterranean and established varying degrees of control in Malta (1800), the Ionian Islands (1809), Corfu (1815), Palestine (1840), Cyprus (1878), and Egypt (1882).20 Moreover, as historian Lucy 17  Danilo Raponi, Religion and Politics in the Risorgimento: Britain and the New Italy, 1861–1875, 2014. 18   Nick Carter, ed., Britain, Ireland and the Italian Risorgimento (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 10–13, 19–20. 19  Christopher M. Clark and Wolfram Kaiser, eds., Culture Wars: Secular-Catholic Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003). 20  Maurizio Isabella and Konstantina Zanou, eds., Mediterranean Diasporas: Politics and Ideas in the Long 19th Century (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 4.

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Riall has highlighted in her work, Under the Volcano, the British had a long history of imperialism in southern Italy. The British army directly occupied Sicily between 1806 and 1814 and British landowners in Sicily, particularly the Duke of Bronte, fought to keep the Risorgimento from becoming too radical in order to protect their land rights later in the century.21 As scholars like O.J. Wright have shown, British state support for Italian Unification and the Italian state was contingent on whether British intervention would act as an aid or detriment to British naval and shipping interests in the Mediterranean and on its potential impact on the European balance of powers.22 The British women’s support for Italian Unification and subsequent involvement in philanthropy and state-building that form the subject for this book are also inherently linked to the British Empire and civilizing mission. As historian Maura O’Connor has notably argued, the pleas for support from men like Mazzini and Garibaldi “struck a chord with the civilizing mission that English middle-class men and women came to identify as their own political mission in the first half of the nineteenth century.”23 Acknowledging the strength of anti-Catholicism among liberal women who dedicated themselves to Italy, historian Anne Summers similarly claimed that British women’s Protestantism gave them a sense of duty and mission that prompted their involvement in the Risorgimento.24 Rather than emphasizing their status as outsiders or colonizers in Italy, however, I argue that these British women were simply taking part in the civilizing, elitist, and somewhat imperial phenomenon that was the Risorgimento. The patriots of the Risorgimento had largely embraced and internalized northern European ideas about the failures of southern peoples and used such ideology in their rhetoric and campaigns for aid.25 Moreover, many Italians considered unification an act of Piedmontese 21  Lucy Riall, Under the Volcano: Revolution in a Sicilian Town, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 4–5. 22  O. J Wright, Great Britain and the Unifying of Italy: A Special Relationship? (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). 23  Maura O’Connor, The Romance of Italy and the English Political Imagination (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 5; Maura O’Connor, “Civilizing Southern Italy: British and Italian Women and the Cultural Politics of European Nation Building,” Women’s Writing 10, no. 2 (2003): 253–68. 24  Anne Summers, “British Women and Cultures of Internationalism, c. 1815–1914,” in Structures and Transformations in Modern British History: Essays for Gareth Stedman Jones, ed. David Feldman and Jon Lawrence (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2011). 25  Patriarca, Italian Vices.

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expansion, recognizing how the new state, in addition to retaining Victor Emmanuel and Cavour as the major political leaders, also kept the Piedmontese army, parliament, laws, currency, taxes, tariffs, and schooling system.26 In this act of Piedmontese conquest, Italy’s southern territories acquired a quasi-colonial status. Recognizing the ways in which Italy’s southern subjects were increasingly regarded as distinctly backward and inferior in comparison to the rest of the country, scholars like Jane Schneider have described their treatment as Orientalism in one country.27 Historian Enrico dal Lago more recently took Schneider’s argument a step further and argued that the treatment of Italy’s south constituted internal colonialism.28 While the involvement of British women was based on ideals of progress and the civilizing mission, I argue that these motivations placed the studied women squarely within the Risorgimento, with all of its flaws and contradictions, rather than outside of it. In his 2019 monograph, historian O.J. Wright similarly recognized the connection between the British imperial mindset and their support for the Risorgimento. He claimed this alliance reflected a general belief in the eventual triumph of British values, stating, “What the Victorians saw happening in Risorgimento Italy coincided with their dominant, self-congratulatory Whig-Protestant ideology.” He added, “the aggrandizement of Piedmont within Italy […] represented not so much a conquest of territory or peoples, but rather the triumph of the principles of Victorian liberalism over the conservative and continental alliance of monarchy and church.”29 Building on Wright’s argument, I maintain that these middle-class British women acted as allies rather than conquerors in Italy; partnering 26  Martin Clark, The Italian Risorgimento (Harlow, England; New  York: Pearson/ Longman, 2009), 96. 27  Jane Schneider, ed., Italy’s “Southern Question”: Orientalism in One Country (New York: Berg, 1998); Marta Petrusewicz, Come il meridione divenne una questione: rappresentazione del Sud prima e dopo il Quarantotto, (Soveria Mannelli (Catanzaro): Rubbettino, 1998); John Dickie, Darkest Italy: The Nation and Stereotypes of the Mezzogiorno, 1860–1900 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999); Don Harrison Doyle, Nations Divided: America, Italy, and the Southern Question (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2002); Nelson Moe, The View from Vesuvius: Italian Culture and the Southern Question (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2006). 28  Enrico Dal Lago, “Italian National Unification and the Mezzogiorno: Colonialism in One Country?,” in The Shadow of Colonialism on Europe’s Modern Past, ed. Róisín Healy and Enrico Dal Lago (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 29  Wright, Great Britain and the Unifying of Italy, 8.

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with other middle-class Italian men and women, they formed a cohesive group based around the ideals of progress and civilization as well as a mixed fear of and concern for the lower classes. While they were certainly guilty of othering poor, rural, southern, or devoutly Catholic Italians, they felt a strong kinship with the urban, cosmopolitan, anticlerical Italians with whom they worked. These women became truly transnational figures and spent significant portions of their adult lives living and working in Italy. They formed close friendships and partnerships with other Italians, sometimes even marrying them. Their belief in a civilizing mission should thus not overshadow their commitment to the Italian people. By recognizing that the activities of these British women constitute part of the Risorgimento, this project thereby provides a reevaluation of the Italian Risorgimento and the Liberal Era by showing how not only Italian men, but also non-Catholic and non-Italian women, participated in the creation and development of the Italian state.

The Importance of the Italian Risorgimento to Victorian Feminism The activities of these British women must be recognized not only as part of the Risorgimento but as reflective of Victorian feminism as well. While Jessie Meriton White’s participation in a revolutionary uprising in Genoa or Julia Salis Schwabe’s foundation of a kindergarten in Naples is not always recognized as an illustrative example of Victorian feminism, they fit squarely within the movement. Much of the scholarship on nineteenth-century women’s history has focused on the ways in which women found agency within charitable and philanthropic campaigns. These works, centering on the British and American experience, revealed how predominantly middle-class women utilized discourses of feminine piety, morality, and selflessness as well as the Protestant civilizing mission to engage in local charities, national political campaigns, and global missionary work. They argued that charity provided a religiously-grounded safe space for women to become involved in political affairs.30 Similar works exist within the Italian context with much 30  Jean Fagan Yellin and John C.  Van Horne, eds., The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994); Kathryn Kish Sklar and James Brewer Stewart, eds., Women’s Rights and Transatlantic Antislavery in the Era of Emancipation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007); Barbara Reeves-­

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of the scholarship focusing on how Protestant or Jewish women formed schools in Italy.31 Some scholars, however, have also illustrated the ways in which Catholic women likewise used religion to claim a place for themselves in society.32 These works acknowledge the transnational nature of nineteenth-­ century feminism and emphasize how early feminist movements grew out of transatlantic and transnational campaigns against slavery or for the economic reform of society.33 However, most studies of nineteenth-century feminism  take an overly national approach. Scholarship on Italian feminism addresses class issues, recognizing the tensions between middle-class feminists advocating suffrage or higher education and socialist feminists seeking higher wages and free childcare, and shows how women utilized the values of domesticity, family, and affection to claim an active role in the new Italian state.34 It does not, however, clearly place Italian feminism in Ellington, Kathryn Kish Sklar, and Connie Anne Shemo, eds., Competing Kingdoms: Women, Mission, Nation, and the American Protestant Empire, 1812–1960 (Durham [NC]: Duke University Press, 2010); Summers, “British Women and Cultures of Internationalism, c. 1815–1914”. 31  Simonetta Soldani, ed., L’educazione delle donne: Scuole e modelli di vita femminile nell’Italia dell’ottocento (Milano: Angeli, 1989); Luisa Levi D’Ancona Modena, “Jewish Women in Non-Jewish Philanthropy in Italy (1870–1938),” Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues, no. 20 (2010): 9–33; James C. Albisetti, “Education for Poor Neapolitan Children: Julia Schwabe’s Nineteenth-Century Secular Mission,” History of Education 35, no. 6 (2006): 637–52; Albisetti, “Froebel Crosses the Alps: Introducing the Kindergarten in Italy,” History of Education Quarterly 49, no. 2 (2009): 159–69. 32  Roberto Sani et  al., eds., Vita religiosa, carità ed educazione nell’Italia dell’Ottocento: Rosalie Thouret e la fondazione della Provincia modenese delle Suore della Carità, 1834–1853 (Macerata: Alfabetica, 2007); Helena Dawes, Catholic Women’s Movements in Liberal and Fascist Italy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 33  Bonnie S.  Anderson, Joyous Greetings: The First International Women’s Movement, 1830–1860 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Karen Offen, European Feminisms 1700–1950: A Political History (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000). 34  Franca Pieroni Bortolotti, Alle origini del movimento femminile in Italia, 1848–1892 (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 1963); Bortolotti, Socialismo e questione femminile in Italia, 1892–1922 (Milano: Mazzotta editore, 1974); Claudio Giovannini, “L’emancipazione della donna nell’Italia postunitaria: una questione borghese?,” Studi Storici 23, no. 2 (1982): 355–81; Nadia Maria Filippini, ed., Donne sulla scena pubblica: società e politica in Veneto tra sette e ottocento (Milano: FrancoAngeli, 2006); Emma Scaramuzza, ed., Politica e amicizia: relazioni, conflitti e differenze di genere, 1860–1915 (Milano, Italy: FrancoAngeli, 2010); Ilaria Porciani, Famiglia e nazione nel lungo ottocento italiano: modelli, strategie, reti di relazioni (Roma: Viella, 2011); Mori et  al., Di generazione in generazione. Le italiane dall’unità a oggi.

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a transnational context or sufficiently recognize the British heritage of women more commonly recognized as Italian feminists like Giorgina Saffi. Similarly, while scholars of British feminism have detailed the lives and activities of women like Frances Power Cobbe, Emily Davies, Barbara Smith Bodichon, and their work in promoting higher education for women, a women’s press, and legislation like the Married Women’s Property Acts, they tend to stay focused on national activities.35 Victorian feminism was inherently transnational, however, with its participants engaging in a wide range of issues through a diversity of methods. Historians Amanda Vickery, Kathryn Gleadle, and Sarah Richardson have all shown how nineteenth-century feminists involved themselves in a variety of campaigns, including the condemnation of sati in British India, the repeal of the Corn Laws, the abolition of the slave trade, aid to oppressed nationalities like the Hungarians and Italians, political and educational reform, pacifism, temperance, cruelty to animals, vegetarianism, and homeopathy.36 Though issues like the repeal of the Corn Laws or the Italian Risorgimento may not be considered “women’s issues,” the feminists who engaged in them recognized the interconnections between various oppressed groups in society and considered them as such. Feminism cannot be reduced solely to campaigns for female suffrage or property rights. As historian Philippa Levine has argued, “feminists did not displace their energies by severing their politics into an abundance of single issue campaigns, but rather used those several campaigning questions to demonstrate the hydra-headed nature of the beast they confronted.”37 Similarly, British feminists did not limit themselves to traditionally male forms of 35  Mary Lyndon Shanley, Feminism, Marriage, and the Law in Victorian England, 1850–95, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); Barbara Caine, Victorian Feminists (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Candida Ann Lacey, ed., Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon and the Langham Place Group (London  ; New  York: Routledge, 2001); Susan Hamilton, Frances Power Cobbe and Victorian Feminism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 36  Kathryn Gleadle and Sarah Richardson, eds., Women in British Politics, 1760–1860: The Power of the Petticoat (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000); Amanda Vickery, ed., Women, Privilege, and Power: British Politics, 1750 to the Present (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2001); Heloise Brown, “The Truest Form of Patriotism”: Pacifist Feminism in Britain, 1870–1902 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003); Kathryn Gleadle, Borderline Citizens: Women, Gender and Political Culture in Britain, 1815–1867 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 37  Philippa Levine, Feminist Lives in Victorian England: Private Roles and Public Commitment (Los Angeles: Figueroa Press, 2004), 179.

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political participation and redefined what constituted political behavior. They voiced their opinion through traditionally female and informal methods, including petitions, food riots, the distribution of ballads and broadsides, and boycotts.38 The activities of British women in the Italian Risorgimento, therefore, fit within the confines of feminist activity in Victorian Britain. At this point, it is important to note that most mid-nineteenth-century feminists did not use the term feminist and most frequently described themselves as proponents of female emancipation. They advocated for equality between the sexes, but usually interpreted this to mean equality under the law or of opportunities, such as to formal education or employment, and not a requirement that men and women be treated exactly the same.39 As scholar Karen Offen explained, “most- though not all- of the expressions of endorsement for women’s emancipation in Europe before 1945 can be classed under the rubric of ‘relational feminism’, based on the complementarity of the sexes and, more often than not, on the maternal and nuturiant functions of the woman, in the broadest sense of the terms.”40 According to historian Bonnie Anderson, members of the first international feminist movement in the middle decades of the nineteenth century similarly believed in a complementarity of the sexes. Though they thought many of the supposedly innate differences between men and women, such as intelligence levels, were artificial, they generally accepted that there were differences between men and women and made arguments based upon those distinctions.41 Many of these theories reflected prevailing beliefs that women were more caring, moral, and pious than men as a result of their connection to the domestic sphere. They also manipulated the prevailing discourses of republican motherhood to gain more rights and respect in society. In her discussion of British and American feminists, scholar Christine Bolt has acknowledged that this platform, built on the

38  Vickery, Women, Privilege, and Power, 22–23; Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837, Rev. ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 284–85. 39  Offen, European Feminisms 1700–1950: A Political History, 112. Offen performed pioneering work on this subject in 1988. Karen Offen, “Defining Feminism: A Comparative Historical Approach,” Signs, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Autumn, 1988): 119–157. 40  Karen Offen, “Reflections on National Specificities in Continental European Feminisms,” University College Galway Women’s Studies Centre Review 3 (1995): 54. 41  Anderson, Joyous Greetings, 2.

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cult of domesticity, provided both “straightjacket and opportunity” for women.42 Giuseppe Mazzini espoused a similar feminism grounded in the complementarity of the sexes, which drew many like-minded Italian and British women to his cause. Mazzini was known for his strong relationships with women and his respect both for female equality and traditionally feminine traits. Famously close to his mother, Maria Drago Mazzini (1774–1852), he also developed loving and brotherly relationships with female supporters in Britain, not only White Mario, Nathan, and Saffi, but also Jane Carlyle, Arethusa Milner-Gibson, and the Ashurst sisters. These intelligent and independent women found themselves drawn to Mazzini because he approached them as equals and valued them for their intellectual labor and contribution to revolutionary activity, not just for the access they provided to powerful male relatives.43 Moreover, in his writings, Mazzini made his views on the equality of men and women explicit. He argued that men and women were equal before the eyes of God and further stated that man must “love and respect woman. See in her not merely a comfort, but a force, an inspiration, the redoubling of your intellectual and moral faculties. Cancel from your minds every idea of superiority over woman.” Believing that women’s apparent inequality was simply the result of their long-standing oppression, he argued that “long prejudice, an inferior education and a perennial legal inequality and injustice have created that apparent intellectual inferiority which has been converted into an argument of continued oppression.” The same false naturalization of an artificial inequality, he claimed, could be found in slavery, feudalism, and tyranny and was also used by the foreign powers that stifled Italy’s development and then maintained that Italy was too immature and not yet ready for independence.44 The 42  Christine Bolt, The Women’s Movements in the United States and Britain from the 1790s to the 1920s (Amherst, MA: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1993), 3. 43  Sonia Amarena, Donne mazziniane, donne repubblicane (Imola (BO): Santerno, 2003); Ros Pesman, “Mazzini and/in Love,” in The Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Italy, ed. Silvana Patriarca and Lucy Riall (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 97–114; Federica Falchi, “Democracy and the Rights of Women in the Thinking of Giuseppe Mazzini,” Modern Italy 17, no. 1 (January 2012): 15–30; Federica Falchi, “Beyond National Borders; ‘Italian’ Patriots United in the Name of Giuseppe Mazzini: Emilie Ashurst, Margaret Fuller and Jessie White Mario,” Women’s History 24, no. 1 (2015): 23–36. 44  Giuseppe Mazzini, The Duties of Man, trans. Emilie Ashurst Venturi (London: Chapman & Hall, 1862), 99.

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e­mancipation of women, therefore, was a necessary part of a general emancipation of all subjugated groups of humanity. Mazzini’s ideas were unusual for this period and not all democrats shared his view about the need for equality between the sexes.45 He was not afraid to speak out against men of the left who did not share his views, however, and criticized those workers who were hesitant to support women’s rights.46 Though he is less recognized for his feminism than Mazzini, Garibaldi also expressed sympathy for the feminist cause and developed strong working relationships with women.47 As Garibaldi’s image was intentionally masculine and sexualized, however, many of his relationships with women took on a sexual character. Women flocked to Garibaldi and he accepted their advances, having multiple, sometimes simultaneous, affairs with a variety of women, including English widow Emma Roberts, Piedmontese aristocrat and occasional volunteer nurse and soldier Countess Maria della Torre, English-born author and Risorgimento activist Esperanza von Schwartz, his housekeeper Battistina Ravello, and his grandchild’s nurse Francesca Armosino. His relationships with women like White Mario, Chambers, and Schwabe, however, largely remained in the sphere of platonic friendship and partnership, and appear to be based on his recognition of their value as collaborators. Like Mazzini, Garibaldi recognized the potential of British women and genuinely asked for and accepted their aid. Lucy Riall has argued that “no one else, except perhaps Mazzini before him, made political use of British women in quite this way at this time.”48 While one may feel inclined to disregard the feminism of men like Mazzini or Garibaldi or to label feminists who made claims based on the complementarity of the sexes, used moralistic language, or participated in civilizing projects as moderate or even conservative feminists, this would be inaccurate. Like most aspects of British history, British feminism cannot be understood outside of the context of empire. Imperialism and its related discourses of the civilizing mission and Orientalism played a pivotal role in the formation of fundamental aspects of western civilization, including the 45   Falchi, “Democracy and the Rights of Women in the Thinking of Giuseppe Mazzini,” 15–16. 46  Falchi, “Beyond National Borders; ‘Italian’ Patriots United in the Name of Giuseppe Mazzini: Emilie Ashurst, Margaret Fuller and Jessie White Mario,” 31. 47  Diana Moore, “Amazons and Fallen Women: Transgressive Female Behaviour in the Novels of Giuseppe Garibaldi,” Modern Italy, 26, no. 1 (2021) 13–27, https://doi. org/10.1017/mit.2020.53. 48  Riall, Garibaldi, 343.

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Enlightenment and liberal democracy, as well as ideologies often considered more progressive, egalitarian, or separate from colonialism, including Romanticism, cosmopolitan nationalism, and feminism.49 Scholars have similarly revealed the ways in which western educational and philanthropic projects often used the rhetoric of the civilizing mission as a way to justify their economic exploitation of colonized peoples.50 As such, we cannot understand the work and motivations of nineteenth-century British feminists, whether they were engaging in travel writing abroad or philanthropy at home, outside of the context of British imperialism.51 An understanding of feminist reliance on domestic language and the Protestant civilizing mission must also take into consideration the fierce opposition and lack of status faced by nineteenth-century feminists. Discussing female political involvement in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, historian Linda Colley emphasized the difficulties posed by “unthinking male resistance to female forays into public affairs,” and claimed that the language of domesticity provided “powerful armour against the lances of misogyny and condescension.”52 Women in Britain and in Italy in the mid-nineteenth century held similar positions of legal and social subordination in society. Mainstream discourses argued that women should remain in the home, under the guidance of a father, husband, or some other male relative. Moderate state-building rhetoric further called upon women to provide peace and stability in the domestic sphere and to educate children in the values of obedience, respect for authority, parsimony, and charity. Education for women was directed toward training for motherhood and women were discouraged or prohibited from advanced academic study or careers in 49  Nigel Leask, British Romantic Writers and the East: Anxieties of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Madeleine Dobie, Foreign Bodies: Gender, Language, and Culture in French Orientalism (Stanford, Calif: Stanford Univ. Press, 2004); Roderick Cavaliero, Ottomania: The Romantics and the Myth of the Islamic Orient (London ; New York: I.B. Tauris, 2013). 50   Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo, The “Civilising Mission” of Portuguese Colonialism, 1870–1930 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 3–4. 51  Sara Mills, Discourses of Difference: An Analysis of Women’s Travel Writing and Colonialism (London  ; New  York: Routledge, 1991); Billie Melman, Women’s Orients-English Women and the Middle East, 1718–1918: Sexuality, Religion, and Work (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992); Antoinette M.  Burton, Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865–1915 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994). 52  Colley, Britons, 283–86.

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banking or finance. Despite the social value placed on the role of the mother, women still legally had few rights over their children as compared to fathers. Women also lost rights upon marriage in both Italy and Britain. Under the common law doctrine of coverture, a married woman was completely subsumed under her husband’s identity and lost her legal independence. Married women could not independently make contracts, sue or be sued, or collect debts.53 Upon marriage, a woman’s property became her husband’s and it was not until the passage of the Married Women’s Property Act in 1870 that British women were allowed to control their own earnings; it was only after an 1882 amendment to the act that wives were allowed to control their own property.54 Italy’s first legal code, the Pisanelli Code, placed similar restrictions upon Italian women. While unmarried women could own property, make wills, and engage in commerce independently, married women required their husband’s authorization for most legal matters until 1919.55 The law also obligated women to adopt their husband’s name and citizenship and to live where he demanded. A husband had near absolute control over his wife’s body. As historian Mary Shanley has noted, “sexual access was taken to be part of the marriage contract, and marital rape was not legally cognizable.”56 Furthermore, men were expected to control their wives as authority figures and were treated quite leniently if they injured their wives during acts of discipline.57 It would be somewhat myopic, therefore, to discount the feminism of women who made arguments based on the complementarity of the sexes or who embraced the civilizing mission as their own. To overcome substantial adversity and a lack of political and often social status, women claimed advantage or privilege in whatever ways they could, regardless of the problematic aspects of these discourses. An evaluation of the intentions, rhetoric, and actions of these women, therefore, must avoid the 53  Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes, Rev. ed. (London ; New York: Routledge, 2002), 200. 54  A.  James Hammerton, Cruelty and Companionship: Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Married Life (London: Routledge, 1995). 55  Mark Seymour, Debating Divorce in Italy: Marriage and the Making of Modern Italians, 1860–1974 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 8–19, 21. 56  Shanley, Feminism, Marriage and the Law in Victorian England, 1850–95, 156. 57  Perry R. Willson, Women in Twentieth-Century Italy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 7.

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tendency to vacillate between hagiography and utter disillusionment. As Vickery has argued, radical feminists must be understood within their political context rather than as idealized exceptional figures.58 Making a similar argument, Levine has claimed, While feminists at this time were clear in their articulation of the gendered ills of their society, they were still within its grasp, as both constructors and consumers of their culture. They were neither victims without recourse to challenge nor bold agents of a change that others were too victimized to see.59

Victorian feminists had to use the arguments available to them and did not fully distance themselves from their traditional prejudices. This study of British-Italian activists thus provides an important transnational lens to study Victorian feminism and to reconcile the apparent contradiction of its support for the politics of emancipation and revolution and simultaneous use of domestic and imperial discourses. To do so, this work shows how women used domestic, missionary, and imperial rhetoric to transgress established gender norms in radical ways. Though she made remarks condemning the Papacy and rural, southern, and lower-class Italians, Jessie White Mario made these comments in public lectures to mixed-sex audiences and in nonfiction works published under her own name. Sara Nathan would present herself as a respectable widow and mother to deflect from her role as trusted conspirator and financier of the Mazzinian revolutionary party. Giorgina Saffi made claims about the inherent superior morality of women but did so while talking about the taboo subject of state-regulated prostitution and as part of an international feminist movement. Their actions reveal how Victorian feminists overcame adversity and achieved their most radical, egalitarian, and emancipatory goals by using more domestic, conservative, or elitist language.

Parameters of the Book Primary Figures As previously stated, this book examines the intersections of Victorian feminism and the Italian Risorgimento by focusing on the interrelated  Vickery, Women, Privilege, and Power, 3.  Levine, Feminist Lives in Victorian England, 176.

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lives and actions of five women: Jessie White Mario, Giorgina Saffi, Sara Nathan, Julia Salis Schwabe, and Mary Chambers. When determining the key figures for this book, I selected women who were active in both the revolutionary campaigns for unification and charitable and philanthropic works afterward and who possessed transnational identities with strong ties to both Britain and Italy. White Mario, Saffi, and Chambers had British parents, while Schwabe and Nathan became British upon marriage to their husbands: men of German heritage who had become naturalized British citizens. They also had strong connections to Italy. While only Nathan was of Italian descent, Saffi and White Mario became Italians upon their marriage to Italian men, and all five women spent a significant portion of their adult lives living and working in Italy. Rather than defining these women as solely Italian or British, however, I argue that they had transnational identities. White Mario, Saffi, Schwabe, and women like them traveled and lived in several countries at various points in their lives, spoke multiple languages, and were constantly writing, communicating, and sending money across borders, refusing to limit their activities, interests, or personal connections to one nation. As such, they were truly transnational figures. These women also generally shared a middle-class Protestant identity. Though both Nathan and Schwabe were of Jewish descent, Schwabe and her husband converted to Unitarianism, while Nathan slowly moved away from her Jewish roots toward a Mazzinian faith. Consequently, they shared an anti-Catholic and missionary impulse that propelled them into their work. Their middle-class status similarly afforded them a higher level of education, wealth, and connections to other wealthy individuals who could donate money and enable their various political and charitable efforts. It also meant, however, that they could be elitist and fail to fully understand the lifestyles of the British or Italian poor. While scholars like Elizabeth Daniels, Rossella Certini, Liviana Gazzetta, and Anna Maria Isastia have composed excellent studies of White Mario, Saffi, and Nathan, less scholarship exists on Schwabe and very little on Chambers. Moreover, most of the existing work on these women takes the form of individual biographies and does not emphasize their participation in a network. It also fails to sufficiently recognize the women’s transnational character and connections to Victorian rather than Italian feminism.60 60  Elizabeth A.  Daniels, Jessie White Mario: Risorgimento Revolutionary (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1972); Rossella Certini, Jessie White Mario: una giornalista educatrice: tra

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The first woman of this study to become involved in the cause of Italian Unification was Sara Levi Nathan. Born in Pesaro to a Jewish merchant family, she had married the banker Moses Meyer Nathan (from Rodelheim, Germany) in 1836 and the two subsequently moved to Britain where they would have twelve children. Though Nathan was born in the Italian peninsula to Italian parents, I consider her a transnational British-Italian figure suitable for inclusion in this project. Despite Italian nationalism’s frequently antagonistic relationship with the Catholic Church and strong Jewish participation in the Risorgimento, a segment of Italian society considered Jews like the Nathans inherently less national and less Italian than their Catholic counterparts.61 Moreover, she spent a significant portion of her adult life in London and became legally British by marrying Meyer Nathan, a naturalized British citizen. While living in London, the Nathans maintained a close relationship with her cousins, the Rossellis, transnational merchants based partially out of Livorno who had been drawn into the revolutionary exile support network. It was in the Rosselli home that an eighteen-year-old Sara Nathan first met Mazzini.62 Their friendship developed throughout the 1850s and intensified after Meyer Nathan’s death in 1859. Sara Nathan later earned fame as a hostess for radical meetings at her home in London and at her villa in Switzerland but also worked behind the scenes collecting and managing the funds of the revolution, planning uprisings, and publishing Mazzini’s writings after his death. She also opened a school for girls in Rome. Giorgina Craufurd first met Mazzini in 1848. Her father, Sir John Craufurd, had worked for the British Commission for the Ionian Islands liberalismo inglese e democrazia italiana (Firenze: Le lettere, 1998); Jessie White Mario and Ivo Biagianti, La nuova Italia nelle corrispondenze americane di Jessie White Mario (1866–1906): a cura di Ivo Biagianti. (Firenze: Centro editoriale toscano, 1999); Mario Prisco, Adorabile uragano: dalle lotte risorgimentali alla “Miseria in Napoli”: la straordinaria avventura di Jessie White Mario (Napoli: Stamperia del Valentino, 2011); Paolo Ciampi, Miss Uragano: la donna che fece l’Italia (Firenze: Romano, 2010); Liviana Gazzetta, Giorgina Saffi: contributo alla storia del mazzinianesimo femminile (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2003); Flavia Bugani, Giorgina Saffi: una gentile mazziniana di ferro (Forli: CartaCanta Editore, 2010); Anna Maria Isastia, Storia di una famiglia del Risorgimento: Sarina, Giuseppe, Ernesto Nathan (Torino: Università popolare di Torino, 2010). 61  David Lebovitch Dahl, “The Antisemitism of the Italian Catholics and Nationalism: ‘The Jew’ and ‘the Honest Italy’ in the Rhetoric of La Civiltà Cattolica during the Risorgimento,” Modern Italy 17, no. 1 (February 2012): 1–14. 62  Roland Sarti, Mazzini: A Life for the Religion of Politics (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1997), 98.

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and developed strong Italian sympathies after living on the peninsula for many years. Giorgina Craufurd herself was born in Florence at the Palazzo Rospigliosi Pallavicini. After their return to London, Sir John and his wife Sofia offered hospitality and aid to the Italian exile community and, in 1848, their son George went to Italy to participate in the revolutions along with a group of Italian exiles, including Mazzini. When Giorgina Craufurd went to see her brother off at the London railway station, she met Mazzini, who shook her hand and said, “I hope that you become a good Italian.”63 After the failure of the Roman Republic, the Craufurd family continued to host Mazzini and the other exiles and in 1851 they entertained his fellow triumvir, Aurelio Saffi. Giorgina Craufurd and Aurelio Saffi fell in love and eventually married on June 30, 1857. Throughout the more than three decades of their marriage, Aurelio and Giorgina Saffi worked together to promote republicanism and equality in Italy. After the Risorgimento, Saffi promoted workers’ rights organizations, universal education, early Italian feminist movements, and the campaign against state-regulated prostitution. Later in life, she dedicated herself to preserving the legacy of the Risorgimento by collecting and publishing the writings of both Mazzini and her husband. In the mid-1850s, Sara Nathan and Giorgina Saffi were joined in their efforts by Jessie Meriton White. Born to a family of non-conformist middle-­class shipbuilders in Portsmouth, White became entranced by the cause of Italian Unification while studying philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris and in 1854 met Garibaldi through her friendship with Emma Roberts, who was engaged to Garibaldi at the time. An inspired White returned to Britain, unsuccessfully attempted to enter medical school to better act as Garibaldi’s nurse in any future Italian campaign, and eventually turned her attention to Italian propaganda efforts. Her increasing involvement drew the attention of Mazzini and the pair began their friendship in 1856. The following year, White traveled to Italy, where she was arrested for her participation in the failed Pisacane uprising and met her future husband, fellow patriot Alberto Mario, whom she married in December 1857. As Jessie White Mario, she continued her propaganda work for the Risorgimento and served as a nurse in battles for unification. In the post-unification period, she worked primarily as a writer, producing newspaper articles and monographs celebrating the history of the

 Bugani, Giorgina Saffi: Una gentile mazziniana di ferro, 9–10.

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Risorgimento and documenting the socioeconomic struggles of the newly unified peninsula. Garibaldi’s success in 1860 drew the attention of many men and women, including Mary Elizabeth Perkins Chambers. Chambers was the only child and heir of Reverend Samuel Wootton Perkins, Rector of Stockton, and his wife Elizabeth.64 She married Lieutenant-Colonel John Hickenbotham Chambers, a captain of the 46th Foot on November 2, 1852.65 Both of the Chambers began to actively support Garibaldi after the events of 1860 in southern Italy. Mary Chambers raised funds to support Garibaldi’s troops in 1861 and took on a more leading role in fundraising efforts for the 1866 campaign. Throughout the 1860s and 1870s, she and Garibaldi worked together to open a series of industrial schools in Sardinia, while Chambers opened her own similar schools in England. The Chambers were also active in maintaining Garibaldi’s public image and cultivating his mythic status. In 1864, Lieutenant-Colonel Chambers published a book on Garibaldi’s successes, Garibaldi and Italian Unity, while Mary Chambers helped manage the patriot’s own literary career. Not restricting their relationship to the professional sphere, the Chambers remained on good terms with Garibaldi, visiting his island home of Caprera and becoming close to his children. As the opening anecdote to this chapter displayed, Garibaldi’s actions in 1860–61 also garnered him the interest of Julia Salis Schwabe. Born in Bremen to a Jewish merchant family, in 1837 she moved to Manchester to marry her older cousin Salis Schwabe, who ran the Schwabe Calico Printing Works. Both Schwabes converted to Unitarianism and, like many Unitarians, were active in philanthropy and the promotion of primary education. They also traveled in elite circles and were close friends with Free Trade activist Richard Cobden. Salis Schwabe died on July 23, 1853, 64  I have yet to find an official birth date for Chambers. However, her parents were married on April 27, 1822. “Births, Deaths, Marriages and Obituaries,” The Lancaster Gazette and General Advertiser, for Lancashire, Westmorland, &c. (Lancaster, England), Saturday, April 27, 1822; Issue 1089. Her mother then died August 12, 1823. “Births, Deaths, Marriages and Obituaries,” The Lancaster Gazette and General Advertiser, for Lancashire, Westmorland, &c. (Lancaster, England), Saturday, August 16, 1823. Therefore, she must have been born during that time. She is listed as their child in E. Walford, The County Families of the United Kingdom, 2nd. Edition (London: Robert Hardwicke, 1864) 1108. 65  “Births, Deaths, Marriages and Obituaries,” Liverpool Mercury etc (Liverpool, England), Friday, November 5, 1852; Issue 2447. Chambers had been a Captain of the 46th Foot, but retired in 1854, and was a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant for Lancashire and the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 1st Lancashire Rifle Volunteers.

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most likely of cholera or scarlet fever, leaving Schwabe a widow with seven children. She continued her philanthropic work and in November of 1860, inspired by the recent tumultuous events, wrote to Garibaldi without a formal introduction as a friend of Italy thus beginning their partnership. During the military campaigns for unification, Schwabe proved herself to be a generous benefactor and efficient organizer, helping to send tents, mattresses, medical supplies, and funds to Garibaldi’s troops. Following unification, she became the British representative of the Italian Ladies’ Philanthropic Association and started a school in Naples. Though this first school quickly closed, Schwabe later opened a second school, which grew to contain a kindergarten, elementary school, orphanage, and training program for kindergarten teachers.66 She continued to work in Naples and to fundraise for international charities until her death in 1896. Time Frame This book focuses largely on the years from 1850 to 1890. Though the period from 1848 to 1849 was important for the Italian Risorgimento, the women studied did not play an active role in those affairs. As it was only in the 1850s that they truly began their involvement in Italian politics, the book begins there. I also argue that this period from 1850 to 1890, when the Italian state struggled to establish itself, represented a unique opportunity for middle-class women. The instability of the state allowed for non-traditional and non-state actors, these women included, to act as independent agents and impact the development of the Italian peninsula. Nathan, Saffi, White Mario, Schwabe, and Chambers initially found a place and purpose among the exiles of the Italian left, where their acceptance might be more expected, given the general focus on egalitarianism among those radicals as well as the revolutionaries’ abject need for any and all aid. Even after the height of Italy’s revolutionary dream ended in 1861, these women found appreciation for their skills and activities in the newly created Italian state. The continued existence of this state was not a given, however, and for the first few decades after unification, Italian legislators struggled to create new institutions that would successfully unify preexisting governments, aid their citizens, and solve Italy’s mounting financial problems and national debt. The Pope, moreover, remained hostile to the 66  Schwabe’s first school closed in 1865, when its headmistress, Emily Reeve, died in a cholera epidemic.

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Italian state, making it difficult for devout Catholics to consider themselves fully committed to the Italian nation. The complicated and contested process of unification in the south, meanwhile, led to resentment among southerners and fears among northerners of southern brigandage, mafia, and degeneracy. The recurring theme throughout the period was uncertainty as many wondered whether this new state would last and, if so, what form it would eventually take. It was this very instability that provided the space for non-state actors, including the activist women of this study, to implement their own views of what the Italian state should become and how the Italian people should be reformed. Though they were legally unable to create national educational legislation, Schwabe, Nathan, and Chambers all founded and led their own primary educational institutions in Italy and were able to do so, in part, because of the weakness of the state’s formal educational policy. Their type of individualized contribution would become less possible as the state organized itself and assumed greater control of these processes after 1890.67 The Crispi law of July 17, 1890 (n.6972) gave the government control over private charitable organizations, thereby limiting the ability of these women to enact change and exert authority through their own private institutions.68 A similar change had occurred in Britain in the 1850s when state agencies began to take over the majority of poor relief work, which had previously been dominated by middle-class voluntary societies.69 Middle-class women who had been able to use their status and wealth to act in local and personal networks lost their positions of power as abstract forms of male-dominated governance took over. The rise of mass politics and large political parties in Italy at the end of the century also limited the ability of these British-Italian women to act as independent agents. The rise of the Italian socialist movement, for instance, made it more difficult for these middle-class women, with their 67  While Mary Chambers died in 1881 and Sara Nathan died in 1882, Schwabe, White Mario, and Saffi remained active throughout the 1880s and into the early 1890s. Their work from 1890 until their respective deaths (Schwabe in 1896, White Mario in 1906, and Saffi in 1911) will occasionally be discussed in relevant sections, but does not form a large portion of the content of the book. In the conclusion, I will go into greater detail about how their work changed after 1890 in response to the changing political and social climate. 68  Maria Sophia Quine, Italy’s Social Revolution: Charity and Welfare from Liberalism to Fascism (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York: Palgrave, 2002). 69  R.J. Morris, “Voluntary Societies and British Urban Elites, 1780–1850: An Analysis,” The Historical Journal 26, no. 1 (1983): 95–118.

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strong religious tendencies, to cultivate support among the Italian working class. By 1892, the socialist movement had grown to such an extent that Filippo Turati (1857–1932) and Anna Kuliscioff (1854–1925) founded the Italian Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Italiano, PSI). As a result, Mazzinianism became less popular, particularly among the next generation, and Mazzinian reformers found themselves pushed away into a corner, deemed too radical by the moderates and too conservative for the socialists. The emergence of a strong organized Italian feminist movement in the 1890s, led by the League for the Promotion of Women’s Interests (Lega promotrice degli interessi femminili), was also significant.70 These larger parties, dedicated more exclusively and explicitly to the cause of women’s rights, overshadowed earlier feminists in smaller networks and more localized projects. The 1890s, therefore, represent a time of growing organized movements, large parties, and state-controlled agencies and mark the end of this period of opportunity provided by the instability of the newly formed Italian state. Sources This book utilizes a combination of printed materials and private archival documents. White Mario, Saffi, Schwabe, Nathan, and Chambers were well known at the time and I analyze numerous discussions of their activities found in contemporary newspaper articles, diaries, and memoirs in Britain, Italy, and to a lesser extent the United States. Additionally, these activists—Jessie White Mario in particular—were prolific authors and constructed their own narratives in newspapers, histories, memoirs, and other published materials, which I also include as sources. By utilizing these published materials, I reveal how these women were active agents in the transnational public sphere and were not simply local philanthropists hidden behind a veil of domestic respectability. To complement the published materials, I use letters collected from Italian archives and those published in collections of Mazzini’s and Garibaldi’s writings. These letters reveal how the women played an even greater role behind the scenes than in the public sphere and how they privately remained committed to the values that they espoused in public. 70  The organization was founded in 1881 by Anna Maria Mozzoni, but made less of an impact in its earlier years. Elisabetta Nicolaci, Il “coraggio del vostro diritto”: emancipazione e democrazia in Anna Maria Mozzoni (Firenze: Centro editoriale toscano, 2004), 73.

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While the letters from the Mazzinian women have already been successfully used by Italian scholars to make arguments about Italian feminism, they have not been used as widely by scholars of British history, despite the women’s connections to Britain. Moreover, the archival material on Mary Chambers, collected from the Central State Archive in Rome, is relatively unused and Chambers is virtually unknown. Chapter Outlines The chapters of this book are organized thematically. Chapter 2 reveals how Mazzinian women used what were viewed as traditionally feminine, domestic, nurturing, and maternal behaviors along with the privileges of their Britishness to form, maintain, and operate in revolutionary networks. Chapter 3 similarly examines how these British-Italian reformers utilized seemingly feminine forms of fundraising for radical ends. Chapter 4 then examines their work as cultural translators, recognizing how their dual British-Italian identities gave them an advantage in the propaganda campaign of the Risorgimento. Shifting focus to the period after the creation of the Italian state in 1861, Chap. 5 examines the primary educational projects established by Chambers, Nathan, and Schwabe, showing how they took advantage of the weakness of the Italian state and the emerging public system of schools to form independent schools in which they could promote their unique political agendas and act as leaders. Chapter 6 then focuses on the idea that the personal was political for Victorian feminists, revealing how these British-Italian reformers made progressive choices in their private lives by examining their marriages, lives as mothers, and participation in the international campaign against state-regulated prostitution. The final chapter, Chap. 7, again reveals how these women of the left took a traditionally feminine activity, the collection and storage of family letters and papers, and modified it for a transgressive purpose by establishing archives, publishing collections of letters, and in White Mario’s case writing her own histories and biographies, to shape the narrative of the Risorgimento for future generations. The conclusion then offers a brief look at the legacy of these women after 1890, when the period of revolution, instability, and opportunity for individual agency had largely ended.

CHAPTER 2

Presents and Passports: Friendship and the Formation of Revolutionary Networks

Revolution is often falsely understood as an inherently male phenomenon. The typical image of a revolutionary is a young single man, unattached and unburdened by the realities of a family, wild with idealistic visions of glory, and willing to sacrifice himself for a cause. However, this is only a portion of the picture. In the revolutions of the Italian Risorgimento, not just single men participated but women and entire families as well. By embracing their identities as unexpected revolutionaries rather than rejecting their femininity, maternity, and transnational status, women were able to make a unique and significant contribution to the formation, operation, and maintenance of revolutionary networks. This chapter reveals how politically active British women used their traditional domestic, nurturing, and maternal behaviors and identities along with the privileges of their British status to participate in revolution. The first section reveals how the women used practices like gift-giving and care for children to develop and maintain political networks. By providing gifts to the leaders and members of their political network, they responded to the need for financial and emotional support in the Italian exile community. Moreover, through these acts, they forged emotional bonds and alternative families important for maintaining political loyalty and necessary for developing the level of trust required in planning and executing revolutionary conspiracies. The second section then shows how these Mazzinian women operated in the revolutionary networks of the left. I © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Moore, Revolutionary Domesticity in the Italian Risorgimento, Italian and Italian American Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75545-4_2

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focus in particular on Jessie White Mario’s participation in the Pisacane expedition of 1857 and on Sara Nathan’s involvement in planning and executing various Mazzinian endeavors throughout the 1860s. Throughout, I show how women like Jessie White Mario, Sara Nathan, and Giorgina Saffi took what would be counted as weaknesses and traits for which they would be discounted as potential revolutionaries, including their consumerism, emotions, children, and seemingly apolitical status, and made them strengths.

The Formation and Maintenance of Revolutionary Networks Despite the prevailing image of the revolutionary as a lone figure prompted to action in a desperate moment who soon becomes a martyr to his cause, most revolutions require sustained engagement by a network of individuals over an extended period of time and in the face of numerous setbacks and failures. In the revolutions of the Risorgimento, transnational women like Sara Nathan, Giorgina Saffi, and Julia Salis Schwabe performed a valuable service in the formation and maintenance of these networks. In doing so, they recognized the value of supporting people as individuals while simultaneously promoting their abstract ideals of revolution and republicanism. Throughout, they refused to discount their training as household managers and consumers or the emotional skills developed through their roles as mothers and instead leveraged their feminine and domestic capabilities for radical ends. Connections and Consumerism: Gift-Giving and Financial Support in the Exile Community Sara Nathan, Julia Salis Schwabe, Giorgina Saffi, and the other women affiliated with the Italian left frequently purchased gifts and provided other forms of financial support for their political colleagues. Through these acts of patronage, the women helped to forge a genuine network of friendship and support vital to the radical patriot community. Rather than disavowing their traditional status as managers of the home and maneuverers of the marketplace, they took pride in their ability as women to select and shop for appropriate and useful gifts. They skillfully repurposed their domestic training as consumers for the revolutionary Italian cause.

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Popular discourses in nineteenth-century Europe commonly associated consumerism with women and derided the practice for its lack of restraint and promotion of luxury and immorality. Feminist historians have challenged this interpretation, showing how through their consumption women exerted agency and provided a valuable service in constructing the identities of their family, class, and nation.1 Moreover, Victorian women also notably engaged in politics as non-consumers by participating in a variety of boycotts, including anti-slavery sugar boycotts and boycotts of feathers from endangered birds. As a form of political engagement with a low barrier to entry, boycotts have typically appealed to otherwise disenfranchised and marginal groups. Historian Amanda Vickery has argued these boycotts revealed “the power that disenfranchised consumers had in influencing the vote of enfranchised retailers.”2 They also allowed women to take part in a larger feminine practice of using conservative and domestic ideology to make claims in the public sphere and achieve emancipatory goals.3 Furthermore, Victorian women’s behaviors as purchasers and consumers of gifts held political significance. Anthropological scholarship on gift-­ giving, most notably by Marcel Mauss, has recognized the role of gift-giving in the formation of both personal and political networks. Mauss argued that gifts were never one-sided acts of charity but instead created reciprocal relationships of obligation.4 In her work on the gift-giving culture of middle-class Victorian women, Jill Rappoport has argued that much of this anthropological scholarship unfortunately ignores women and their particular use of gift-giving behaviors. Correcting for this oversight, she showed how “through gifts that ranged from small tokens to their own bodies, women entered into volatile and profitable economic negotiations of power and created diverse forms of community.” In contrast to prevailing discourses of female selflessness and charity, 1  Victoria De Grazia and Ellen Furlough, eds., The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996); Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes; Sheryl Kroen, “A Political History of the Consumer,” The Historical Journal 47, no. 3 (September 2004): 709–36; Krista Lysack, Come Buy, Come Buy: Shopping and the Culture of Consumption in Victorian Women’s Writing (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008). 2  Vickery, Women, Privilege, and Power, 22. 3  Kroen, “A Political History of the Consumer,” 719. 4  Marcel Mauss, The gift: the form and reason for exchange in archaic societies (New York: Norton, 1990).

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Rappoport claimed that “women took control of gift-giving to forge their own diverse alliances.”5 Her study, though valuable, focused predominantly on gift exchanges between women. In contrast, the British-Italian women who formed part of the larger circle of the radical patriot left exchanged gifts with both men and women and, in doing so, forged a heterosocial network of political support. This gift-giving served a valuable function in the impoverished Italian exile community. Having given up their homelands and livelihoods for the cause of Italian Unification, these exiles struggled to support themselves in Britain. Even Mazzini and Garibaldi, while quite influential and famous, faced recurrent financial difficulties. Noting the hardships these exiles faced, Linda White Villari, the English-born wife of famed Italian meridionalist Pasquale Villari, claimed, “in the pre-Crimean War days bearded foreigners were viewed with more or less distrust, and generally lumped with the dangerous classes.” She added that while Mazzini tried to help his compatriots, “so many fellow-exiles were reduced to such cruel straits that he would have needed the purse of Fortunatus to relieve their wants.”6 Those of sympathetic political leanings and a degree of wealth, therefore, like the Nathans or Schwabe, provided an invaluable service by financially supporting the exiles. Some of the gifts went directly to Garibaldi or Mazzini. Through these actions, Schwabe or Nathan could act as patrons and show their support for the famed patriots’ political agendas. Sara Nathan and her husband Meyer Nathan enjoyed showering Mazzini with small presents and appreciation for his work. Mazzini wrote to Emilie Hawkes, one of the Ashurst sisters, about the Nathans’ generosity in March 1855, saying, “Mr. Nathan is overwhelming me with kindness, cigars, etc.: he has taken me three times to a little corner, to tell me very mysteriously that in any thing and for any thing I must apply to him.”7 Throughout Mazzini’s letters, he repeatedly thanked Sara and Meyer Nathan for sending cigars, asked them to purchase more, or inquired if Meyer Nathan could discover their price. Schwabe similarly sent Garibaldi two boxes of cigars to his island home of Caprera in January 1863 for his “use or amusement,” as well as a variety 5  Jill Rappoport, Giving Women: Alliance and Exchange in Victorian Culture (Oxford  ; New York ; Oxford University Press, 2012), 4–5. 6  Linda White Villari, “Political Refugees in London,” The Leisure Hour 43 (1894): 93. 7  Giuseppe Mazzini to Emilie A. Hawkes, 10–12 March 1855, Letter 3201 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti di Giuseppe Mazzini, vol. 54 (1930), 103.

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of Christmas presents.8 Mary Chambers, Jessie White Mario, and a group of other women, including pioneering Italian feminists Anna Maria Mozzoni and Gualberta Adelaide Beccari, similarly showed their support for Garibaldi by sending him books for his library at Caprera.9 These presents were a way for the women to show their support for Mazzini and Garibaldi and to encourage the patriots to focus on their plans for Italy rather than on their lack of wealth and the logistics of providing for one’s daily necessities. More importantly, these gift-giving exchanges extended beyond direct relationships with either Mazzini or Garibaldi and spread across the entire exile community. Through these gift exchanges, exiled Italian patriots further bonded with the middle-class British men and women who believed in the potential of the Risorgimento and forged a cohesive network of political and emotional support. Mazzini was particularly aware of the potential ramifications of gift-giving and often asked his political colleagues to help him purchase gifts for another one of his supporters or to support each other financially. In one instance, he encouraged Sara Nathan to buy all of her beer from the Swan Brewery in Fulham, owned by radical politician James Stansfeld. After marrying Caroline Ashurst in 1844, Stansfeld had become part of the Mazzinian circle. In his letter to Sara Nathan, Mazzini made it clear that he believed the Stansfelds had earned financial aid, claiming, “these good friends have done so much for our causes that they deserve a bit of propaganda on their behalf from all of us.”10 By encouraging the Nathans to support the Stansfelds, Mazzini not only individually showed his gratitude to the Stansfelds but also fostered a relationship between the Stansfelds and the Nathans. The affective ties binding the Mazzinians would later make them more effective political collaborators.

8  Julia Salis Schwabe to Giuseppe Garibaldi, 31 January 1863, MCRR, Busta 890, N. 43(9); Giuseppe Garibaldi to Julia Salis Schwabe, 20 January 1862, MCRR, Busta 890, N. 40(2). 9  Tiziana Olivari, ed., La biblioteca di Garibaldi a Caprera (Milano, Italy: FrancoAngeli, 2014), 21–28. Other women who sent books include Esperance von Schwartz, Emma Roberts, Louise Colet, and Dora d’Istria. These women sent Garibaldi books they believed would interest him as well as  their own works, revealing a willingness to engage in self-promotion. 10  Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 13 January 1854, Letter 3788 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 50 (1928), 222.

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Jessie White Mario was both a benefactor and beneficiary of these networks and received presents indicating Mazzini’s and the party’s support of her work for the cause. In January of 1858, Mazzini wrote to Sara Nathan asking her to arrange the purchase of three cases of cigars at a good price for White Mario and her husband. Explaining that couple was too poor to buy cigars otherwise, he wrote that “White is everything but rich and therefore we must help her and her husband to smoke good cigars at a good price.”11 By participating in this exchange, Nathan not only showed her willingness to support Mazzini in his endeavors, but further developed a productive working relationship and close friendship with White Mario that would last until Nathan’s death. The purchase of cigars for White Mario is notable as well because cigar-­ smoking was considered a male behavior unacceptable for proper middle-­ class women.12 Reflecting their willingness to transgress traditional behavioral mores, however, many of the Mazzinian women smoked. All of the Ashurst sisters smoked as did Giorgina Saffi. On July 24, 1846, Mazzini wrote to his mother about the Ashurst sisters’ smoking and called it “a capital crime in English society.”13 Moreover, this transgressive behavior spread across generations of Mazzinian women. In a November 1866 letter, Mazzini referenced Sara Nathan’s daughters Janet and Harriet smoking as well.14 While they were certainly willing at times to violate the conventional norms of middle-class domesticity, these women embraced the traditionally feminine roles of mother, caregiver, and consumer in making their purchases of gifts. They believed in equality between men and women, but maintained that the sexes were not identical and that women were superior in certain areas, particularly those related to domestic or maternal activities. Mazzini also believed in women’s special abilities and deferred 11  Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 22 January 1858, Letter 4940 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 60 (1931), 248. 12  Carl Ipsen, Fumo: Italy’s with Love Affair the Cigarette (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2016). 13  Jessie White Mario, The Birth of Modern Italy: Posthumous Papers of Jessie White Mario, ed. Litta-Visconti-Arese (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1909), 93; Mazzini complained of Saffi wanting to smoke cigarettes in his room in a letter to Matilda Biggs in April of 1858, Giuseppe Mazzini to Matilda Biggs, April 1858, Letter 5016 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 61 (1932). 14  Giuseppe Mazzini to Giuseppe Nathan, 29 November 1866, Letter 8313 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 83 (1940), 294.

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to them when he needed help choosing a present. He particularly relied on Sara Nathan, his model of pure Italian maternal domesticity, for these services. In April of 1852, he called on Nathan as a woman and mother to help him select an appropriate present for Caroline Stansfeld, who had just given birth to her son Joseph (lovingly named after Mazzini).15 He later repeatedly asked Nathan to buy presents for little Joe Stansfeld throughout his childhood. In turn, Nathan continued to accept and execute his demands for help, reinforcing the idea that motherhood gave her particular skills and knowledge in this area. Similarly, Schwabe believed that as a British woman she knew how to best care for a household and properly manage the logistics of domestic affairs. Through her gifts, Schwabe exerted her authority as a capable Englishwoman and sought to provide Garibaldi with the English knowledge and products that she believed were superior. In 1861, she sent her gardener Robert Webster to Caprera to transform its wilderness into an orderly English-style garden. Garibaldi wrote to Schwabe in July of that year thanking her, but added that the gardener was trying to do too much, saying, “I allow an English reform in my Eden; but a total radical transformation I will dislike!”16 She also sent Garibaldi agricultural newspapers so that he could use English methods to increase the productivity of his island retreat.17 Schwabe’s actions reveal how she found strength and agency in her perceived mastery over the domestic sphere. She and the other women believed that their unique skills as British women enabled them to make a distinct contribution not only to the lives of their friends and colleagues, but to the Risorgimento and future of the Italian state. Emotional Support, Alternative Families, and Networks of Trust These acts of gift-giving formed part of a larger development of concern for  not only the financial stability but also the emotional well-being of 15  Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, April 1852, Letter 3290 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 47 (1927), 234. 16  Curàtulo, Garibaldi e le donne, 35. 17  Writing to fellow patriot Federico Bellazzi, she explained that “You will render me an additional kind service if you would ascertain which of the two agricultural papers I addressed to the General he finds most useful, I shall like to arrange that there be weekly one sent to him from England, but I wish to know whether he prefers ‘Bells Weekly newspaper or the Gardeners Chronicle Agricultural Gazette’.” Julia Salis Schwabe to Federico Bellazzi, 27 March 1863, MCRR, Busta 254, N. 100(4).

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other members of the political network. Italian exiles and their British supporters often became close friends and in some cases like a family. Their private letters reveal a frequent use of familial language, expressions of concern about each other’s health, and words of solace during times of loss. Some of these political radicals further forged their emotional bonds through caring for each other’s children. As they had with the act of gift-­ giving, these men and women took the traditionally apolitical and domestic behavior of care for children and utilized it for political goals. Historians have generally not fully appreciated the political ramifications of emotional bonds, friendship, and familial networks. Many historians have written about emotion in the Risorgimento by focusing on the romantic relationships of its leaders, particularly Mazzini and Garibaldi. In explaining why certain women chose to participate in the Risorgimento, these authors, even those celebrating women’s involvement, have focused on the women’s romantic connections to the great patriots rather than on their independent ideals or philosophy.18 While these works recognize the importance of emotion on a personal or biographical level, they do not see it as equally important as political or philosophical engagement. Inspired by Alberto Mario Banti’s call for a cultural approach to Risorgimento studies, many historians have challenged this approach and brought attention to the importance of Romanticism, hero worship, and emotion for both male and female patriots.19 In a 2005 piece, historian Marjan Schwegman specifically defended the emotional involvement of non-Italian women like Schwabe or White Mario with Italian patriots and in the Risorgimento overall. Using Margaret Fuller as an example, she insisted that Fuller’s adoration for Mazzini should not be dismissed as “a typical example of the romantic infatuation cool Nordic women fell prey to as soon as they met charismatic Italian revolutionaries like Mazzini and Garibaldi.” Instead, she argued, scholars must recognize how emotion,

 Amarena, Donne mazziniane, donne repubblicane.  Alberto Mario Banti, La nazione del Risorgimento: parentela, santità e onore alle origini dell’Italia unita, 225 (Torino: G. Einaudi, 2000); Alberto Mario Banti, L’onore della nazione: identità sessuali e violenza nel nazionalismo europeo dal XVIII secolo alla grande guerra (Torino: Einaudi, 2005); Laura Guidi, Vivere la guerra: percorsi biografici e ruoli di genere tra Risorgimento e primo conflitto mondiale (Napoli: ClioPress, 2007); Silvana Patriarca and Lucy Riall, The Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Italy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). 18 19

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love, and infatuation motivated both men and women.20 Other scholars have similarly advocated for the importance of affective ties between friends or family members in determining political beliefs and actions, regardless of gender.21 Many of these works focus on the close supportive friendships formed between Mazzini and his British allies.22 Historian Federica Falchi, for example, argued that Mazzini’s close friendships with British women helped him to develop his uniquely feminist tendencies. Though she acknowledged Mazzini’s initial feminism and its appeal to women like White Mario or Saffi, Falchi argued that his interactions with the educated, independent, and active British women who joined his campaign further reinforced his beliefs.23 These quasi-familial ties additionally created the bonds of trust, cooperation, and discretion necessary for the radical and often illegal work of the Risorgimento. A reading of the letters between Mazzini, Garibaldi, and their followers reveals how this level of trust emerged out of friendly relationships. In 1863, for instance, Mazzini wrote to White Mario saying, “I do love you; I trust you; and your lines make me more and more loving and trusting: bless you for them.”24 The letters between the revolutionaries contained a mixture of logistical planning and the language of close affection and deep personal concern. For these Mazzinians, friendship formed a strong foundation for revolutionary collusion. Families were integral to Mazzinian politics. As historian Marina D’Amelia has shown, the consistent and overwhelming support provided by Maria Drago Mazzini, Giuseppe Mazzini’s mother, was invaluable in 20  Marjan Schwegman, “In Love with Garibaldi: Romancing the Italian Risorgimento,” European Review of History 12, no. 2 (July 2005): 383–401. 21  Scaramuzza, Politica e amicizia; Porciani, Famiglia e nazione nel lungo ottocento italiano. 22  Mazzatinti, Lettere di Giuseppe Mazzini ad Aurelio Saffi e alla famiglia Craufurd (1850–1872); Mazzatinti, Mazzini’s Letters to an English Family; Denis Mack Smith, Mazzini (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996); Sarti, Mazzini: A Life for the Religion of Politics; Isabella, Risorgimento in Exile: Italian Emigres and the Liberal International in the Post-­ Napoleonic Era; Giuseppe Mazzini et al., Dear Kate: lettere inedite di Giuseppe Mazzini a Katherine Hill, Angelo Bezzi e altri italiani a Londra (1841–1871) (Soveria Mannelli (Catanzaro): Rubbettino, 2011); Ros Pesman, “Mazzini in esilio e le inglesi,” in Famiglia e nazione nel lungo ottocento italiano: modelli, strategie, reti di relazioni, ed. Ilaria Porciani (Roma: Viella, 2011); Sutcliffe, Victorian Radicals and Italian Democrats. 23  Falchi, “Beyond National Borders; ‘Italian’ Patriots United in the Name of Giuseppe Mazzini: Emilie Ashurst, Margaret Fuller and Jessie White Mario.” 24  Giuseppe Mazzini to Jessie White Mario, 16 April 1863, Letter 7046  in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 74 (1937), 348–50.

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his political trajectory. Many Mazzinians, Aurelio Saffi included, had strong relationships with their mothers, who facilitated their careers in politics.25 In Britain as well, participation in Mazzinian politics was often a family endeavor. The entire Ashurst family, Craufurd family, and Rosselli and Nathan families gave their support for the cause of Italian unification and republicanism.26 Marriages between members of the network further solidified its ties. As Chap. 6 will discuss in greater detail, many of the women involved in Mazzinian politics found themselves attracted to their male colleagues, who not only shared their political goals but were willing to accept the women as partners and equals. Jessie Meriton White first grew enamored with Alberto Mario while planning the Pisacane uprising in Genoa and fell in love more deeply during their respective imprisonments after the conspiracy failed. Giorgina Craufurd similarly met Aurelio Saffi through her family’s support of Italian exiles, while three of the Ashurst sisters chose to marry British men sympathetic to their political goals: Matilda Ashurst’s husband Joseph Biggs, Caroline Ashurst’s husband James Stansfeld, and Emilie Ashurst’s first husband Sidney Hawkes were all supporters of radical causes within Britain and promoted Italian Unification. Emilie Ashurst’s second husband, Carlo Venturi, had even closer ties to the movement as an Italian radical and patriot himself. The lines between private and public and between emotions and politics were thus constantly blurred. Moreover, radicals like Saffi and Nathan saw their collaborators as friends and family members and created surrogate families separate from legal or blood ties. The language of love and affection linked the entire network of the radical left. Male and female members alike often referred to their female colleagues as sisters, emphasizing the platonic nature of these partnerships while also allowing for an acknowledgment of a deeper personal connection. Their private letters further reveal constant inquiries and discussions of each other’s physical health. When Sara Nathan became ill in November 1863, Mazzini wrote to multiple people across his network, including Matilda Ashurst Biggs, Maurizio Quadrio (Nathan’s close 25  D’Amelia, La Mamma; Marina D’Amelia, “Between Two Eras: Challenges Facing Women in the Risorgimento,” in The Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Italy, ed. Silvana Patriarca and Lucy Riall (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 115–33. 26  For more on the importance of family to the Ashursts’ political activity see: Allison Scardino Belzer, “Three Generations of Unconventional Family Values: A Case Study of the Ashursts,” Journal of Victorian Culture 20, no. 1 (2015): 1–19.

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friend and tutor to her children), and Caterina Pistrucci (a Mazzinian living near Nathan in Lugano), asking for updates on her health and later offering his own knowledge of her condition.27 Agostino Bertani, a doctor and radical politician of the extreme left, played a key role in providing medical care across the Mazzinian network. Though he is better known for his role in the medical corps of Garibaldi’s armies, Bertani also often acted as a sort of family doctor for the radical patriots. Both Giorgina Saffi and Sara Nathan repeatedly wrote to Bertani asking for medical advice for themselves and their children.28 He also was trusted to operate on Alberto Mario’s mouth cancer nine times over a twelve-year period, and treated White Mario’s right hand when it became partially paralyzed after she suffered a minor stroke.29 As Bertani’s medical care for the Nathan and Saffi children suggests, care for the children of these networks solidified the emotional bonds between its members. Sara Nathan acted as a surrogate mother for Lina Brusco Onnis, the child of her frequent collaborator Vincenzo Brusco Onnis, after Lina’s mother died in childbirth, while Jessie White Mario acted as a motherly figure for her former conspirator Elena Casati Sacchi’s children. White Mario also took a sustained interest in Garibaldi’s children, particularly his son Ricciotti. In the fall of 1854, Mrs. Emma Roberts and her daughter had traveled to Italy to visit Garibaldi, to whom she was engaged. White Mario accompanied them and first met Garibaldi on this trip. In May of 1855, worried about a weakness in his son’s leg, Garibaldi placed Ricciotti in the care of Roberts. White Mario worked with Roberts to ensure that Ricciotti received appropriate medical care for his leg and sent Garibaldi letters updating him on his son’s progress and arranging payment for medical bills.30 The women also oversaw Ricciotti’s education, 27  Giuseppe Mazzini to Maurizio Quadrio, 21 November 1863, Letter 7172; Giuseppe Mazzini to Matilda Biggs, November 1863, Letter 7174; Giuseppe Mazzini to Caterina Pistrucci, November 1863, Letter 7180 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 76 (1938), 205, 207–8, 217. 28  Giorgina Saffi to Agostino Bertani, 4 June 1869, MCRR, Busta 433, N. 15(1); Giorgina Saffi to Agostino Bertani 4 September 1869, MCRR, Busta 433, N. 15(2); Sara Nathan to Agostino Bertani, 16 December 1868, MCRR, Busta 438, N. 30(1); Sara Nathan to Agostino Bertani, 18 December 1868, MCRR, Busta 438, N. 30(2). 29  Jessie White Mario, “Della vita di Alberto Mario. Memorie,” in Scritti letterari e artistici di Alberto Mario, by Giosuè Carducci (Bologna: Nichola Zanichelli, 1901), clxxi. 30  G. Garibaldi to Jessie Meriton White, Letter 849, 6 April 1856 in Giuseppe Garibaldi, Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, ed. Giancarlo Giordano, Vol. III (Roma: Istituto per la

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arranging for him to be sent to the coeducational Portman Hall School in London, a progressive institution founded by White Mario’s close friend and noted feminist Barbara Smith (later Barbara Smith Bodichon).31 Letters indicate Ricciotti remained in White Mario’s care through August 1856 and she was quite saddened when he left.32 Garibaldi wrote multiple times to console her and these letters indicate the longevity of her grief and the depth of connection she had formed with the young Garibaldi.33 Ricciotti meanwhile remained similarly attached to White Mario, prompting Garibaldi to write in August 1859 that “Ricciotti is well, and he always remembers his Jessie.”34 Garibaldi provided similar care and concern for White Mario’s family and treated her as the sister he so often called her. During his tumultuous and hectic visit to England in 1864, for example, he made a point to show favor to her family by visiting White Mario’s stepmother Jane Gain in Porstmouth.35 In 1866, Garibaldi consoled White Mario after the death of Gain, who was the only mother she had known. In a letter sent to Alberto Mario offering his condolences and sympathies, Garibaldi wrote, “I respond to you with damp eyes, thinking about the grave loss had by the dearest family of Jessie. Tell that beloved sister of mine that I share in her grief.”36 Garibaldi thus shared in the personal sorrows as well as the joys of White Mario’s life. This personal connection existed alongside their shared political views and was intensified by them. The political ties between Mary Chambers and Garibaldi similarly extended to include each of their families. Chambers frequently worked alongside her husband John Chambers in her Garibaldian endeavors and storia del Risorgimento italiano, 1981), 130; White Mario, The Birth of Modern Italy, 253. 31  Anderson, Joyous Greetings: The First International Women’s Movement, 1830–1860, 201. 32  White Mario to G.  Garibaldi, 23  August 1856, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-­ Curatulo, 665. 33  G. Garibaldi to Jessie Meriton White, Letter 880, 7 November 1856; G. Garibaldi to Jessie Meriton White, Letter 886, 11 February 1857  in Garibaldi, Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, 1981, Vol. III:149, 153. 34  G. Garibaldi to Jessie White Mario, Letter 1153, 1 August 1859, in Giuseppe Garibaldi, Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, ed. Massimo De Leonardis, Vol. IV (Roma: Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano, 1982), 107. 35  “Garibaldi at Portsmouth,” The Standard (London, England), Monday, April 11, 1864; pg. 3; Issue 12377. 36  G. Garibaldi to Alberto Mario, Letter 4176, 27 February 1866 in Giuseppe Garibaldi, Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, ed. Giuseppe Monsagrati, Vol. X (Roma: Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano, 1997), 162.

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as a result Garibaldi grew to know not only both Chambers but also their three children. In his letters, Garibaldi frequently inquired about the status and health of the entire Chambers family. In August 1869, he wrote that he was distressed over hearing of the sickness of the “dear Baby,” of the Chambers family.37 Mary Chambers likewise developed close ties with the Garibaldi children. Like White Mario, she served as a maternal figure for young Ricciotti Garibaldi. In her memoir, Scottish author and reformer Isabella Fyvie Mayo claimed that “in his motherless and crippled childhood, Ricciotti, Garibaldi’s youngest son, had been taken in charge by Mrs. Chambers. Her house was still regarded as his home in England.” She also recalled visiting the Chambers’ home and being shown two deerhounds belonging to the young Italian.38 Their relationship extended beyond his childhood as well, with the pair traveling together as late as April 1868 when Ricciotti was twenty-one.39 Moreover, multiple letters throughout the 1860s show a strong level of affection between Chambers and both Ricciotti and his older brother Menotti Garibaldi. In one such letter, Menotti joked with Chambers, saying that he was happy to see her progress with the Italian language and that it was much better than his own in learning English.40 Not only did Garibaldi trust Chambers to watch over his children with his first wife Anita, he also allowed her aid in the difficult situation surrounding his failed marriage to Giuseppina Raimondi and the subsequent illegitimacy of his children with Francesca Armosino. Garibaldi wrote to Chambers in August 1874 asking for her help in the delicate matter, stating, “the love that you display for my Francesca and to my children- makes me dare to ask you a favor: help me to legitimate my children-Clelia and Manlio. Consult your lawyers- and I who knows, I am not Catholic- I will

37  G.  Garibaldi to Emma Chambers, Letter 5792, 24 August 1869  in Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, Vol. XIII, 1868–1869, 255. Garibaldi wrote, “Sono dolentissimo della disgrazia successa alla cara Baby, a cui darete per me un bacio siccome a Mary e Mannie.” 38  Isabella Fyvie Mayo, Recollections of What I Saw, What I Lived Through, and What I Learned, During More Than Fifty Years of Social and Literary Experience (London: John Murray, 1910), 178. 39  Giuseppe Mazzini to John McAdam, 14  April 1868, in Giuseppe Mazzini, Nel segno della democrazia: lettere inedite agli amici di Scozia e d’Inghilterra, 2 (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2011), 298. 40  Menotti Garibaldi to Mary Chambers, 2 March 1863, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 1, Fasc. 2, S. Fasc. 1, Ins. 1.

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become Protestant, if necessary to complete this duty.”41 These letters reveal that Chambers was involved even in some of the most painful and personal aspects of Garibaldi’s familial life and with things he did not readily share with the public. Though she was less successful than White Mario or Chambers in doing so, Julia Salis Schwabe also tried to build on her political relationship with Garibaldi by providing maternal guidance to Garibaldi’s sons. In 1864, Schwabe wrote that the boys would benefit from a visit to her home in Wales, where they would not “be exposed to any temptations like at London.” While Schwabe, a mother to seven, was in some ways simply following her habitual maternal tendencies by urging the young Garibaldis to live moral lives, she also had a political motivation behind her guidance. She explained that she desired Ricciotti to do more with himself in order to better serve Italy, writing, “I hope to persuade Ricciotti to follow some earnest calling. I have schemes for him, and would assist him to serve his country in a way, which would make him worthy of the name he bears.”42 Like Schwabe, Sara Nathan had many children and her maternal identity played a key role in her interactions with other members of her political network. As previously discussed, Nathan sometimes acted as a surrogate mother to the children of her colleagues but also drew on the support of her male compatriots to help raise her twelve children after the death of her husband Meyer Nathan in 1859. Mazzini himself sometimes acted quite paternally toward the Nathan children. One of his favorites was Joseph Nathan, Sara Nathan’s seventh child, who would go on to participate in multiple Mazzinian revolutionary attempts as a young man. When Joseph Nathan was a young teen at a school in Zurich, Mazzini repeatedly wrote to ask how his exams were going. In one letter, he explained that he was receiving news about him nearly every day, and “I have followed with true satisfaction the progress of your work.”43 It is quite likely that Mazzini’s sustained interest in Joseph Nathan played a key role in the younger man’s political allegiance to Mazzini’s ideals.

41  Giuseppe Garibaldi to Mary Chambers, 19 August 1874, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 1, Fasc. 1, S. Fasc. 10, Ins. 11. For more on Garibaldi’s relationships with Raimondi and Armosino, please see Chap. 7. 42   J.  Schwabe to G.  Garibaldi, 12  May 1864, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-­ Curatulo, 2273. 43  Giuseppe Mazzini to Giuseppe Nathan, 31 December 1866, Letter 8340 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 84 (1940), 145.

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Mazzini also helped Sara Nathan parent through times of chaos caused by her family’s commitment to their shared political ideals. In April of 1869, Joseph Nathan participated in an uprising in Milan and was arrested. This caused great upset within the entire Nathan family, but was particularly difficult for Walter Nathan, the ninth of the Nathan children, who had been studying alongside his older brother Joseph in Zurich and began acting out. Hearing poor reports of Walter’s behavior, Mazzini wrote to Sara Nathan detailing her son’s various offenses and recommending that she demand her teenaged son be sent to stay with her. He also wrote Walter Nathan a long letter about his duties and urged him to behave more properly.44 Mazzini thus expressed an interest and concern for all members of the family and not just his favorites. The man who truly served as a surrogate father to the Nathan children, however, was Maurizio Quadrio, one of the core members of Mazzini’s revolutionary and propaganda enterprises. He first entered the Nathan family in 1857 when Sara Nathan, at Mazzini’s request, offered Quadrio a position as tutor to some of her sons so that the impoverished exile could support himself.45 Though he was initially hesitant to accept the post and wanted instead to write for a living, Mazzini convinced him that this was not a viable option and hence he took the position with the Nathans.46 Despite his initial reluctance, Quadrio eventually became like a father to the Nathan children and was a close friend to Sara Nathan. After his death, she wrote a letter to the Italian radical press, saying that “my children and I, we have lost the beneficent influence of his advice, the most faithful most constant friend in misfortune. In the arduous task imparted to me at the death of the father of my children, he was selfless towards me in his help; he was for them a loving and severe father.”47 This touching sentiment showed the high esteem in which the Nathan family held Quadrio. In addition to acting as a surrogate father to the Nathan children, Quadrio also frequently worked alongside Sara Nathan and Mazzini in the 44  Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 20 June 1869, Letter 8929  in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 88 (1940), 67–68. 45  Giuseppe Mazzini to Emilie Hawkes, 16 October 1857, Letter 4823  in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 57 (1931). 46  Giuseppe Mazzini to Emilie Hawkes, 21 November 1857, Letter 4873 and Giuseppe Mazzini to Emilie Hawkes, 27 November 1857, Letter 4879  in Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 57 (1931). 47  Sara Nathan, “Una Proposta,” Libertà e Associazione, Sunday February 27, 1876, a.4, n.9, p.5.

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planning of revolutionary uprisings. Their created family was one in which the boundaries between family and political life were constantly blurred. The family sphere was not a refuge away from politics but rather a safe space in which one could more effectively plot strategy and discuss incendiary political ideas.

Atypical Revolutionaries in Revolutionary Endeavors Due to the confidence established through the personal bonds and egalitarianism of the Mazzinian networks, women like Sara Nathan and Jessie White Mario were trusted as reliable conspirators in the planning of these revolutionary endeavors. Despite the dangers and illegalities of this behavior, the women were committed to their ideals and wholeheartedly participated. As in the formation and maintenance of political networks, they continued to repurpose their traditionally feminine or domestic behaviors for revolutionary ends and used the few privileges they had, including British subjecthood, to overcome the difficulties they faced as women in the public sphere. One of the major tasks of the revolutionary networks was maintaining a sufficient level of secrecy and avoiding police detection and arrest. As seemingly apolitical figures, the British women and children of the Mazzinian networks played a key role in this process. A known radical, Mazzini was under surveillance by multiple governments and, to prevent his mail being read, he often had it sent to other more seemingly benign addresses, such as that of Giorgina Craufurd or her sister Kate. In 1852, Mazzini told Giovanni Acerbi that a letter he needed to send “requires an under-cover with Miss K[ate] Craufurd above.”48 The Nathan children also often carried messages for Mazzini because, as British subjects, they could more easily cross national boundaries carrying inflammatory republican material without patently raising the suspicions of Italian authorities. In the early 1860s, for instance, Sara Nathan encouraged her son Ernesto to don a disguise to send messages to Mazzini in Geneva.49 The Nathans also facilitated the illegal travel of Mazzini and other exiles by acquiring visas and passports for them. In 1858, Mazzini asked Meyer 48  Giuseppe Mazzini to Giovanni Acerbi, 4 November 1852, Letter 3386  in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 48 (1927). 49  Isastia, Storia Di Una Famiglia Del Risorgimento, 29–30.

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Nathan, “Would you get visas for Belgium, France, and Piedmont in the passport? Never mind, if it is not strictly necessary; insist on having these visas.”50 Mazzini would similarly ask Sara Nathan’s eldest son David, who had been attending meetings for Italian patriots in London, to obtain passports. In an 1858 letter, he specifically asked for a passport for a British subject.51 One radical patriot, Nicola Mignogna would later use this false passport, with David Nathan’s name on it, when collecting money and organizing in Lugano.52 Mazzini specifically requested a British passport because the British demanded special privileges when traveling across Europe and in the various states of the Italian peninsula in particular. They claimed these protections even after engaging in revolutionary endeavors designed to upset the political balance in Italy. In 1853, Giorgina Saffi’s older brother was thrown out of Tuscany after being arrested under suspicion of supporting an insurrection there. The British government then demanded an apology from the Tuscans, who complied, claiming that they had insufficient evidence for the accusation.53 This behavior and use of privilege continued after unification as well. In 1864, Mary Chambers’ husband and his friends were arrested by the Italian police in Genoa and, angered by their treatment, claimed the rights and protections of British subjects in Italy. Lieutenant-Colonel Chambers wrote in a letter to the British consul, I have to request you will do me the justice of causing the circumstances to be thoroughly investigated by the proper authorities, in order that my character as a British officer and an English gentleman may be completely cleared and exonerated from so serious a charge.54

This story generated interest among the British press and was reprinted in articles emphasizing Chambers’ right as an Englishman to British justice. The revolutionaries of the left therefore had two fairly effective yet opposing strategies to employ when avoiding police scrutiny or obtaining 50  Giuseppe Mazzini to Meyer Nathan, 1858, Letter 5279 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 62 (1933). 51  Giuseppe Mazzini to David Nathan, 1858, Letter 5283 in Mazzini. 52  Giuseppe Mazzini to Filippo Bettini, 2 October 1859, Letter 5474 in Mazzini. 53  Giuseppe Mazzini to James Stansfeld, 9 March 1853, Letter 3515 in Mazzini, Scritti, 1927, 47:341–42. 54  “Insult to Englishmen in Italy,” Liverpool Mercury etc (Liverpool, England), Thursday, February 11, 1864; Issue 4995.

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a release from prison. By emphasizing their British subjecthood, some members claimed to be above suspicion and beyond the jurisdiction of the Italian legal system. In contrast, by embracing their status as women or children, others pretended to be almost below suspicion by taking advantage of common beliefs that they were too weak, stupid, or apolitical to achieve anything of value or be a threat. The following sections illustrate how White Mario relied on the first strategy during her efforts in the Pisacane expedition in 1857 while Nathan found more use in the latter. Both women, however, benefited from the close emotional bonds forged between conspirators. The Rights of a British Subject: Jessie White Mario and the Pisacane Conspiracy In the spring of 1857, twenty-five-year-old Jessie Meriton White was touring England and Scotland giving lectures promoting Italian Unification and raising funds for a potential patriotic republican uprising on the Italian peninsula when she received word of an upcoming revolution.55 White left Scotland and headed directly to Genoa where she was celebrated by members of the Italian left and welcomed as a known supporter of Mazzinian ideals. Working with his colleagues, including Emilie Ashurst Hawkes, Mazzini ensured that these celebrations were reported on in both the Italian and British presses as a way to strengthen relations between the two countries.56 Though her political sympathies were certainly known, White was not publicly in Genoa as a plotter of revolution but rather claimed to be serving as a correspondent for the Daily News. Providing further evidence of the Mazzinian support networks, in her memoir White Mario claimed she obtained her position writing with various British newspapers through the influence of James Stansfeld.57 White’s work as a journalist offered a useful veneer of legality for her presence in Genoa, but was overall not terribly convincing. As a result of her very public Mazzinian sympathies, Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia Camillo de Cavour had been informed of her arrival in Genoa and placed her under careful surveillance.58 Mazzini  White Mario’s work as a lecturer will be discussed in greater detail in Chap. 4.  Daniels, Jessie White Mario, 56–57. 57  White Mario, The Birth of Modern Italy, 266. 58  Noel Blakiston, Inglesi e italiani nel Risorgimento (Catania: Bonanno Editore, 1973), 39. 55 56

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described the close scrutiny over White saying, “she is here a true lioness; from the police to our sailors everybody watching on [over] her.”59 The conservative press also noted her arrival with some distaste, seeing through her façade as a safe female British journalist and recognizing her revolutionary tendencies. On June 13, 1857, the conservative Catholic paper La Civiltà Cattolica announced the arrival of “a certain Englishwoman by the name Miss White, sent by Giuseppe Mazzini in England and in Italy, to search there for moral and material aid in support of the Italian cause.”60 Throughout her time in Italy in 1857, however, White worked carefully to hide her revolutionary activity as much as possible and maintain her public persona and the protections it offered. Upon her arrival in Genoa, White met with Mazzini who was then hiding with local women Carlotta Benedettini and Caterina Gasparina.61 Throughout this mission, she collaborated with many other Italian women, including Benedettini, Gasparina, and Maria Alimonda Serafini, though none would become as important to her as Elena Casati (1834–82).62 Both White and Casati were in their early twenties, unmarried, and devoted to Mazzinian ideals. Unlike White, however, Casati had been raised in the ideals of the Risorgimento. Her mother, Luisa Riva Casati, had supported the revolutions of 1848 and was eventually forced into exile in Switzerland, where Casati was raised. As a child, Casati had come to know Mazzini, Aurelio Saffi, and Maurizio Quadrio, who referred to her as his favorite daughter.63 While the group planned the uprising, Jessie White and Elena Casati lived and worked together in the house of Luigi Roggero, another Mazzinian. The involvement of women like White, Casati, and Gasparini was not atypical for Mazzini, who had a history of including women in his conspiracies to an extent that even other members of the Italian left found 59  Giuseppe Mazzini to Emilie Ashurst, 4 June 1857  in Mazzini’s Letters to an English Family, 1855–1860 (London: John Lane, 1922), 78. 60  “Cronaca contemporanea: Stati Sardi (nostra corrispondenza),” La Civiltà Cattolica, 13 June 1857 (Rome) ser.03, v.06, p. 744. They also wrote about her arrest. “Stati Sardi: la congiura di Genova,” La Civiltà Cattolica, 13 June 1857 (Rome) ser.03, v.06, p. 362. 61  White Mario, “Della vita di Alberto Mario,” xlvii. 62  Like many of Mazzini’s allies, Serafini would later become quite active as a feminist. In 1873, she published a pamphlet, Matrimonio e divorzio, which was, “the only known work by an Italian woman dedicated to the subject of divorce published between unification and 1900.” Seymour, Debating Divorce in Italy, 27. 63  Evelina Rinaldi, Maurizio Quadrio nelle lettere ad Elena Casati (Roma: La Libreria dello Stato, 1936).

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problematic. Felice Orsini, for example, criticized Mazzini for sharing details of his conspiracies with his female followers, particularly the Ashurst sisters, and argued that he was thereby placing the lives of Italian patriots in the hands of five or six women not known for their discretion. James Stansfeld and Mazzini defended the women, leading to a breach between Mazzini and Orsini in mid-October 1856.64 The Mazzinians working in Genoa in 1857, however, were willing to follow the model of Mazzini and Stansfeld rather than that of Orsini. Though she was young, female, and not even Italian, White was accepted as a trusted collaborator. Moreover, in his book about Pisacane, historian and noted anti-Fascist Nello Rosselli argued that White was “the only foreigner deeply involved in the secret things,” surrounding the preparations for the mission to Sapri.65 While White’s primary role was that of fundraiser and propagandist, she was privy to strategy meetings and participated in the fierce and extensive debates surrounding the proposed uprising. The overall plan for the expedition was for Carlo Pisacane, a Neapolitan patriot who had participated in the Roman Republic of 1849, to lead an uprising in southern Italy that would incite the patriotic fervor of the average Italian and spark similar revolutions across the peninsula leading to the creation of a unified Italian republic. Though Garibaldi refused to participate in the 1857 revolt, believing that the time was not right and that sufficient popular support would not emerge, his famed Campaign of the Thousand in 1860–61 was similar in its structure and goals. Even those who agreed that the time was generally right for the uprising debated the specifics of the plan. White Mario recalled that there was, however, division of opinion as to the wisdom of seizing arms and ammunition in the arsenal and fortresses of Genoa, but if the first expedition was to be followed by other volunteers, arms and ammunition would become vitally indispensable, and the only means of procuring them was to take by force all that as necessary.66

64  Elena Bacchin, “Felice Orsini and the Construction of the Pro-Italian Narrative in Britain,” in Britain, Ireland and the Italian Risorgimento, by Nick Carter (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 86. 65  Blakiston, Inglesi e italiani nel Risorgimento, 39. 66  White Mario, The Birth of Modern Italy, 267–68.

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White Mario’s recollections reveal not only her engagement in the planning process, but her sanctioning of violent force to accomplish her political aims. One person with whom White frequently discussed strategy was her future husband Alberto Mario. On the first day of her arrival in Genoa, White had met Mario, “a young and elegant blond man, with a letter from Mazzini.” In between meetings about the potential logistics of the revolution, the pair conversed about Italian poets and visited local sites important to their shared cause, like the prison where Jacopo Ruffini died and the grave of Mazzini’s mother in the cemetery at Staglieno.67 This politically charged leisure time and constant debate became an integral part of their relationship and a key feature of their marriage. White also arranged furtive correspondence with Mazzini, who by necessity was more deeply hidden from public view than the other conspirators and could not move about the city as freely. Explaining the limitations on their activities to Emilie Ashurst Hawkes, Mazzini wrote, “of course we [Mazzini and White] correspond, but especially after the manifestation, I must be very careful with her: she will be watched closely.”68 Physical meetings were much harder to arrange and required a great deal of planning, secrecy, and cooperation from others. Mazzini arranged a June 1857 meeting by asking White to “follow the long-bearded man whom the Editor of the Italia e Popolo will introduce to you.”69 As White could be counted upon to accurately and persuasively convey Mazzini’s preferences and plans to the larger group, however, these meetings were needed. After weeks of debate, the revolutionaries were ready to put their plan into place on June 25, 1857. Pisacane and his men planned to board the postal steamer Cagliari, overtake the crew, and sail south to the island of Ponza, where they would release political prisoners held on the island. With the aid of men liberated from Ponza, they would then sail to southern Campania, start a revolt in the countryside, and take over Naples. At the last moment, however, the men discovered a small flaw in their plan,

 White Mario, “Della vita di Alberto Mario,” l.  Giuseppe Mazzini to Emilie Ashurst, 18 May 1857  in Mazzini’s Letters to an English Family, 1855–1860, 74–75. 69  Mazzini to Jessie Meriton White, June 1857, Letter 4783 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, vol. 58 (1931), 207. 67 68

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which White was able to resolve. As she explained in a letter to the Times from January 1858, A few hours before leaving Genoa in the Cagliari… Pisacane discovered that the engineers were English; he had never seen either of them, and did not know their names. As it was necessary that the whole crew should understand the reason of the seizure of the steamer, Pisacane, who could not speak English, dictated to me the above proclamation in Italian. I translated.70

White Mario’s published letter formed part of a larger outcry at the treatment of those English engineers, Henry Watt and Charles Park. Detained alongside the surviving Italian patriots as complicit participants in the revolution, at the time of her letter the men had been held for six months in the brutal conditions of the Neapolitan prisons without any charges brought against them. The press campaign prompted the intervention of the British state, and Watt and Parks had their charges dropped and were released after a total of nine months in captivity.71 With the aid of White’s knowledge of English and her note, Pisacane and his crew captured the Cagliari, sailed it to the island of Ponza, and liberated the political prisoners held there. Back in Genoa, the mood was joyous after Pisacane’s departure, and, according to White Mario, she and Alberto Mario even became engaged that night amid the joy and anticipation.72 Unfortunately, events quickly took a turn for the worse as the simultaneous uprising in Genoa failed to launch successfully. Mazzini had planned attacks on the military forts across the city on the evening of June 29, 1857, but found out at the last minute that the authorities knew about their plans. With the element of surprise lost, Mazzini issued a counterorder to cease the attack. In the confusion, however, one group did not receive the order and killed an army sergeant. Their actions prompted an 70  Jessie Meriton White Mario, “The Neapolitan State Trials,” The Times (London, England) Saturday January 23rd 1858, p. 7. 71  Wright, Great Britain and the Unifying of Italy, 44. According to Wright, “The Conservative foreign secretary Lord Malmesbury was left to demand that the Bourbon regime pay the men an indemnity of £3000; he succeeded in persuading the Neapolitan government to compensate the two men only after threatening to resort to gunboat diplomacy.” This reveals the extreme extent to which the British state would act to protect and defend its subjects abroad. 72  White Mario, “Della vita di Alberto Mario,” lvi.

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investigation and retaliation by the Piedmontese authorities.73 As part of these events, on July 3, 1857, the police searched the house where Jessie White was staying in Genoa. Looking back, she claimed that the inspector was “furious, but not clever,” and was unable to find the papers entrusted to her.74 Despite the lack of evidence, the authorities arrested her the next day and brought her to the prison at Sant’Andrea. Later in life, White Mario recalled the unflagging optimism she maintained on her first night in prison. As she was being taken away, news arrived that Pisacane had succeeded in freeing the prisoners and had arrived in Sapri. Feeling that her work and suffering would be in the service of a larger success, “that first night in prison I had golden dreams which the anxiety and emotion of many days previously had not permitted me.”75 Unfortunately, the situation continued to deteriorate. Prior to her arrest, White and Casati had set up a system of codes, which they used to correspond during White’s incarceration. Through these encoded messages, Casati delivered the devastating news of the ultimate tragic failure of Pisacane’s expedition.76 As Casati informed White, many of the prisoners liberated from Ponza had not, in fact, been political prisoners and deserted as soon as they reached the mainland at Sapri. Moreover, the people of the Campanian countryside, rather than joining in the patriotic revolt, fought against the men they viewed as dangerous criminal invaders. Unable to defeat the combination of the angry peasant army and the Bourbon government troops, most of the men, including Pisacane, were killed and a surviving two dozen were arrested.77 While still grappling with the violent death of men who had become friends to her, White turned her attention to the future, working to ensure that Pisacane’s legacy would inspire future patriots rather than discourage and silence them. Before his departure, Pisacane had left his most important papers with White, including his last political testament, asking that she have those papers published whether they were victorious or not.78 Before her arrest, White had translated the documents and sent them to British newspapers for publication. In those dark days following the news of Pisacane’s failure, she found joy and solace in the knowledge of their  Sarti, Mazzini: A Life for the Religion of Politics, 177.  White Mario, “Della vita di Alberto Mario,” xlviii. 75  White Mario, “Della vita di Alberto Mario,” lviii. 76  Jessie White Mario, In Memoria di Giovanni Nicotera (Firenze: G. Barbèra, 1894), v. 77  Duggan, Force of Destiny, 196–97. 78  White Mario, “Della vita di Alberto Mario,” liv. 73 74

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publication, believing that his words held the truth and courage to inspire other patriots.79 The majority of White’s attention, however, remained focused on efforts to maintain her innocence and obtain her freedom. Knowing that she had rights as a British subject, she appealed to the British consul in Genoa, Yeats Brown, claiming that the Piedmontese police had unjustly searched through her papers and asked her to leave Genoa. White argued this was unwarranted as she had a valid passport, was in Italy merely acting as a correspondent for British newspapers, and the search had revealed no incriminating evidence. Refusing to leave the country, she asked the Consul for his generosity in beginning an inquest into this insult to a British subject. After receiving her letter, however, Brown visited the Intendente Generale, who convinced him that White had been correctly implicated for participating in the attempted rebellion prompting Brown to declare her undeserving of British protection. He added that they would not oppose her expulsion to the frontier. Though White then appealed to Sir James Hudson, the British minister in Turin, he also refused to help her. In a letter to Brown, Hudson asked him to explain to White, “that her behavior in this country has had the purpose of challenging the king’s authority, and subverting the law and the public peace, and therefore I refuse to help her.” On July 12, 1857, Piedmontese Minister of the Interior Urbano Rattazzi wrote to Hudson providing the evidence of White’s guilt and reinforcing the British government’s unwillingness to aid her.80 The British government’s failure to support White suggests that her extreme involvement in revolutionary activity had compromised her status as a middle-class Englishwoman deserving of protection. By living outside of the family structure, publicly engaging in radical politics, and affiliating herself with radical men, White had transcended the boundaries of acceptable behavior for middle-class women and placed herself among the group of vilified and sexualized women in society. Some of the sexualized language surrounding her can be seen in a letter from Cavour to Emmanuel d’Azeglio, the ambassador from Piedmont-Sardinia to Great Britain, on July 6, 1857. In the letter Cavour claimed that she had, “tried to seduce the carabinieri who were guarding her by using feminine coquetry. But

 White Mario, lv.  Blakiston, Inglesi e italiani nel Risorgimento, 39–42.

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our fine soldiers are Josephs whom the wives of Potiphar do not disturb.”81 Lacking hard evidence to convict her in the crime of revolution, Italian authorities also attempted to declare White insane, before doctors determined she was mentally sound and had to be released.82 Knowing that the British government, well aware of her guilt, was uninclined to help her, White composed a letter to James Stansfeld to be published in the British press. She began her letter by stating, “Sir,Perhaps the following details of my late imprisonment may not prove uninteresting to such of your readers as are under the impression that a Foreign Office passport is any protection to a British subject travelling on the Continent.” Affirming that she traveled to Italy with “a Clarendon passport, and with the visa of Austria, France, and Sardinia,” she then expressed outrage at the violation of her rights as a British subject when the carabinieri had entered her apartment without a warrant, searched through her papers, interrogated her, and told her to leave, despite not finding anything.83 Citing the words on her passport and demanding her full rights and protections as a British subject, she wrote, Opening my passport I read the following words:- ‘We, George William Frederick, Earl of Clarendon, &c., request and require, in the name of her Majesty, all those whom it may concern, to allow Miss Jessie Meriton White, British subject, travelling on the Continent, to pass freely, without let or hindrance, and to afford her every assistance and protection of which she may stand in need.’

Based upon this claim on her passport, White demanded aid from the British government, despite Sir James Hudson’s refusal to help her. She then directly criticized the British government, stating,

 Daniels, Jessie White Mario, 64.  White Mario, The Birth of Modern Italy, 272–73. White claimed that Brown and Hudson “were therefore willing to help Cavour in his attempt to have me proved insane, in which case no trial would be needed, insanity arguing irresponsible guilt; but my counsel, the ever-­ watchful and devoted Carcassi, got hold of the plot, and, by an article in the Italia del Popolo, warned the doctors, who were induced to lend themselves to the ‘pious fraud’ in the honest belief that a certificate of insanity would save me from the galleys.” 83  “Miss Jessie Meriton White,” The Standard (London, England), Wednesday, December 02, 1857; pg. 6; Issue 10389. 81 82

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My object in addressing you is to expose the conduct of the British consul and British ambassador towards a British subject furnished with a Foreign Office passport; to expose their system, I might say, for both my Italian and English friends in Genoa told me, on hearing of my arrest, ‘Hope for nothing from the British embassy; if you had an American passport the case would be different.’

White claimed that as the British government had failed her, she would use the British press to defend herself.84 Through this article, White boldly ignored her guilt and the government’s knowledge of it and skillfully appealed not only to the British sense of fairness and legality but also to a British pride that would not allow one of its own to be unfairly mistreated by what they considered a lesser people like the Italians. Though they knew she was guilty, the authorities ultimately lacked sufficient evidence to keep White in prison and released her in November 1857. Author William Roscoe Thayer claimed that “Signora Mario told me in 1895 that the immediate cause of her release was her resolve to starve herself to death in the hope of rendering the Piedmontese Government odious.” He added, “she had already gone some time without food when the order came to discharge her.”85 Her proposed hunger strike provides further evidence of her intransigent relationship with the Piedmontese authorities and unwillingness to quietly submit to her incarceration. Upon her release, White left with Alberto Mario, who had been released two months earlier, for England where they were married on December 19, 1857, in a civil ceremony. The two revolutionaries had continued their courtship during their respective imprisonments through a series of letters on Italian history, literature, and culture.86 Though the Pisacane conspiracy had failed, the relationship between the Marios would be a success as the two enjoyed what was by all accounts a happy partnership until Alberto Mario’s death from cancer in 1883. White Mario’s friendship with Elena Casati Sacchi, forged in the house of Roggero, would also prove enduring. The pair remained close until Casati Sacchi’s death in 1882. Reflecting on her past in 1901, White Mario called Casati Sacchi, “the woman closest to

 “Miss Jessie Meriton White.”  William Roscoe Thayer, The Life and Times of Cavour, vol. I (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911), 460. 86  White Mario, “Della vita di Alberto Mario,” lix–lxi. 84 85

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perfection I have ever known.”87 Not only would the pair remain lifelong friends, but their friendship extended to their husbands. In June 1858, Elena Casati had married Achille Sacchi, a fellow revolutionary who had also participated in the planning of the Pisacane conspiracy. Describing the origins of this long-standing friendship, White Mario wrote, “the friendship born between us youngsters in those unlucky days, was already many years old between Alberto [Mario] and Achille [Sacchi], and grew and lasted continually until death, which left me the only one living in a world of tombs.”88 With bonds forged by similar political sentiments and shared hardships, the friendship and partnership between the couples endured and prospered, revealing the strong ties between emotion and friendship in radical politics. Friendship was not only important when helping to plan conspiracies but could also emerge out of it. A Devoted Mother: Sara Nathan’s Revolutionary Family While Jessie White Mario emphasized her Britishness as a way to compensate for the disadvantages she faced as a woman engaging in politics, Sara Nathan valued her maternity and found strength in her family. Nathan played a key role as a banker of the revolution, provided a safe space for conspiracy in her various homes, and encouraged her children to participate in revolution as protected British subjects, much like White Mario had done previously. Nathan’s revolutionary activities frequently blurred the lines between public and private and revealed the importance of emotional and familial connections. Nathan frequently helped to arrange the finances for the purchase of rifles and other weapons for various Mazzinian uprisings throughout the 1860s and 1870s. In doing so, she drew on lessons learned and connections forged across Europe through her family’s involvement in the world of commerce and finance. These contacts were substantial: her family members in Pesaro were merchants as were her cousins and fellow Mazzinians the Rossellis in London while her husband Meyer Nathan was a banker from Germany. Prior to his death, Meyer Nathan participated in this process of financing revolution and used his contacts as an exchange broker to help with loans and stock exchange operations and to send

 White Mario, xlvii.  White Mario, In Memoria di Giovanni Nicotera, v–vi.

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money to Italy from English banks.89 During her widowhood, Sara Nathan assumed full control of these transactions and acted herself as banker for the party and for Mazzini. Those who wished to send money to support Mazzinian affairs in Italy would direct the money to Nathan in Lugano, who would then distribute it into Italy when necessary.90 At times, Nathan’s children, particularly Adolfo and David, used their own contacts in the banking world to help their mother send money across Europe.91 Taking full advantage of her knowledge of finance, Sara Nathan even invested the sums she had collected for the Mazzinian party to great success.92 Through these actions Nathan successfully utilized the non-state networks of the left to claim a place for herself as a respected financier and was entrusted with large sums in a way that was unusual for a woman of her time. Nathan also frequently participated in the planning of uprisings alongside Mazzini, Maurizio Quadrio, and Vincenzo Brusco Onnis. As previously mentioned in this chapter, Nathan had quasi-familial ties to all three men. Mazzini and Quadrio acted in their own ways as surrogate fathers to her children, while she acted in a maternal fashion to Brusco Onnis’s daughter. Amid discussions of family and health, their correspondence reveals large encoded sections discussing delicate details of their plots. The code used numbers to represent people, places, or ideas, as revealed by this partially decoded letter about a planned uprising in Milan in November 1864, which reads, “In VII.I.26.8., etc., that we will for now call 192[Milan], the 140[Regional Commission], 152 [republican], is regularly II.14.4.12.27. VII.4.20.26.III.23.24- and I.6.5.-15.16.13.?”93 Their letters discussed not only the purchase of weapons but also specific battle strategies. In a letter about the same campaign, Mazzini wrote to Nathan to discuss his plans for a nocturnal surprise assault, subsequent dispersion, 89  Giuseppe Mazzini to James Stansfeld, November 24, 1850, Letter 4044  in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, vol. 44 (1926), 320; Nadia Ciani, Da Mazzini al Campidoglio: Vita di Ernesto Nathan (Roma: Ediesse, 2007), 44–46. 90  Giuseppe Mazzini to Peter Taylor, 11  April 1869, Letter 8878  in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, vol. 87 (1940), 314. 91  Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 13 March 1863, Letter 6892; Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, April 1863, Letter 6958; Giuseppe Mazzini to Filippo Bettini, 6 May 1863, Letter 6961 in Mazzini, Scritti, 1937, 74:99, 183, 192. 92  Isastia, Storia di una famiglia del Risorgimento, 18. 93  Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 8 November 1863, Letter 7157 in Mazzini, Scritti, 1938, 76:180.

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and a new assault the next night. The majority of the letter was encoded, a sign of the potential consequences of their discussion, but the unencoded portion reveals Mazzini’s belief that the plan would require fifty young men and that the consequences between the two governments could be quite serious.94 While her name was not encoded, Mazzini always referred to Sara Nathan as “friend” in his letters to Maurizio Quadrio. This was, of course, a sign of friendship and familiarity, but it was also a way to avoid writing her name and implicating her in the conspiracy. Nathan avoided some of the need for communication via encoded letter by utilizing the domestic sphere to facilitate secure interactions among the radicals. Whether living in London, Italy, or Switzerland, she offered her home as a gathering site for the revolutionary patriot community. Starting in 1850, the Nathan home in London often served as a meeting place for important Mazzinians. Later in his life, Sara Nathan’s son Ernesto recalled how the great figures of Italian history would sit around socializing and debating in his childhood home.95 Though her hosting of political radicals did not cause any legal trouble in Britain, Nathan encountered much more trouble in Italy. After her husband’s death, Sara Nathan had left London and briefly lived in Italy. A police search of her house in Milan in October 1862, however, prompted a move to Switzerland where the laws were more lenient and where many political exiles, including Mazzini, had moved. Ignoring Mazzini’s request that she stay in Italy to be closer to important matters, she preferred the relative safety of exile. In 1865, she bought a villa in Lugano, which became a home away from home for many exiles and which served as a point of organization for the final Mazzinian conspiracies.96 After Nathan’s death in 1882, her obituary in radical papers like La lega della democrazia praised her familial support for Mazzini and the ways in which her home in Switzerland provided an invaluable support for the ongoing efforts of the radical left. It claimed the Nathan villa in Lugano was the serene hospice of the exiles who became more persecuted. Mazzini, Saffi, Quadrio, Cattaneo, all together the most noteworthy conspirators, found in this Benedictine asylum the necessary

94  Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 1 November 1864, Letter 7573 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, vol. 79 (1938), 175–76. 95  Isastia, Storia di una famiglia del Risorgimento, 10–12. 96  Isastia, 31.

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calm to restore strong spirits, to prepare themselves for new attempts for liberty and for Italian independence.97

White Mario’s own obituary of Nathan, published soon after, echoed similar themes. She wrote, “to Sarina and to her family, Mazzini owed the only ray of comfort that relieved him of the physical sufferings and moral tortures of the last years of his worn out existence.”98 For White Mario, Nathan’s care of Mazzini was a duty provided not just to an old dear friend but also to the nation. Through their affection, Nathan and her family rewarded Mazzini for all the work he had done in the service of the Italian people. Nathan’s opponents, however, found much to criticize in her closeness to Mazzini and the other radicals and used this emotional bond as a basis for sexual slander. In 1870, La Civiltà Cattolica called Sara Nathan the “so-called widow Nathan,” and referred to her son Joseph Nathan as “that son of Mazzini.”99 In another article published following Mazzini’s death in 1872, the paper again hinted at these relationships by saying that Mazzini was mourned by “Signora Nathan and her son, who loved him like a husband and father.”100 Despite her hopes for relative peace and security, Nathan’s radical reputation followed her to Switzerland and she continued to suffer under strict government surveillance. In April 1863, the Swiss government, believing that the Party of Action was making preparations in Switzerland for an insurrectional movement in Venice, investigated her activities and published a report claiming that Nathan’s home in Lugano, which she then shared with Maurizio Quadrio, was “the center of operations.” Though it identified her home as a key location, the Swiss government was confused by Nathan’s veneer of maternal respectability and disregarded her radical status. The report called Nathan “the English lady,” and described her as a simple law-abiding English mother, saying that “the Englishwoman Nathan is even in possession of a regular passport and therefore equipped with a residency permit, and she lives in the Canton of Ticino for the  “Sara Nathan,” La lega della democrazia (Roma), a.III, n.52, February 21, 1882, p.3.  Jessie White Mario, “Sara Nathan,” La lega della democrazia (Roma), a.III, n.53–54, February 23, 1882, p.2. 99  “Svizzera (Nostra Corrispondenza), 4. La banda Nathan,” La Civiltà Cattolica, 30 July 1870, Serie VII, Vol. XI, fasc. 489, p. 382. 100  “Cose Italiane: 2. Morte di G. Mazzini,” La Civiltà Cattolica, Serie VIII, Vol. VI, fasc. 525, April 26, 1872, p. 360. 97 98

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health and education of her children.”101 Nathan’s maternal aura, therefore, provided a useful shield for her radicalism. At other points, Nathan was not as successful in hiding her radicalism behind her maternity. Nathan and her children appear to have aided a failed assassination attempt on Napoleon III, Emperor of France, uncovered by French authorities in January 1864.102 During the trial of one of the conspirators in February 1864, authorities revealed that a Mr. Nathan, described as “an intimate friend of Mazzini’s, and a brother of Madame Rosselly [sic],” had sent a bank draft to the conspirator that was to be used to finance his escape. Newspaper accounts during that initial trial, and again in April when Mazzini was tried in absentia for his complicity in the plot, mentioned the involvement of the Nathan children and condemned their connections to Mazzini. One such paper mentioned that Nathan and Rosselli “were both children of Sarah [sic] Nathan, a person notoriously mixed up with Mazzini.”103 The publicity surrounding the trial placed Nathan’s radicalism back into the public eye and, following another rumor of conspiracy in July of that year, her house was searched again.104 She continued to pay a price, therefore, for her ongoing support of Mazzini and their shared dream of a republican Italy. Sara Nathan not only led by example through her own involvement, but actively taught her children revolutionary republican ideals and made revolution a family activity. As previously discussed, her children helped to receive and send messages, arranged the party’s finances, and even participated in revolutionary uprisings. The Nathan children, born and educated 101  Cronaca della guerra d’Italia. 1862-1863-1864, vol. 6 (Rieti: Tipografia Tringhi, 1865), 323. 102  This is not to be confused with the attempt on Napoleon III in 1863 which Esperance von Schwartz accused Nathan of participating in. In 1863, Sara Nathan visited Caprera to meet with Garibaldi on Mazzini’s behalf, likely to help plan an insurrection in Italy. Esperance von Schwartz, however, accused Nathan of trying to gain Garibaldi’s support in a plan to assassinate Napoleon III during this visit. It is unlikely that Schwartz’s version of the story is true and many people at the time found her writing full of exaggerations and sometimes outright lies. Historian Anna Maria Isastia, an expert on the Nathan family, doubts von Schwartz’s story because of the repeated references to Nathan’s beauty and wonders if the accusations stemmed from jealousy on von Schwartz’s side. Curàtulo, Garibaldi e le Donne, 129–33; Isastia, Storia di una famiglia del Risorgimento, 37–38, 41. 103  “The Trial of the Italian Conspirators,” Daily News (London, England), Monday, February 29, 1864; Issue 5557. 104  Giuseppe Mazzini to Matilda Biggs, July 1864, Letter 7483, in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, vol. 78 (1938), 6.

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in England, knew how to embrace those English identities and use their English privilege strategically. Sara Nathan’s eldest son David frequently helped his mother in her revolutionary endeavors. David Nathan used his connections to the banking world to send money for the radicals and had used his British identity to avoid scrutiny in customs and transmit packages containing covert materials across borders. In September 1866, however, his English identity failed to protect him and he was arrested in Lugano for transmitting revolutionary republican materials for the Universal Republican Alliance.105 After Nathan’s arrest, Mazzini called upon his various contacts to help the eldest Nathan son and even tried to use the British press to garner outrage as Jessie White Mario had done in 1857. Unfortunately, Mazzini feared that Nathan, a Jewish man of business, did not sufficiently fit the mold of English respectability to garner such esteem.106 Just as White Mario had lost some of the protection of her Englishness by transgressing the boundaries of ladylike decorum, David Nathan tarnished his appeal as a valued British subject deserving of protection by engaging in trade and not rejecting his Jewish heritage. Though the Mazzinians were unable to earn him amnesty, Nathan was eventually released in December 1866.107 It was one of her younger sons, Joseph Nathan, however, who would become Sara Nathan’s true partner in her revolutionary activity. As previously discussed, Joseph Nathan was a favorite of Mazzini and their close relationship no doubt helped prompt him to go beyond the activities of his siblings and take up arms for the ideals of Italian republicanism, leading an insurrection in Milan at the end of April 1869. Unfortunately, the uprising was uncovered by the police and Nathan was arrested. As they had with Jessie White Mario and David Nathan after their respective arrests, the Mazzinian network attempted to free Joseph Nathan by framing him as a British subject unjustly deprived of his due rights. After a failed attempt in August 1869 to use Mazzinian couple Peter and Clementia Taylor’s connections in Parliament to prompt an inquiry into Joseph Nathan’s imprisonment in the House of Commons, they turned to 105  Isastia, Storia di una famiglia del Risorgimento, 46. David Nathan was born in 1839, making him likely about 27 at this time. 106  Giuseppe Mazzini to Vincenzo Brusco Onnis, September 1866, Letter 8263; Giuseppe Mazzini to Giovanni Grilenzoni, September 1866, Letter 8267; Giuseppe Mazzini to Emilie A. Venturi, 11 October 1866, Letter 8272; Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 19 November 1866, Letter 8304 in Mazzini, Scritti, 1940, 84:41, 44, 53, 107. 107  Isastia, Storia di una famiglia del Risorgimento, 46.

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the press, sending in stories casting Joseph Nathan as a British subject unfairly deprived of due process.108 The articles argued that Mr. Nathan, a British subject, aged 19 years, has been in prison at Milan ever since April last, upon no charge except that he was found travelling from Lugano, where his mother resides, and where Mazzini was staying at the time; and also that upon the journey he was in company with a young man who was out with Garibaldi in the campaign of 1866.

They were outraged that upon these grounds Nathan had been “all the past six months immured in an Italian gaol, without trial, or even a statement of his offence.”109 Another paper added that “the young British subject remains incarcerated, and it is due to the public feeling of this country, even more than to the distressed family of the lad, that the failure should be generally known.”110 The successful publishing of these articles in multiple papers reveals the widespread sense of English entitlement and the savvy of the Mazzinians in appealing to it. Nathan was guilty and yet the papers were arguing for his innocence. Moreover, they prompted active intervention on the part of the British state, despite Nathan’s Jewish heritage and known radical tendencies. That autumn, under orders from Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Lord Clarendon, both British Envoy Extraordinary to Italy Sir Augustus Paget and his Secretary Edward Herries made repeated inquiries into Nathan’s case and asked that it promptly be brought to trial.111 Joseph Nathan was released from prison in November 1869 under the terms of a general amnesty for political prisoners on the occasion of the birth of a son and heir to Crown Prince Umberto and Princess Margherita.112 At the close of the year, he was back with his family in Lugano and seemed recovered from the ordeal. Mazzini described him as 108  Giuseppe Nathan to Clementia Taylor, 23  August 1869, Letter 8978  in Mazzini, Scritti, 1940, 88:143. 109  “A Case for Investigation,” Liverpool Mercury etc (Liverpool, England), Friday, October 8, 1869; Issue 6772. 110   “A Case for Investigation.” Manchester Times (Manchester, England), Saturday, October 9, 1869; Issue 619. The plea was also repeated in the Bristol Mercury. “A Case for Investigation,” The Bristol Mercury (Bristol, England), Saturday, October 9, 1869; Issue 4148. 111  Wright, Great Britain and the Unifying of Italy, 180. 112  Wright, 180.

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“always in high spirits, very good, very affectionate.”113 Throughout his imprisonment, Joseph Nathan had remained in contact with Mazzini and had benefited from the emotional bond between the two men. Sara Nathan, however, was “unwell and cast down,” in December 1869, following what were likely months of guilt and stress as a result of her role in this conspiracy.114 Though the press had blamed Joseph Nathan for the uprising, calling him, “the prime mover of the whole affair, the secretary, banker, and confidential friend of Mazzini,” private correspondence reveals that Sara Nathan played a key role in organizing this uprising and had assigned her son to execute it.115 In a letter from Mazzini to Caroline Stansfeld, Mazzini revealed that the police had searched Nathan’s home and said, “I hope they did not find documents, receipts, or bills for arms. There might be troubles for her too.” He added that “the scheme was concerted between them, Quadrio, Sarina, etc…. believing that 50 men would determine a general rising.” While he did not entirely approve of their strategy, he admired the Nathans and wrote, “Joseph is brave: Sarina truly heroic.”116 As she had previously, Nathan benefited from the assumption that revolution was a man’s game and was able to remain safely behind the scenes. From the comforts of her villa in Lugano, surrounded by her family of revolutionaries, Nathan was able to recover from the ordeal and remained steadfastly committed to republicanism and to Mazzini.

Conclusion Revolution was often a group effort requiring a strong network of trusted associates. Women played a key role in fostering and maintaining the emotional connections of these networks and operated alongside men who similarly valued emotion, friendship, and family. Rather than rejecting their femininity as a liability, these women glorified traditionally feminine behaviors. They used their power as consumers to buy gifts, provide financial support for their community, and foster connections between group 113  Giuseppe Mazzini to Emilie A. Venturi, 19 December 1869, Letter 9050 in Mazzini, Scritti, 1940, 88:276. 114  Mazzini, 88:276. 115  “Italy. The Mazzinian Conspiracy,” The Standard (London, England), Friday, April 30, 1869; pg. 5; Issue 13959. 116  Giuseppe Mazzini to Caroline Stansfeld, 6 June 1869 in Mazzini’s Letters to an English Family, 1861–1872 (London: John Lane, 1922), 210–11.

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members. As participants in conspiracies, moreover, women like White Mario and Nathan took advantage of their seemingly apolitical and nonthreatening status as women when it suited them. As transnational subjects, they were also able to overcome some of the lingering disadvantages of being female in the public sphere by emphasizing their British identity and its accompanying privileges. The following chapter will show how these women similarly deployed traditionally feminine and domestic behaviors for revolutionary purposes when fundraising for the various revolutions of the Risorgimento.

CHAPTER 3

Bazaars for Bullets: Fundraising for the Revolution

Women played important roles in nineteenth-century philanthropic and charitable campaigns and used the tools and language of philanthropy to overcome their political disadvantages and make an impact in the public sphere. While scholars have clearly demonstrated this phenomenon, their works often only show women engaging in local politics or in so-called women’s issues. Many women, however, used the language of philanthropy to engage in foreign politics and even support violent revolution overseas. They assumed roles of trust and power in their organizations, collecting, documenting, shipping, and spending the funds put at their disposal, and pushed the boundaries of domesticity and language of humanitarian charity to its limits. This chapter chronologically traces British women’s philanthropic support of the Risorgimento and their navigation of the political movement’s changing acceptability from the 1850s through the mid-1860s. The first section introduces the general culture of volunteerism in mid-nineteenth-­ century Britain and women’s role within it, before discussing Mazzinian women’s use of fundraising techniques to support nationalist revolutions in the 1850s. The following section then examines the changes brought about by Garibaldi’s successes in southern Italy and the increased number of politically moderate supporters, while the third section discusses women’s competing radical and moderate fundraising campaigns throughout the early and mid-1860s. To conclude, the final section displays the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Moore, Revolutionary Domesticity in the Italian Risorgimento, Italian and Italian American Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75545-4_3

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triumph of more moderate politics in women’s fundraising efforts to support the 1866 Third War of Italian Independence.

British-Italian Mazzinian Women in the 1850s Throughout much of the 1850s, supporters of the Risorgimento straddled the line between virtuous advocates of freedom and seditious agitators. Left-wing Mazzinians particularly struggled to fund their frequently illegal operations. This section examines the work of British-Italian activist women, including Giorgina Saffi, Jessie White Mario, and Sara Nathan, in funding these revolutionary campaigns. Unlike many women of their time, who were relegated to subservient roles in mainstream voluntary societies, these women found agency and opportunity in the covert and familial networks of the Mazzinians and assumed control of fundraising opportunities. In violation of prevailing codes for acceptable female behavior that limited women’s charitable and philanthropic efforts to local or humanitarian concerns, they also openly revealed an interest in foreign politics and raised money for violent insurrections. They struggled, however, to achieve widespread support for their radical vision of Italy’s future. Participation in voluntary societies was a standard practice for both male and female members of the British middle classes of the nineteenth century. The purposes of voluntary societies varied widely, ranging from the promotion of the arts or sciences to temperance groups and societies for pregnant and nursing mothers. Most shared a common form of subscriber democracy, meaning that “membership was limited only by the ability and willingness to pay a subscription and support the objectives of the society.”1 Despite the official minimal barriers to entry, women often lacked the independent funds to join organizations in their own name, and female involvement was frequently informal. Men generally founded and ran voluntary organizations, particularly the more prestigious, public, and formal associations, and women made up only a small percentage of the subscribers, committee members, and officers.2

1  R.  J. Morris, Class, Sect, and Party: The Making of the British Middle Class: Leeds, 1820–1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), 184. 2  Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 432–34. Women constituted at most 10 percent of the subscribers of the Birmingham voluntary societies between 1780 and 1850. They made up an even smaller percentage of committee members and officers.

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Philanthropic voluntary associations offered women the greatest level of authority and had the fewest strict divisions between men and women. Their greater allowance for female leadership and participation was largely due to the evangelical belief in a woman’s moral guidance and God-given duty to engage in charitable works. Historians have extensively documented how this belief in a woman’s mission of charity provided a religiously grounded safe space for women to involve themselves in politics and to develop their skills as administrators, organizers, public speakers, treasurers, and financiers.3 Victorian-era British women used this rhetoric to support a variety of issues, including political and educational reform, pacifism, abolitionism, temperance, and Chartism.4 Hundreds of women, for instance, patronized the tea parties and bazaars to raise money for the Anti-Corn Law League’s propaganda efforts and voter registration campaigns.5 Denied the vote, they used the traditionally feminine customs at their disposal to make a political impact. Even when disguising their political efforts under a veil of philanthropy, however, female activists faced resistance from those who argued their causes or methods were unladylike, inappropriate, or inferior. Leading abolitionist William Wilberforce opposed the Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Association because he was afraid it would make women too involved in the “warfare of political life.”6 Despite Wilberforce’s objections, female abolitionists successfully recast anti-slavery as a female concern and became a major force within the movement. Ladies’ anti-slavery groups, like Birmingham’s Female Society for the Relief of British Negro Slaves, established in 1828, were some of the first to meet separately from the male parts of their organizations.7 As the example of women’s involvement in  Yellin and Van Horne, The Abolitionist Sisterhood; O’Connor, The Romance of Italy and the English Political Imagination; Vickery, Women, Privilege, and Power; Sklar and Stewart, Women’s Rights and Transatlantic Antislavery in the Era of Emancipation; Reeves-Ellington, Sklar, and Shemo, Competing Kingdoms; Summers, “British Women and Cultures of Internationalism, c. 1815–1914.” 4  Gleadle, Borderline Citizens, 5; Sarah Richardson, “Well-Neighboured Houses’: The Political Networks of Elite Women, 1780–1860,” in Women in British Politics, 1760–1860: The Power of the Petticoat, ed. Kathryn Gleadle and Sarah Richardson (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 65. 5  Simon Morgan, “Domestic Economy and Political Agitation: Women and the Anti-Corn Law League, 1839–46,” in Women in British Politics, 1760–1860: The Power of the Petticoat, ed. Kathryn Gleadle and Sarah Richardson (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 115. 6  Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 429. 7  Davidoff and Hall, 433. 3

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abolitionism reveals, women generally found more success when framing their efforts as humanitarian or restricting themselves to what were considered feminine issues, like childbirth or orphans, and local politics rather than national or foreign politics.8 Mazzinian women, however, used this culture of a woman’s mission and the tools of philanthropy to actively involve themselves in radical foreign politics and found a greater opportunity for agency in the family-based Mazzinian networks than they would have in formal voluntary societies. The same family networks that organized Mazzinian conspiracies engaged in the fundraising efforts to support those covert uprisings. For instance, Giorgina Saffi’s entire family, including her mother, Sophia Churchill Craufurd, as well as her sister, Kate Craufurd, raised money and collected signatures in support of the Italian cause. Sara Nathan, her husband, and her extended family, the Rossellis, also worked together to support Mazzinian fundraising campaigns like the Italian Refugee Fund Committee (1849), the Shilling Subscription (1852), and the 10,000 Rifles Campaign (1856).9 The Nathans frequently donated their own money to support Mazzinian efforts and used their connections to the financial world to help invest and transfer these collected funds. Much of the money was explicitly raised for violent political revolution. The 10,000 Rifles Campaign of 1856, for instance, attempted to raise the necessary funds to purchase the aforementioned firearms for the first Italian province to rise up against its rulers. Mazzinians, including Sara Nathan, quietly began the campaign by appealing to friends and family in August 1856.10 In September, English radical George Jacob Holyoake then made a formal announcement in his paper, The Reasoner.11 A letter from Mazzini to Jessie White Mario (then the unmarried Jessie Meriton White) revealed the difficulties Mazzinians faced in launching such an overtly revolutionary fundraiser. After asking for her involvement in the 10,000 Rifles Campaign, he also encouraged her to ask for donations to the more general and previously established National Fund, noting that “there are many who would prefer aiding Italy in other ways than by  Gleadle, Borderline Citizens, 8–10.  Isastia, Storia di una famiglia del Risorgimento, 7. 10  Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 20 August 1856, Letter 4529  in Mazzini, Scritti, 1931, 57:30–31. 11  Joseph McCabe, Life and Letters of George Jacob Holyoake, Vol. I (London: Watts & Co., 1908), 308. 8 9

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sending arms.”12 When recalling the lectures she gave in Scotland alongside Aurelio Saffi in 1856–57 to garner political and financial support for the Risorgimento, White Mario noted a similar division among donors. Though she claimed that “subscriptions liberally flowed in,” she noted that some donations were intended, “merely for ‘benevolent purposes,’” while others explicitly supported the 10,000 Rifles Campaign and yet more went directly to Mazzini to “be used as he thought fit.”13 By allowing their donors to determine whether or not their money would be directed toward an intentionally violent insurrection or to the seemingly apolitical area of humanitarian charity, Mazzinians thus increased their number of donors. Saffi, White Mario, and Nathan further supported Mazzinian fundraising by appealing to British anti-Catholic sentiment. As part of the 1853 Pound Subscription, Giorgina Craufurd helped to distribute a statement sent by the Italian National Party that drew attention to “the battle which we are wagering against Papacy and its deadly influences,” and by asking for aid from “all those who sympathise with Italy, freedom of conscience and the cause of eternal Right.”14 In 1854, Mazzini then specifically asked Giorgina Craufurd for a letter in English that would convince British Protestants to support the cause of Italian Unification as a way to limit the power of the Papacy.15 As a British Protestant well aware of the anti-Papal desires of many of her countrymen, Craufurd would have been much more suited to write this letter than her Catholic Italian associates. In forming anti-Catholic arguments, she and her British-Italian colleagues drew on their familiarity with the Protestant mentality and acted as valuable allies. Rather than focusing their efforts on attracting wealthy and influential donors (who were likely reluctant to support Mazzini’s radical left-wing revolutionary campaigns), Mazzinian fundraisers sought to establish a large network of low-level donors. Women played a key role in this process. The Mazzinian women running these fundraising campaigns were expected not only to collect money but also to convince donors to become 12  Giuseppe Mazzini to Jessie Meriton White, 12 September 1856, Letter 4551 in Mazzini, Scritti, 1931, 57:90–91. 13  White Mario, The Birth of Modern Italy, 265–66. White Mario’s various lecture tours will be discussed in greater detail in the following chapter. 14  Giuseppe Mazzini to Giorgina Craufurd, October 1853, Letter 3800 in Mazzini, Scritti, 1928, 50:44. 15  Giuseppe Mazzini to Giorgina Craufurd, January 1854, Letter 3787 in Mazzini, 50:220.

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active collectors in their own right. As a participant in the Penny Subscription of 1848, Sara Nathan was tasked with contacting all of her acquaintances and asking for only a single penny before approaching her intimate friends and convincing them to become organizers and collectors. Ideally through this model, the Mazzinians would not only obtain the needed funds for revolution but would have created a larger network of political supporters.16 In 1853, Giorgina Craufurd worked with Mazzini on a similar Pound Subscription in which they were to collect 6000 pounds by asking for a single pound each from 6000 people and by convincing a few select people to act as collectors.17 Though men and women participated in these campaigns, women often served as points of collection and were entrusted with the money for the revolution. Jessie White Mario assumed an even more central and public role in 1856 when she initiated a public subscription and listed herself in newspaper advertisements for the project as the person ultimately responsible for collecting and distributing the money. Noting Garibaldi’s growing popularity among the British public, partially due to her own propaganda efforts, White Mario had approached Garibaldi in August 1856 with the idea to organize a subscription using his name. Despite initial misgivings about accepting money in his own name for the cause of Italy, he ultimately authorized her to go ahead with the project.18 With Garibaldi’s approval, she published a call for aid in the Daily News in September on behalf of the Genoese Committee of the Italian National Subscription. Claiming responsibility for collecting and sending on the money, she wrote that “any subscriptions sent to me at 8 Percy-street, Bedford-square, will be immediately forwarded to Genoa, where the subscribers’ names are printed regularly by the committee.”19 This call was then republished in other papers like the Manchester Times and the Liverpool Mercury.20 In 16  Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 26 January 1848, Letter 2326 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, vol. 33 (1921), 285–86. 17  Giuseppe Mazzini to Giorgina Saffi, October 1853, Letter 3800  in Mazzini, Scritti, 1928, 50:43. 18  Giuseppe Garibaldi to Jessie Meriton White, Letter 874, 30 August 1856 and Giuseppe Garibaldi to Jessie Meriton White, Letter 875, 7 September 1856  in Giuseppe Garibaldi, Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, ed. Giancarlo Giordano, Vol. III (Roma: Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano, 1981), 145–47. 19  “The Italian National Subscriptions,” Daily News, September 26, 1856, Issue 3233. 20  “Brussels International Free-Trade Congress,” Manchester Times, September 27, 1856, Issue 758.

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some of these accounts, she was listed as “Mr. J. Meriton White,” indicating that she still felt it somewhat prudent in certain situations to disguise her status as an unmarried woman.21 White Mario took her obligation as the public face of the movement seriously. After an article complained that supporters had been unable to deliver their funds because White Mario was not at home, she clarified that she would be at 8 Percy-street on Saturdays from 12 to 4, and would be found at any other day at the office of the Committee for the Emancipation of Italy, 22 Sloane-street. She thus placed herself in a very visible position and made herself available to the public for questions and contact. Following the model of a traditional voluntary society, she also publicized the lists of subscribers and their contributions.22 White Mario recognized the value of this practice in ensuring transparency, rewarding generous donors, and indicating the growing popularity of the Italian national project. Though she transgressed the boundaries of acceptable behavior for a middle-class woman in many ways through this endeavor, she also acknowledged the power of certain traditional customs.

Revolution Becomes Reality As the Risorgimento achieved key victories from 1859 to 1861, a large number of British men and women, including those of more moderate political affiliation, chose to join its fundraising efforts. Their involvement prompted debates about the legality and social acceptability of support for the Risorgimento. To ensure the success of their efforts, the British women who fundraised for Garibaldi and his troops in 1860–61 carefully framed their work as a humanitarian endeavor and publicly disavowed their political support for Garibaldi. By aiding soldiers, they also participated in a larger cultural shift toward an increased civilian participation in war efforts. Though prevailing social dictates largely kept women physically away from the battlefield, they made their presence felt through their work in philanthropy. Jessie White Mario pushed this new culture of women’s charitable engagement in warfare to its limits by working as a nurse and organizer of hospitals in southern Italy. While she refused to separate her work from 21  “Summary,” Liverpool Mercury, September 29, 1856, Issue 2884; “Miscellaneous,” The Leeds Mercury, September 30, 1856, Issue 6540; “News of the Week,” Liverpool Mercury, October 4, 1856. 22  “Italian Subscriptions,” Daily News, October 20, 1856, Issue 3253.

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her political beliefs, White Mario found success by appealing to the British sense of order and discipline and emphasizing her careful and efficient management of donated funds and supplies. The Questionable Legality of Fundraising for the Risorgimento Italian Unification had seemed like a utopian fantasy to many Italians and Britons alike throughout the 1850s, but by the close of the decade the dream seemed increasingly possible. Piedmont’s acquisition of Lombardy following the 1859 Second War of Italian Independence against Austria, as well as its subsequent annexation of Parma, Modena, Tuscany, and the Romagna in March 1860, incited patriotic fervor. Inspired by these events as well as a revolt that broke out in Sicily in April, Garibaldi launched a campaign to liberate the south from the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. On May 6, 1860, Garibaldi sailed from Quarto, near Genoa, with a small band of roughly 1000 volunteer fighters. These underprepared and undersupplied fighters, later memorialized as the Thousand, marched across Sicily, capturing Palermo by the end of May and Naples by early September, thereby giving Garibaldi control of all of southern Italy. Facing pressure from Piedmont to give up the south in favor of Italian Unification, Garibaldi organized plebiscites in late October in both Naples and Sicily calling for the unification of the majority of the Italian peninsula under Piedmontese control. The state was then formally enacted on March 17, 1861. Garibaldi’s victories prompted many British men and women to reevaluate their opinion of Italian Unification. Popular doctrines of self-help had previously discouraged many Britons from supporting the Italians who, they believed, were unable or unwilling to fight for their own liberation. Others had felt skeptical about the plans for radical revolution of Mazzini and his cohorts. Once the Italian state seemed like more of a reality, however, and more Britons were able to envision a stable, unified Italy under the leadership of moderate Piedmont, they lent their political and financial support. Those men and women inspired by Garibaldi’s successes to lend their support to the Risorgimento were able to donate to a variety of preexisting organizations including the Garibaldi Italian Unity Committees (1859–61), as well as new organizations, like the Garibaldi Fund (founded

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September 1860).23 Though they were open to contributions from supporters of moderate political affiliations, the leaders of these organizations often had radical Mazzinian sympathies. Giorgina Saffi’s brother, Edward Craufurd, as well as staunch Mazzinians James Stansfeld, Peter Taylor, and William Ashurst all supported the Garibaldi Fund for the Unity of Italy, which advertised for subscriptions early in 1860.24 Similarly, Mazzinian ally and radical publisher George Jacob Holyoake sponsored a different Garibaldi Fund and announced its formation in his paper, The Reasoner, in September 1860. Stansfeld was also a committee member for the Garibaldi Fund, as were Mazzinian supporters Joseph Cowen, Arthur Trevelyan, and William Shaen.25 In her biography of Garibaldi, Lucy Riall argued that these organizations were quite successful and claimed that the Emancipation of Italy Fund and the Garibaldi Fund together “raised some £30,000 (just under £2 million in present-day figures) between 1856 and the end of 1860.”26 The popularity of the Garibaldi Funds prompted nearly immediate questioning in the British Parliament as to the legality of the donations. On May 17, 1860, less than a week after Garibaldi’s forces arrived in Sicily, Conservative MP John Pope Hennessy opened up the discussion by directing the attention of the House of Commons to an advertisement in the Times collecting money for insurgents in Sicily and raising the issue of the potential illegality of such a subscription.27 Though many political figures believed neutrality would best benefit British shipping and colonial interests, the Foreign Enlistment Act, which banned British subjects from serving in the army of a foreign country, was the only major law mandating neutrality.28 Members of Parliament therefore sought to determine whether the Foreign Enlistment Act applied to the subscriptions for Garibaldi and his forces. In his speech, Hennessy argued against the Solicitor General, who had claimed that while the act prohibited the enlistment of soldiers and equipping of vessels, it did not likewise prohibit 23  Maura O’Connor, The Romance of Italy and the English Political Imagination (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998) 59. 24  “The House of Commons,” The Times, June 29, 1861, Issue 23972. 25  McCabe, Life and Letters of George Jacob Holyoake, I:323–25. 26  Riall, Garibaldi, 294–95. 27  Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, Vol. CLVIII, 3 (London: Cornelius Buck, 1860), 1368. 28  Maartje M. Abbenhuis, An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics, 1815–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 105.

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s­ ubscriptions. According to Hennessy, however, “it was perfectly evident that the object of the subscribers was simply to assist in promoting an insurrection against a Sovereign in amity with our own.” In defense of his position, Hennessy cited a case from 1824  in which Chief Justice Best determined that a comparable subscription designed “to raise money to promote insurrection against a Government in amity with our own was null and void.”29 Hennessy’s statements led to a heated debate. Opponents of the subscription, like Irish Liberal William Monsell, argued that “there was no doubt that what was now being done in this country, not only by foreigners, but also by subjects of the Queen, was in direct contravention of the law of nations and contrary to the law of this country.” Monsell further claimed that it was only due to the weakness of the Kingdom of Naples that anyone was even considering the legality of the subscriptions. The Solicitor General, meanwhile, offered a complicated legal defense of his position, arguing that the subscriptions were illegal but not criminal or indictable offenses. He did admit, however, that if “a natural born English subject sent £100,000 to Garibaldi, undoubtedly I should consider that act a misdemeanor indictable at common law.”30 Liberal MP and former prime minister Lord John Russell spoke out most strongly in favor of the subscription by noting the lack of precedent of prosecuting people who had raised money for insurrection in other countries. He cited as a specific example the large number of Britons who had openly raised money to finance Greek Independence without incurring disapprobation or criminal proceedings.31 Despite this debate, support for Garibaldi remained widespread and activist groups even sent out a British legion to join his forces in direct violation of the Enlistment Act.32 When the women of Britain began to organize their subscriptions in aid of Garibaldi and his forces, they made sure to avoid this issue of legality and respectability. On July 4, 1860, the Daily News announced the formation of the Ladies’ Association for the Relief of the Sick and Wounded and the Widows and Orphans of Garibaldi’s Followers, and the Sufferers at Palermo and Other Places. To prevent any question of illegality, the  Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, CLVIII:1368–71.  Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, CLVIII:1394. 31  Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, CLVIII:1405. 32  Elena Bacchin, “Brothers of Liberty: Garibaldi’s British Legion,” The Historical Journal 58, no. 3 (2015): 827. 29 30

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committee announced in their notification that “none of the money will be applied to warlike purposes, but solely to those of charity and benevolence, and it is therefore hoped that many will join in this labour of love.”33 Repeating this assertion, The Morning Post celebrated the association’s establishment and reassured its readers “that the interest in the Italian cause is something more than a mere matter of political speculation.”34 Newspaper coverage emphasized the committee’s focus on humanitarian concerns in an effort to make the subscription more respectable and appealing to a wider range of subscribers. Citing an article from the Nazione of Florence, The Morning Post claimed that the women chose this humanitarian focus so that “the greatest possible number of their countrymen and countrywomen might take part in the demonstration.” It then deliberately contrasted the Ladies’ Association with the previous 10,000 Rifles Campaign, which had, “clashed with the letter of the law.” Though it noted that Britons were unlikely to be prosecuted for engaging in such illegal activities, the article maintained that a subscription of questionable legality, “either would not receive the same public patronage from persons of distinction, or would encounter not a few difficulties in execution, or would give rise to plausible pretexts for the lukewarm to keep altogether aloof.” Referencing the belief that warfare was too harsh for women to address, the paper added that “it is, moreover, self-evident that a subscription for the purchase of muskets would be little in harmony with the habits and character of gentle ladies, more disposed to bring healing remedies for all the woes of war than to supply the weapons by which war is waged.”35 By setting up this pretense that they were not actually contributing to the violence of a war effort, but were simply caring for the victims of that war, these women successfully screened their interest in supporting Garibaldi’s military and political endeavors. The organization also emphasized the prestige and respectability of its members, including its President Lady Emily Ashley-Cooper, the Countess of Shaftesbury. Patronage of aristocratic women was quite important for any fundraising campaign or  bazaar. As historian K.D.  Reynolds has argued, “before the advent of a truly national entertainment business, titled women formed one of the largest groups of recognizable ‘names’

 “London, Wednesday July 4,” Daily News, July 4, 1860, Issue 4413.  “Tuscany,” The Morning Post, August 7, 1860, Issue 27032. 35  “Tuscany.” 33 34

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who could be called upon to add glamour to an event.”36 Other members with noble connections included her sister-in-law, the Hon. Mrs. W. Cowper, and philanthropist and feminist Lady Louisa Sophia Goldsmid. Many of the women were also wives of members of parliament, including Mary Bazley, wife of Liberal MP and industrialist Thomas Bazley, Anna Grant Duff, wife of Scottish Liberal MP Grant Duff, Emelia Russel Gurney, feminist and wife of Conservative MP Russel Gurney, and the wife of Samuel Gurney, banker and MP. The wives of honorary secretaries of the committee, Gideon S.  Lang and Montgomery Stuart, were also listed as members. Though she lacked noble or political connections, Julia Salis Schwabe brought respectability through her family’s wealth, work in philanthropy, and connections to important personages like Richard Cobden. The Ladies’ Association operated in connection with a Manchester Ladies’ Association whose committee was similarly composed of a mixture of noble, politically connected, or wealthy individuals including popular author Elizabeth Gaskell.37 These influential women were willing to lend the Risorgimento their personal respectability. Many of these women had found Mazzini’s politics too radical and had previously abstained from involvement, but were excited to support Garibaldi and his campaign. By portraying themselves as respectable women engaged in purely humanitarian efforts, women like Lady Shaftesbury or Julia Salis Schwabe were able to lead their organizations and raise money for Garibaldi’s troops. While certain publications, like the Daily News, only directed readers to send subscriptions to the male honorary secretaries of the committee, the original advertisement from the committee itself claimed that supporters could send their subscriptions directly to any of the ladies of the committee and listed both the names of the women and their addresses. The women thus put themselves into the public eye and asserted their responsibility in collecting and transmitting potentially large sums of money. Absolving themselves of legal liability, however, should Garibaldi use the money for military purposes, they refused direct responsibility for how the money would be spent. The advertisement was clear that the 36  K. D. Reynolds, Aristocratic Women and Political Society in Victorian Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 117. 37  “Ladies’ Garibaldi Benevolent Association for the Relief of the Sick and Wounded, Widows and Orphans, of Garibaldi’s Followers, and of the Sufferers at Palermo and Other Places,” The Morning Post, August 2, 1860, Issue 27,028. Other members included Lady Armitage, Mrs. J. Aspinall Turner, Mrs. Robert N. Philips, Mrs. Pender, Mrs. Lucas, Mrs. Scott, and Mrs. E. Grundy.

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subscriptions would be transmitted to Garibaldi, “who will find the proper agents for the distribution of the same.”38 As of August 2, 1860, the Association had raised over £413, which increased to over £620 (worth approximately $80,000 in 2020) by August 21.39 By following these moderate strategies, therefore, the women were able to raise a significant sum for Garibaldi’s forces. A Woman’s Mission in Warfare Though these women certainly benefited from their appeal to the language of humanitarianism, their work was also made possible by an overall societal shift toward increased civilian participation in war efforts. Historian Anne Summers has argued that in the mid-nineteenth century, interest in supporting war and British soldiers spread beyond the conscripts and their families, and instead “all members of society who could, contributed to the provision of medical and welfare services for soldiers.” The women who engaged in these efforts, as Red Cross workers, fundraisers, or committee organizers, “could be worthy citizens and even heroines, claiming their right to participate in the great national struggles of their day.”40 Florence Nightingale’s work in the Crimean War (1853–56) was key to this shift. During the war, new media technologies, like the telegram, brought the frontlines to the British public in a more immediate fashion.41 In response to public outrage over copious newspaper reports of wounded British soldiers left untended and dying in large numbers from disease, British war secretary Sir Sidney Herbert sent Nightingale and thirty-eight other female nurses to Crimea in 1854. Whereas few British women had previously worked as war nurses, by the war’s end, over 200 were serving in Crimea.42 Through their work in bringing a sense of middle-class domesticity, cleanliness, and order to the hospital wards, Nightingale and her cohort earned the affection of the British people. Public acceptance of  “Ladies’ Garibaldi Benevolent Association.”  “Ladies’ Garibaldi Benevolent Association”; “Ladies Garibaldi Benevolent Association for the Relief of the Sick and Wounded, Widows and Orphans, of Garibaldi’s Followers, and of the Sufferers at Palermo and Other Places,” Daily News, August 21, 1860, Issue 4454. 40  Anne Summers, Angels and Citizens: British Women as Military Nurses, 1854–1914 (New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1988), 5–6. 41  Summers, 2. 42  Lois A. Monteiro, “On Separate Roads: Florence Nightingale and Elizabeth Blackwell,” Signs 9, no. 3 (Spring 1984): 522. 38 39

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the Crimean War nurses and the valorization of Nightingale then led to an increased interest among British women in not only becoming nurses, but also organizing voluntary societies to raise money for military hospitals and to provide welfare for soldiers’ families. The aid societies in support of Garibaldi and his troops sought to attach themselves to the newly accepted culture of military philanthropy surrounding Nightingale. Advertisements and newspaper coverage for the Ladies’ Garibaldi Benevolent Association frequently drew attention to Nightingale’s supportive donation to the organization.43 An article from the Glasgow Herald announcing the formation of a coordinating Ladies’ Committee in Glasgow similarly cited Nightingale as a way to prove the respectability of the endeavor. It claimed, This is not a question of mere politics, but one of humanity, and it must not be said that the ladies of Glasgow are unappreciative of ‘woman’s grand mission’ of soothing and succouring the afflicted. Let them remember the wonderful effect and benefit of Miss Nightingale’s great deeds in the Crimea and Scutari, and how much they have been appreciated by an admiring world.44

Though the women felt an obligation to publicly disavow support for the politics that motivated these soldiers to fight, they had found a way of acceptably engaging with the harsh realities of warfare to support those soldiers. Jessie White Mario, who was working in the hospitals in Sicily and Naples, directly received much of the money and supplies collected by the Ladies’ Association.45 She would later serve as a nurse in Garibaldi’s various campaigns throughout the 1860s, but her first and most famous campaign was that of the Thousand. White Mario and her husband Alberto Mario had attempted to leave with Garibaldi on the first expedition but their journey from Lugano, where they had been staying to avoid police scrutiny in the Italian peninsula, caused them to miss the departure. As enemies of the Piedmontese state, they were forced into hiding while they awaited the second expedition led by Giacomo Medici.46 On June 28, 1860, the Marios arrived in Sicily and White Mario immediately demanded  “Pickings from Punch,” The Derby Mercury, July 11, 1860, Issue 3573.  “The Garibaldi Fund,” Glasgow Herald, August 31, 1860, Issue 6439. 45  Jessie White Mario, “Experience of Ambulances,” Fraser’s Magazine 15, no. 90 (June 1877): 780. 46  White Mario, “Della vita di Alberto Mario,” cvi–cvii. 43 44

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to assist with the wounded.47 She first served in the ambulance under Dr. Pietro Ripari and then at the “Convent on the Hill” hospital in Barcellona under Dr. Cesare Stradivari.48 Though she assisted in surgeries and amputations, much of White Mario’s work involved locating and distributing supplies and provisions for the troops. White Mario worked with the Ladies’ Association to provide these much-needed supplies. She sent letters from the battlefields and military hospitals to the Association, which published them in British newspapers alongside their calls for subscriptions and donations. In her letters, White Mario emphasized the dire need they faced for funds, the efficient use she and the other members of the medical staff had made of prior donations, and the success they had in treating the soldiers. One such letter claimed that “our wounded are progressing famously. The numbers, which at first amounted to nearly 400, are now reduced to 160; including those at Melazzo, 190.” White Mario added that they only had “but a few deaths in the hospitals, since the 28th July, when Dr. Stradivari took possession.”49 Reports criticized White Mario’s radical political views but praised her devoted care of the wounded and careful management of donated funds. In September, the Daily News correspondent claimed, “I utterly reject her principles, as fraught with danger to the peace and liberties of Italy, but I admit her merits in the management of hospitals, and in the sacrifice of time and repose which she has made for a great benevolent object.”50 The Naples correspondent from The Times similarly stated, “I entirely reject Madame Mario’s political principles, but this cannot prevent my doing full justice to her exertions in behalf of the sick and wounded.” He also acknowledged her responsibility in directing the donations, claiming that “the ladies of England will be glad to hear that their contributions have been well administered and as far as I can understand, with great prudence.”51 In December, the Daily News made an even stronger 47  Mario Menghini, La spedizione garibaldina di Sicilia e di Napoli nei proclami, nelle corrispondenze, nei diarii e nelle illustrazioni del tempo (Torino: Società Tipografico-Editrice Nazionale, 1907), 124. 48  White Mario, The Birth of Modern Italy, xxv. Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, not to be confused with Barcelona, Spain, is a small town in northern Sicily near Messina. 49   “The Wounded Volunteers of Garibaldi,” The Morning Post, August 18, 1860, Issue 27042. 50  “Italy,” Daily News, September 25, 1860, Issue 4484. 51  “Foreign Intelligence,” Birmingham Daily Post, September 26, 1860, Issue 729.

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statement about White Mario’s determination to ensure that the donated funds were properly spent. It claimed that “in making up her accounts-­ which have been kept with the most rigid correctness- Madame Mario found a deficiency of between 30 or 40 piastres, missing through the carelessness of her secretary when she was attending the wounded at Caserta.” The correspondent noted that she replaced the funds “at her own loss, and, I believe she has done the same in several other instances.”52 Even White Mario’s political opponents thus applauded her ability to manage her organization and its budget. By the end of 1860, King Victor Emanuel II had entered Naples, Garibaldi had left for his home on the island of Caprera, and White Mario prepared to leave Italy. Before doing so, however, she was required to provide an account for audit of how she had spent the funds entrusted to her by the Ladies’ Garibaldi Benevolent Association and to turn over the remaining funds and stores to a local committee. Comprised of British men and women resident in Naples, the committee included Harriet Meuricoffre, sister of noted feminist reformer Josephine Butler, Mr. Henry Wreford, correspondent of the Times, Dr. Sims, Dr. Bishop, Dr. Roskilli, Mrs. Robert Whyte, and Miss Flora Durant.53 Building on the lessons she had previously learned about the importance of making the financial details of voluntary societies available for public consumption and scrutiny, White Mario published much of her account. The Morning Post noted that on December 2, 1860, the Neapolitan paper Il Popolo d’Italia had included nearly eleven columns of White Mario’s report on the distribution of the funds. Praising the report, it claimed, It is perfectly impossible for anything to be more minute, detailed, more satisfactory and conclusive in all respects, than this report, which accounts for every farthing received and spent, giving the name of each individual recipient from the volunteer relieved, except in the case, not unfrequent [sic], of his being unable to write, when that circumstance is likewise stated, but the name of the person or persons present as witnesses is then furnished as a guarantee.

 “Italy,” Daily News, December 6, 1860, Issue 4546.  White Mario, “Experience of Ambulances,” 785.

52 53

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It added, however, a complaint that White Mario had not previously published accounts, claiming, “she would then have stood before the public in her true light- that of being not merely a most generous and enthusiastic sympathizer with the Italian cause, but of being an equally painstaking and scrupulous administratrix of all the sums entrusted to her care.”54 As White Mario relied on her reputation for British orderliness and efficiency to overcome opposition to her political views, she needed to be exceedingly transparent in her use of the donated funds and materials and appears to largely have done so.

Continuing or Celebrating the Risorgimento? Competing Agendas After Unification After the creation of an Italian state in 1861, Italian patriots found themselves in a difficult position. Though their dream of Italian Unification had been realized, many wanted to continue to push for change. Some members of the left wanted Italy to be an egalitarian republic, rather than a moderate constitutional monarchy under the strong domination of Piedmont. Others felt Italy would not be complete without Rome and the Veneto (the area surrounding Venice) and resented the Italian state’s failure to aggressively reconquer those territories. Even Garibaldi, one of Italy’s most celebrated figures, found himself at odds with the Italian state and was arrested in 1862 and again in 1867 for his revolutionary attempts to take over Rome. The British women who supported the Risorgimento faced similar confusion in their fundraising attempts. Did they continue to appeal to moderate audiences by celebrating what had already been accomplished or promote further reform and revolution? The women’s various fundraising campaigns continued in the first five years after unification and were more successful when appealing to Garibaldi’s celebrity, anti-Catholic rhetoric, and general humanitarian sentiment rather than support for Mazzini, republicanism, or the revolutionary conquest of Rome and Venice.

54  “Madame Mario and the Wounded Volunteers,” The Morning Post (London, England) Friday December 14, 1860, p.3, Issue 27143.

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Continuing Mazzinian Techniques for Rome and Venice Immediately following Garibaldi’s victories in 1860–61, Giorgina Saffi and Sara Nathan began fundraising efforts within Italy for the conquest of Rome and Venice. Beginning with informal networks, they wrote to individual women sympathetic to the cause, including Elena Casati Sacchi, Laura Solera Mantegazza, and the Manzoni sisters. Saffi, Gaetana Poerio Nicotera, and Maddalena Giunti Fazio then formalized the organization through the creation of a Women’s Committee of Naples. As a leader of the organization, one of Saffi’s first steps was to issue a circular asking women for aid in two forms: the construction of other coordinated women’s committees across the peninsula and the collection of and advertising for subscriptions for Rome and Venice. As in previous Mazzinian campaigns, participants were required to not only collect funds for the conquest of Venice and Rome, but to convince others to become collectors as well and to establish their own committees. Drawing on their transnational connections, the Mazzinian women also extended their network into Britain, working with Emilie Ashurst Venturi and Saffi’s mother, Sophia Craufurd, to organize an analogous Ladies Committee for Rome and Venice in England in March of 1861.55 Aware that their radical politics alienated most wealthy donors, Mazzinians focused largely on small donations. Dedicated party members were encouraged to regularly reaffirm their loyalty by contributing a monthly fee toward the cause. Giorgina Saffi herself advocated for a national monthly subscription of no less than a franc (though she only expected 50 centesimi from workers).56 While they preferred sustained engagement with the cause, Mazzinians also accepted one-time contributions from less interested parties. Mazzini believed that women would be particularly adept at collecting these small sums and proposed that each of his female supporters leave a record book of donations out on a table in their home and ask every visitor to contribute at least a franc in Italy or a shilling in London to the cause. He believed that few people would be able to resist giving such a small sum to a dedicated woman who was 55   Livania Gazzetta, “«Sposa, madre, cittadina impareggiabile». Il mazzinianesimo femminile tra maternità e cittadinanza,” in La repubblica, la scienza, l’uguaglianza: una famiglia del Risorgimento tra mazzinianesimo ed emancipazionismo, ed. Costanza Bertolotti (Milano: Italy: F. Angeli, 2012), 33, 35, 40. 56  Livania Gazzetta, Giorgina Saffi: Contributo alla storia del mazzinianesimo femminile (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2003), 40.

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requesting it.57 These small one-time contributions would not only increase the amount of money raised, but would also perhaps lead to more sustained engagement in the future. Sara Nathan played an increasingly prominent role in the financial aspect of these fundraising attempts after unification and was entrusted by both Garibaldi and Mazzini with large collected sums. In July of 1862, Garibaldi gave Sara Nathan a form letter to organize in his name and wrote to his associates asking them to support Nathan in her work (likely raising money to support Garibaldi’s planned attack on Rome in August of that year).58 Numerous letters also reveal that Nathan was acting as a banker for the party and for Mazzini. Those who wished to send money for Mazzinian activities in Italy would direct the money to Nathan in Lugano, who would then distribute it into Italy when necessary.59 Nathan’s children, particularly Adolfo and David, used their contacts in the banking world to help her send the money across Europe. Utilizing these non-state networks of the left, Nathan thus claimed a place for herself as a respected financier. These fundraisers, specifically designed to support revolution, competed against those designed for memorials to the Risorgimento. At the time, many subscriptions advertised in the press were for medals and monuments to celebrate Italian Unification. Mazzini argued that these subscriptions, though good in intent, were premature and would lure the Italians into an unwise complacency.60 Nathan, Saffi, and the others agreed and consciously organized for further revolutionary action and republican attempts on Rome and Venice, rather than any memorial.

57  Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 21 June 1861, Letter 6319  in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, vol. 71 (1936), 255. 58  Giuseppe Garibaldi to Sara Nathan, Letter 2792, 8 July 1862; Giuseppe Garibaldi to Barbara e Carlotta Marchisio, Letter 2794, 8 July 1862; Giuseppe Garibaldi to Giorgio Ronconi, Letter 2795, 8 July 1862; Giuseppe Garibaldi to Sara Nathan, Letter 2815, 23 July 1862 in Giuseppe Garibaldi, Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, ed. Sergio La Salvia, Vol. VII (Roma: Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano, 1986), 156–57. 59  Giuseppe Mazzini to Peter Taylor, 11  April 1869, Letter 8878  in Mazzini, Scritti, 1940, 87:314. 60  Giuseppe Mazzini to Jessie White Mario, 10  April 1861, Letter 6234 and Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 21 June 1861, Letter 6319 in Mazzini, Scritti, 1936, 71:93–94, 255.

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A Revolutionary Bazaar Starting in the fall of 1862, White Mario, Saffi, Nathan, and the other Mazzinian women utilized the traditional charitable practice of a bazaar to raise money for the conquest of Rome and Venice. Operating across their transnational networks, Sara Nathan and Jessie White Mario in Switzerland, Sofia Craufurd in Britain, and Giorgina Saffi in Italy began to collect items for the bazaar, which they planned to hold in February 1863 in London.61 The Craufurd family was highly involved in the London side of the bazaar, with Kate Craufurd acting as a collector of goods and the Craufurd family keeping the financial accounts.62 Though originally planned for February, the bazaar opened on May 4, 1863, and ran from 2 pm to 10 pm. Many of the items available for purchase were made in Italy, including Florentine mosaics, goldwork, Genoese silver filigrees, various statuettes, other works of sculpture, paintings, jewels, coral works, and women’s ornaments of every manner.63 Radicals Andrea Giannelli and Antonio Mosto had helped to collect and ship these Italian items to England.64 An article on the bazaar claimed that Italians of all classes had donated these items and listed the patronesses including Miss Craufurd, Mrs. P.A. Taylor, Miss Rutherford Russel, Mrs. Biggs, Mrs. Ashurst, Mrs. James White, Miss Barker, Miss Greathed, Mrs. Da Tivoli, and others. In contrast to the Ladies’ Benevolent Association formed in 1860, which had the patronage of the Countess of Shaftesbury, none of the listed women were aristocratic.65 Private correspondence reveals that the bazaar’s earnings of £200 (equivalent to just under $26,000 in 2020), while substantial, did not meet their expectations.66 There are many potential reasons for the limited success of the bazaar. One likely reason was a lack of publicity. Though the Unità Italiana 61  Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 30 October 1862, Letter 6721 and Giuseppe Mazzini to Sofia Craufurd, 12 November 1862, Letter 6739 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 73 (1936), 131, 179. 62  Giuseppe Mazzini to Andrea Giannelli, 20 February 1863, Letter 6862; Giuseppe Mazzini to Sofia Craufurd, 8  May 1863, Letter 6942; Giuseppe Mazzini to Caroline Stansfeld, 1 June 1863, Letter 6992 in Mazzini, Scritti, 1937, 74:43, 208, 260. 63  Mazzini, Scritti, 1936, 73:222. 64  Giuseppe Mazzini to Giorgina Saffi, 13 November 1862, Letter 6742 and Giuseppe Mazzini to Andrea Giannelli, 3 January 1863, Letter 6802 in Mazzini, 73:188, 312. 65  Mazzini, 73:222. 66  Giuseppe Mazzini to Jessie White Mario, 10 July 1863, Letter 7023 in Mazzini, Scritti, 1937, 74:314.

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published an article about the forthcoming bazaar on February 14, 1863, numerous searches of newspaper databases failed to uncover any advertisements for the bazaar in the British press.67 This lack of publicity stands in strong contrast to the numerous advertisements for Jessie White Mario’s prior lecture campaigns, for bazaars intended to provide aid to the Polish people that same year, and for Mary Chambers’ bazaars the following year. Another issue was likely poor prices. Prior to the event, Mazzini and Caroline Stansfeld had discussed the need for “a trifle lower than the usual prices.”68 After the bazaar, he then complained in a letter to Angelina Foldi about the overall poor result of the bazaar and noted that many of the objects of art had remained unsold. Though there were plans to sell them through lotteries, he was unsure of the success of that measure.69 More importantly, the bazaar likely suffered as a result of its explicitly revolutionary intent. A letter from Mazzini to Clementia Taylor reveals some of the problems British women may have had in organizing the bazaar. Mazzini criticized Taylor’s friends for allowing authoritarian governments to oppress their people rather than justifying the use of violence, asking if they really expected him “to allow thousands to be imprisoned, tortured, or shot without trying to knock down the evil-doers.” Afterward, he explained that he could not guarantee that the funds from the bazaar would be used solely for humanitarian aid and not for the purchase of weapons. He explained, I do not know how to answer your pacific friends. The Bazaar will help poor exiles from Venetia; will help the press in its propagandism against Napoleon and the Pope; but I cannot swear- and would feel myself degraded if I couldthat a mite of the produce will not go to more decisive measures, if needed. The produce of the Bazaar will be devoted towards promoting, by all just and moral means, the emancipation of Rome and Venice.70

67  Mazzini, Scritti, 1936, 73:326. The article emphasized the support of English women for Italian women by creating this bazaar for the conquest of Rome and Venice. The paper listed the names of the female contributors including, “Mrs. Caroline Stansfeld, Mrs. Clementia Taylor, Mrs. Francis Hensleigh Wedgewood (la figlia dello storico Mackintosh), Bessie Ashurst, Mrs. Matilda Biggs.” It is notable that the paper frequently listed the first names of the women rather than their husband’s names as was often the case. 68  Giuseppe Mazzini to Caroline Stansfeld, 8 May 1863, Letter 6963, Mazzini, 73:203. 69  Giuseppe Mazzini to Angelina Foldi, 15 July 1863, Letter 7027, in Mazzini, 73:320–21. 70  Giuseppe Mazzini to Clementia Taylor, January 1863, Letter 6835, in Mazzini, 73:383–84.

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Unlike the subscription for the Ladies’ Association in 1860, which claimed to support a purely nonviolent and humanitarian cause, this bazaar was in service of violent revolution. The number of women willing to support the measure, and therefore to engage in potentially illegal activities, was thus much lower. A Memorial Bazaar A year after the explicitly revolutionary Mazzinian bazaar, Mary Chambers took a very different approach when organizing her own series of bazaars and revealed her awareness of the need to at least outwardly conform to traditional expectations of British philanthropy and femininity to achieve her revolutionary goals. Starting in May of 1864, she began to plan “a fancy fair and bazaar” on the grounds of her home, Priory House, near Liverpool in Everton, to raise money to purchase a yacht for Garibaldi. Unlike the organizers of the 1863 Mazzinian bazaar, Chambers intensively used the press to publicize the fair and ask for donations. The Liverpool Mercury and Manchester Times included repeated discussions and advertisements.71 Following the summer event, she again used the press to plan and advertise for a second bazaar in the Queen’s Hall in Liverpool that September.72 In addition to more standard advertisements, newspaper coverage also included long descriptions of the bazaar’s contents and sponsors to draw in customers. One issue of the Liverpool Mercury claimed that The elegantly-dressed ladies who, in elegant broughams, every afternoon in Bold-street ‘most do congregate,’ would do well, some day or other this week- the earlier the better- to make Queen’s Hall their stopping-place, for an hour or so could not be more pleasantly passed than in visiting the bazaar which was opened there yesterday. All the pleasant excitement of ‘shopping’ is to be obtained there, united with the satisfaction of aiding a praiseworthy object.

71  “Camp & Bazaar at Everton,” Liverpool Mercury, May 31, 1864, Issue 5089; “Yacht for Garibaldi,” Liverpool Mercury, June 16, 1864, Issue 5103; “Yacht for Garibaldi,” Liverpool Mercury, June 23, 1864, Issue 5109; “The Fancy Bazaar at Everton,” Liverpool Mercury, July 6, 1864, Issue 5126; “Garibaldi Yacht Fund,” Manchester Times, July 9, 1864, Issue 344. 72  “Garibaldi Yacht Fund,” Liverpool Mercury, August 15, 1864, Issue 5160; “Garibaldi Yacht Fund Bazaar,” Liverpool Mercury, September 10, 1864, Issue 5183.

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By emphasizing the elegance and respectability of women who patronized the bazaar, the article signaled to readers that this was an acceptable activity for middle-class women. It also named many of the organizers who aided Chambers, including Anne Wakeford Whalley, wife of anti-Catholic Liberal MP George Hammond Whalley, Mrs. Whitehead, likely the wife of Thomas Byron Whitehead, the Honorary Secretary of the Garibaldi Yacht Fund, and Mrs. Richardson, wife of John Richardson, the Treasurer of the Fund. Further tempting readers, the account also provided a glimpse at the goods sold, including, “amongst a choice collection of articles, some very elegant papier maché wares, and several beautiful specimens of needlework in the shape of pin-cushions &c.”73 Chambers understood the need to treat the bazaar like a business and to properly advertise it to women as potential consumers. In contrast with the Mazzinian women who organized the 1863 bazaar for Venice and Rome, Chambers had a strong understanding of the business aspects of a bazaar. Showing an awareness of the need to competitively price goods sold at a bazaar, rather than at a traditional store or marketplace, she set intentionally low prices. The Liverpool Mercury reported that “the articles sold, instead of being about twice as much as they might be obtained for at a shop, will be priced at a cheaper rate, so that visitors will have every temptation to purchase.”74 To maintain customer interest in the later weeks of the bazaar, Chambers rearranged the stalls in the marquee, moved the refreshments to near the entrance, renewed the floral and evergreen decorations, and brought in new contributions to display and sell.75 The bazaar also featured a changing variety of events and spectacles. One day a visitor decided to act as an organ-grinder, while on another an impromptu dance broke out. Reporting on these events, the Liverpool Mercury remarked, “the promoters of the bazaar seem determined that it shall not fail for want of variety, and they certainly deserve success.”76 By including these details, the newspaper coverage again acted as persuasive advertisement. Finally, Chambers ensured the success of her bazaar by focusing her efforts on Garibaldi as an individual and framing the yacht as a memorial  “The Garibaldi Yacht Fund Bazaar,” Liverpool Mercury, September 13, 1864, Issue 5185.  “Volunteer Camp & Bazaar at Everton,” Liverpool Mercury, July 5, 1864, Issue 5125. 75  “The Fancy Fair and Camp at Everton,” Liverpool Mercury, July 12, 1864, Issue 5131. 76  “The Bazaar at Everton,” Liverpool Mercury (Liverpool, England), Friday, July 8, 1864; Issue 5128. 73 74

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rather than martial endeavor. She thereby appealed to more moderate audiences and a larger population of potential donors. Chambers began organizing the bazaar in late May 1864, soon after Garibaldi’s celebrated visit to England the previous month. Mary Chambers and her husband had played a large role in organizing Garibaldi’s visit, producing propaganda and overseeing negotiations between more moderate or even conservative British aristocrats and radical Mazzinians over how the visit would proceed.77 Taking advantage of Garibaldi’s celebrity, Chambers used Garibaldi himself as a lure in her press campaign, vowing that if Garibaldi visited Liverpool, “arrangements will be made, if at all possible, to secure an introduction to the General of every lady who assists at the bazaar at the Everton Camp.”78 She also promised to display Garibaldi’s coat and blanket from Aspromonte.79 Moreover, the organizers of the Garibaldi Yacht Fund consistently framed the proposed yacht as a reward for Garibaldi’s years of service to the Italian state rather than a tool for use in future radical uprisings or attempts on Rome. Speaking at the Queen’s Hall bazaar on Monday September 12, 1864, George Hammond Whalley, MP, explained that Garibaldi had refused rewards of money or land, prompting his supporters to consider alternative gifts. Moreover, Whalley completely avoided mention of Garibaldi’s history of military violence or radical politics, including his revolutionary attempt on Rome just two years previously, and claimed that Garibaldi’s constant aim had been simply “to promote the welfare and benefit of mankind.” He simultaneously drew attention to the power of British diplomacy, claiming that by recognizing the new Italian state, England had, “without shedding one drop of blood…done more for the welfare of mankind…than any other nation by the force of arms.”80 Whalley’s use of humanitarian and pacifist language and complete avoidance of political affiliation would certainly have allayed any potential donor’s fear that they would be abetting a revolutionary movement. Finally, the next day, Whalley repeated many of his assertions and added  Emma Chambers to G. Garibaldi, 13 February 1864, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-­ Curatulo, 2207; Beales, “Garibaldi in England,” 196; Fyvie Mayo, Recollections of What I Saw, What I Lived Through, and What I Learned, During More Than Fifty Years of Social and Literary Experience. 78  “The Camp, Bazaar, & Fancy Fair at Everton,” Liverpool Mercury, July 1, 1864, Issue 5122. 79  “Volunteer Camp & Bazaar at Everton.” 80  “Mr. Whalley, M.P., on General Garibaldi,” Daily News, September 14, 1864, Issue 5727. 77

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that “by that bazaar its promoters endeavoured to show how highly they appreciated the Italian hero’s efforts to secure to his own countrymen the blessings of civil and religious liberty.”81 In doing so, he appealed to British anti-Catholicism, which was much more palatable to moderates than Garibaldi’s republicanism. In a letter read by her husband at a London meeting of the Garibaldi Yacht Fund, honorary secretary Mrs. Richardson used similar language. She explained that, “as at one time some misapprehension seemed to exist as to the object and design of the gift, the committee had to state, in explicit terms, that it was simply a mark of friendship from friends.” She added that “it was freighted with no more dangerous cargo than the good wishes of loving friends for the pleasure and comfort of an enfeebled man, and the prolongation of a life so valuable to Italy and the world at large.” The yacht was not intended for military purposes, she maintained, and did not carry bullets or weapons, but instead, “glass beehive, a case of instruments for pruning vines, a chest of Italian New Testaments, two Bibles, and a good library, with some other articles for domestic use.”82 Like Whalley, Richardson directed potential subscribers away from Garibaldi’s political radicalism and toward his potential use in converting Italians to Protestantism. Through this effective combination of strategies, Chambers and her colleagues raised the needed funds for the purchase of the vessel. The Liverpool committee raised £250 from the bazaars and two lectures by Mr. Richardson and £377 in subscriptions. Their total earnings were £627 or roughly $83,000  in today’s terms. An affiliated London committee raised £357. In October 1864, each committee paid £325 for the purchase of the yacht, while the Liverpool group paid an additional £100 for “plate and linen for the vessel and the expenses of her voyage out.” On October 12, 1864, Chambers wrote to Garibaldi informing him that she was finalizing the paperwork and plans for their departure. She planned to travel overland with friends to present the yacht, which would sail separately from Cowes for Caprera.83 On November 7, 1864, Chambers then

 “The Garibaldi Yacht Fund,” Daily Post, September 14, 1864, Issue 2887.  “The Garibaldi Yacht Fund,” Liverpool Mercury, October 21, 1864, Issue 5218. 83  “The Garibaldi Yacht Fund,” October 21, 1864; Emma Chambers to G. Garibaldi, 12 October 1864, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-Curatulo, 2099. 81 82

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wrote from Caprera to announce the yacht had been accepted by Garibaldi with pleasure.84 Reports from Caprera after the delivery reinforced the image of Garibaldi as a seemingly apolitical retiree. In one letter describing Garibaldi’s acceptance of the yacht, John Chambers, Mary Chambers’ husband, described the general as elderly and nonthreatening. He wrote that “the general is looking very well and in excellent spirits, busy, as usual all day gardening, but, I am sorry to say, as lame as ever, still using his walking-stick.” The letter added that Garibaldi had been spending much of his day with his two grandchildren, who “give him much amusement by their talk and gambols.”85 Mrs. Richardson used similar language to describe Garibaldi’s reception and use of the vessel, claiming that he “has already shown his appreciation of the gift of his English friends by taking several pleasurable trips in the little vessel.”86 Official discussion, therefore, avoided any indication that Garibaldi would use the vessel for future military attempts on Rome or Venice or republican uprisings against Italy’s monarchy. Letters between Mazzini and Scottish radical John McAdam, however, reveal the Chambers’ private hopes that the yacht could be utilized by Garibaldi in a future rebellion or as a means to escape detention and exile on Caprera. In May 1864, Mazzini informed McAdam of his fears that the scheme would fail under the Chambers’ leadership and his desire that the vessel be something serious, steam-powered, and capable of transporting up to 250 men.87 He told McAdam that “the scheme of the yacht is good too, on condition that it is not a toy.” He went on to say, however, that Chambers’ leadership could be disastrous. He wrote, “the idea of Ms. C(hambers) that Gar(ibaldi) will be one day or other arrested and that he must be enabled to escape will lead, I fear, most likely to the toy. If you correspond with her, try to give her better ideas.”88 Ultimately, however, Garibaldi never used the yacht in rebellion and later sold it.

 “Garibaldi’s Yacht,” Liverpool Mercury, November 15, 1864, Issue 5239.  “Garibaldi’s Yacht,” The Morning Post, November 15, 1864, Issue 28367. 86  “Garibaldi and His Yacht,” Liverpool Mercury, December 27, 1864, Issue 5275. 87  Giuseppe Mazzini to John McAdam, 3 May 1864, in Mazzini, Nel segno della democrazia, 250. 88  Giuseppe Mazzini to John McAdam, 11 May 1864, in Mazzini, 252. 84 85

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Private Fundraising for Garibaldi Julia Salis Schwabe was also set against the yacht project and refused to participate in it. However, her reasons for opposition were quite different than Mazzini’s. Schwabe was concerned that the yacht fund was beneath Garibaldi’s dignity as a true revolutionary and thought the focus on his individual person distracted from the political purpose of their movement. In October 1864, Schwabe first wrote to Garibaldi informing him that she had seen an announcement in the Times calling for subscriptions for the yacht fund. Schwabe called the project “an undignified manner for us to offer you a gift,” and said that Garibaldi’s acceptance of such a gift would go against his honor and his mission.89 In another letter, she clarified that the organizers of these public subscriptions, “without doubt had a good intention, yet lacked tact and true dignity.”90 Adamant that the yacht was a bad idea, she repeatedly urged Garibaldi to refuse acceptance of what she called, “this unfortunate Yacht.”91 Most of these letters were sent after Garibaldi’s firm acceptance and show that Schwabe was quite willing to challenge Garibaldi on his policies and promote her own view of what she thought he should do. After opposing the subscription for and gift of the yacht, Schwabe began work on a discrete campaign to raise money for her own gift to Garibaldi. As he owned only half of his island home of Caprera, Schwabe, along with other supporters, wanted to purchase the remainder to thank him for his service to the Italian nation. Schwabe described the project as “a private testimonial to Garibaldi, the hero of Italian freedom, the object of which is to secure his and his children’s independence of this world’s cares and anxieties for the daily bread.” Previously, the Duke of Sutherland had made an offer to purchase a portion of Caprera for Garibaldi, but the owner (Mrs. Collins) had declined, believing Garibaldi would not want to expose himself to the charge of leaning toward the aristocracy. To encourage Garibaldi to accept the offer, Schwabe formed a plan to quietly purchase the land by raising the money “among a few select friends of the 89  J.  Schwabe to G.  Garibaldi, 9  October 1864, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-­ Curatulo, 2275. 90  J.  Schwabe to G.  Garibaldi, 22  November 1864, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-­ Curatulo, 2277. 91  J.  Schwabe to G.  Garibaldi, 8  November 1864, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-­ Curatulo, 2276; J. Schwabe to G. Garibaldi 24 November 1864, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-Curatulo, 2278.

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General, or of the cause of freedom which he represents.” Revealing the large sum required and the high level of wealth of her colleagues, she specified that they required about £2000 and expected a contribution of at least £100 from each person, “so that the number of contributors might not exceed twenty- secrecy being of the greatest importance.”92 In May 1865, Schwabe reassured Garibaldi of the privacy of the purchase saying that the secret of the plan was “so well guarded that no English newspaper has up until today given the slightest indication of our small offer of affection.”93 She took this intentionally quiet and selective approach so as not to tarnish Garibaldi’s image as a man of the people with images of the rich benefactors who supported him as an individual. Throughout 1865, Schwabe continued to correspond with Garibaldi to arrange the purchase of land on Caprera, which had dragged on slightly.94 While the largest portion of the island was easily purchased in the General’s name for £1600 and had been “accepted by him with the warmest gratitude,” the remaining portions of land, “intervening between the General’s old and new possessions,” belonged to small proprietors and could only be bought “from time to time as the owners can be dealt with.” Schwabe had received an estimate for these portions of land of £500.95 Aware of the importance of maintaining good relationships with rich donors, Schwabe also encouraged Garibaldi to properly thank his supporters for the present, even offering to help him with the process.96 With its purely memorial focus and reliance on wealthy elite donors, Schwabe’s project provides the greatest contrast with the Mazzinian bazaar for Rome and Venice and reveals the wide range of methods adopted by British women to support the Italian Risorgimento in the 1860s.

 Julia Salis Schwabe to David Chadwick, MCRR, Busta 890, N.45(2).   J.  Schwabe to G.  Garibaldi, 8 May 1865, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-­ Curatulo, 2394. 94  J.  Schwabe to G.  Garibaldi, 13 August 1865, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-­ Curatulo, 2396. 95  Julia Salis Schwabe to David Chadwick, MCRR, Busta 890, N.45(2). 96   J.  Schwabe to G.  Garibaldi, 1 July 1865, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-­ Curatulo, 2395. 92 93

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The Triumph of Realpolitik, Female Agency, and the Language of Moderatism British women again involved themselves in Italian political affairs through their fundraising efforts during the summer of 1866. Facing an irreconcilable difference of opinion as to the future of a potential German nation-­ state, Prussia and Austria went to war on June 14, 1866. The Italians, who had formed an alliance with Prussia over their shared enmity of Austria, then declared war on Austria on June 20, 1866. Hoping to aid his state in regaining control of Venice and the Veneto, which remained under Austrian control, Garibaldi joined in the fighting and was given command as the head of the volunteers. While the Italians made a poor showing, the victorious Prussians demanded that the Austrians cede the Veneto to Emperor Napoleon III of France, who then gifted the region to the Italians.97 Relying heavily on the machinations of Otto von Bismarck and Napoleon III, the conquest of Venice was thus a triumph of Realpolitik and moderate to conservative monarchies rather than republican revolutionaries. Like the conquest of Venice itself, British women’s fundraising efforts in 1866 in many ways represented the victory of moderatism over radicalism. Not only did the women support an official state army, rather than a band of rebels, but they took an intentionally humanitarian stance. Furthermore, the widespread and successful efforts of women in the United States during their Civil War (1861–65) had made care and concern for soldiers an even more acceptable endeavor for middle-class women. However, a closer examination reveals that these philanthropists used the language of moderate humanitarianism to achieve more radical feminist goals. By utilizing the accepted language of female charity, they were able to aid Garibaldi and his troops, play a role in foreign affairs and the addition of Venice to the Italian state, and organize the collection and distribution of funds and supplies. Recognizing that war was imminent, British women began their fundraising efforts in early June 1866. Assuming a central role in these operations, Mary Chambers served as the president of the Ladies’ Committee in London, which was formed to collect subscriptions and clothing in the case of war. To promote donations, the committee specified that if war was ultimately not declared, they would use the articles for clothing the poor  Duggan, Force of Destiny, 249–53.

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of Italy and said the items would be distributed according to the wishes of Garibaldi.98 Notices announcing the formation of this committee were printed in multiple papers to further cultivate support.99 Building on the lessons of previous fundraising campaigns, the women knew they needed to carefully frame the project as a strictly humanitarian campaign if they wanted to attract potential donors interested in providing charity to widows and orphans but wary of supporting Garibaldi’s radical politics. One such contributor was Caroline Crane Marsh, wife to George Perkins Marsh, the U.S. minister to Italy. Crane Marsh had only joined the Committee on the Wounded, “after ascertaining that the sole and single object of the committee was to alleviate the sufferings of the destitute volunteers,” and that “that the sick and wounded of all nationalities, of all religions and political creeds, were to be assisted.”100 By maintaining an apolitical charitable message, they were also able to compete for donations against campaigns like the Austrian Soldiers’ Relief Fund, which also claimed to be non-sectarian and apolitical, but was actually largely supported by Catholics and Catholic converts opposed to the Risorgimento.101 As women interested in using civilian channels to supply goods to a state army, these British women found it prudent to follow in the model of the women who had successfully fundraised for Union troops during the Civil War. These fundraisers had worked closely with the United States Sanitary Commission (USSC), authorized by Abraham Lincoln on June 9, 1861, to provide advice and support services for Union troops including medical aid, funding, and assistance in systematizing the collection of donated supplies. Building on the lessons of the Crimean War and a long history of local philanthropy, the women of the USSC collected and distributed donated items, like clothing, foodstuffs, and medical supplies, on a huge scale. According to historian Kathleen McCarthy, women raised and distributed more than $15 million in supplies for Union troops through a network of over 7000 soldiers’ aid auxiliaries. They also utilized the tradition of the charitable bazaar to great success. Between 1863 and 1865, they raised $2.7 million of the USSC’s total revenues of $5 million through their Sanitary Fairs. The Northwestern Sanitary Fair in Chicago 98  “General Garibaldi and the English Ladies,” The Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, June 7, 1866, Issue 3636. 99  “Origin of the Fire at Compton House,” Liverpool Mercury, June 12, 1866, Issue 5731. 100  Jessie White Mario, “The Volunteers of 1867,” The Nation, March 12, 1868, Vol. 6. 101  Summers, Angels and Citizens, 133–34.

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organized by Mary Livermore and Jane Hoge alone raised $80,000 to $100,000 in a month for the troops and battlefront hospitals.102 Though the USSC had male leadership, it provided a means for women to organize, develop their own political culture, and show their ability to make a unique and substantial contribution to the national war effort.103 Recognizing their recent success, White Mario directly appealed to these women in a June 1866 article published in The Nation. She asked the philanthropic women to use their experience gained from the Civil War to help the Italians in conquering Venice. Appealing to their national pride, she informed readers that committees were being formed all over Italy in imitation of the Union Soldiers’ Aid Societies and asked if the capable and experienced women who had made those societies such a success would share their experience and surplus stock with the Italians. White Mario was particularly interested in their hospital cars and slung elastic beds, which she argued she could have used in moving the wounded in 1860.104 While some American women certainly took up this call, the medical supplies had previously been donated to recently emancipated communities and would not make their way to Italy. The collection and distribution of supplies relied on collaboration between women in England and those on the frontlines. Jessie White Mario was one of the women in Italy. As in 1860–61, she served as a nurse, this time working under Dr. Agostino Bertani, head of the sanitary service for Garibaldi’s forces. White Mario had worked with Bertani to collect materials within Italy in preparation for war and was present at the commencement of hostilities.105 Acting as the president of the newly renamed English Ladies’ Committee for the Aid of the Wounded Italian Volunteers, Mary Chambers wrote to White Mario in the field hospitals to ask what sanitary materials were most needed. Explaining, “I am for my sins I suppose President of the Ladies’ Committee in England for aiding the wounded Italian volunteers,” she asked White Mario to lend her expertise to the committee’s efforts. Chambers added that “though I have much experience in hospitals for women & children, I have done little or 102  Kathleen D.  McCarthy, American Creed: Philanthropy and the Rise of Civil Society, 1700–1865 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 193–96. 103  Judith Ann Giesberg, Civil War Sisterhood: The U.S. Sanitary Commission and Women’s Politics in Transition (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000), 5. 104  Jessie White Mario, “The Warlike Preparations in Italy,” The Nation, June 8, 1866. 105  Jessie White Mario, “Experience of Ambulances-Part II,” Fraser’s Magazine 15, no. 91 (July 1877): 57–63.

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none in the requirements of military hospitals.”106 To ensure the efficiency and success of her efforts, therefore, she needed White Mario’s cooperation. White Mario responded on July 3, 1866, by simply resending the initial list of supplies that Agostino Bertani had first compiled. She added as well that “it is useless to send lint, plaster, or even linen as the Italian community provide these articles in abundance.”107 Chambers took this letter and published it in the Daily News on July 9, 1866, as “an urgent appeal to the ladies of England.” She asked for aid beds and cushions, gutta percha blankets, apparatus for fracture of the upper and lower extremities, field cases of surgical instruments, chloroform and ether, “Richardson’s new apparatus for the pulverization of chloroform for local application,” tents, “chemical and every apparatus for the arrest of hemorrhage,” lint, linen, plaster, and “tin cases of concentrated essence of beef.”108 Chambers would also later travel to Italy herself to work with a local committee in Milan, distribute supplies, and occasionally serve as a nurse.109 Julia Salis Schwabe also contributed to the war effort, working alongside Lady Shaftesbury, who had served as president of the Garibaldi Ladies’ Association in 1860. Like Chambers, Schwabe wanted to direct her efforts toward the most useful items and made an inquiry to Bertani, who requested artificial limbs.110 Their collaborations indicate how information was transmitted from the field in Italy to potential donors in England. In addition to framing their efforts as respectable humanitarian campaigns, the Ladies’ Committee also solicited donations by appealing to a British sense of superiority. Many of the British newspaper accounts of the war encouraged donations by criticizing the Italian government for failing to provide adequate supplies. The Standard published one such critical account of the Italian ambulance service, claiming that at Anfo, between Milan and Venice, the wounded were laid on the ground on straw mattresses and supplies were poor. It added, “food was of the worst possible description, the attendants unskilled in their duties, no pillows, no sheets, 106  M.E.  Chambers to Jessie White Mario, June (probably 1866), MRM, Le Carte di Agostino Bertani, Cartella 51, Plico XXXIII, n. 32. 107  White Mario to M. E. Chambers, 3 July 1866, MRM, Le Carte di Agostino Bertani, Cartella 51, Plico XXXIII, n.32a. 108  “The War in Italy,” Daily News, July 9, 1866, Issue 6295. 109  Summers, Angels and Citizens, 132–33. 110  Giuseppe Garibaldi to Julie Salis Schwabe, Letter 4574, 18 August 1866, in Giuseppe Garibaldi, Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, Vol. XI, aprile-dicembre 1866, edited by Giuseppe Monsagrati (Roma: Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano, 2002) 175.

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no shirts, no anything.” Though the paper acknowledged the good work of the Italian Dr. G.B. Prandina, it claimed that Mary Chambers, working with the English Ladies’ Committee and the Milan Committee of Ladies, was the one compensating for the failures of the Italian government and providing comforts for the soldiers.111 The British press thus revealed the extent of their ethnocentric sense of British superiority and their belief that British women working through private non-state networks could accomplish more than the Italian state itself. White Mario and Chambers also relied upon these stereotypes of British superiority when defending themselves against accusations of ineptitude or corruption. While British newspaper reports generally praised White Mario’s work with the ambulance and considered it an additional chapter to add to her legend as Garibaldi’s nurse, others focused on the select days, such as the Battle of Bezzecca on July 21, 1866, when the hospital administration broke down. Reports of the battle often included a story of how Mary Chambers and another English lady, Madame Civalleri, wife of the telegraph officer, were relied upon to provide sole aid.112 One account in the Standard added that Chambers even “tore up a portion of her personal apparel to form bandages, and at her own expense purchased food and drink for them, and then, aided by her friend, bathed and bandaged the wounds of the men.”113 The popularity of these stories is likely due to their appeal to British pride, as the accounts condemned the Italian government for providing inadequate supplies while emphasizing the skill and reliability of the British women.114 In her own retelling of that day, White Mario generally defended the Italian medical services, explaining that no one had expected such a high level of fighting. However, she also admitted that the medical care was problematic and that people had died without receiving medical assistance. Furthermore, she claimed that until the arrival of the official Italian military doctors, she was assisted by only two

 “The Garibaldian Army,” The Standard, July 25, 1866, Issue 13093.  “War Notes,” The Pall Mall Gazette, July 28, 1866, Issue 458; “The Battle of Bezzica,” The Glasgow Herald, July 30, 1866, Issue 8288; “Hospital Service in the Tyrol,” The Dundee Courier & Argus, August 29, 1866, Issue 4076. 113  “The War,” The Standard, July 28, 1866, Issue 13096. Other accounts claimed that White Mario and Chambers were the two women present. George Augustus Sala, The Life and Adventures of George Augustus Sala, Vol. II (London: Cassel and Company, 1895), 111. 114  Henry Spicer, Bound to Please (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1867), 233. 111 112

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British women, Mary Chambers and Flora Durant.115 In doing so, she framed herself and her fellow British women as reliable and hardworking nurses unable to achieve their potential when working with a less organized Italian government. Chambers also had to defend herself against accusations of corruption and confusion. Like White Mario in 1860, Chambers was at the center of the fundraising organization and publicly responsible for the proper collection and distribution of supplies. In July 1866, Colonel Chambers wrote to Bertani and complained that packages to Mrs. Chambers were opened without her consent and distributed at the hospital. He asked that this not be done in the future, as the Chambers’ were the ones responsible for the packages.116 That month she experienced an additional issue in performing her duties when two conflicting advertisements appeared in the Daily Telegraph. One article instructed readers to send donations to Mr. E.T. Smith at Cremorne while another claimed that “Mr. E.T. Smith, at Cremorne has no authority from Mrs. Chambers to collect any article mentioned in his frequent ‘Cremorne’ advertisements for Garibaldi or the Italian cause.” Smith then published a letter from Chambers, “in which that lady unquestionably gives him full authority to do that which her advertisement on Saturday last says she had not given him authority to do.”117 Another paper reported on the confusion, saying they thought that Smith was potentially a swindler taking advantage of Garibaldi’s cause.118 These accounts reveal how Chambers and women like her who held leadership roles in these organizations needed to not only privately manage their donations but also carefully maintain a public façade of competence and reliability. While they avoided some degree of scrutiny by framing their efforts as humanitarian rather than political, the sheer scope of their project and the amount of money and goods involved drew ­attention and often criticism.

115  Jessie White Mario, Agostino Bertani e i suoi tempi, Vol. 2 (Firenze: Tipografia di G. Barbera, 1888), 328. 116  J. H. Chambers to Bertani, 17 July 1866, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 2, Fasc. 22, “Italy 1866” (Vol. C). 117  “Occasional Notes,” The Pall Mall Gazette, July 16, 1866, Issue 447. 118  “London Sayings and Doings,” The Wrexham Advertiser, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Shropshire, Cheshire & North Wales Register, July 21, 1866, Issue 692.

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Conclusion This chapter has demonstrated the variety of methods adopted by British women to support the Italian Risorgimento throughout the 1850s and 1860s. These women used the tools of philanthropy, including bazaars, public subscriptions, and private networks, to actively participate in foreign politics and push beyond the stereotypical women’s charitable sphere. They founded and ran transnational organizations and publicly claimed responsibility for the collection and transfer of large sums of money and collected goods. Additionally, they navigated the changing acceptability of the Risorgimento and fundraising for it by experimenting with an assortment of strategies to suit their various political goals and affiliations. The women who devoted themselves to revolution faced a greater difficulty in collecting funds. The promotion of violence, particularly in service of republican revolution, was often considered inappropriate for respectable women, while memorials, humanitarian campaigns, moderate politics, and anti-Catholicism appealed to a greater audience. The next chapter further explores how these women used their British-Italian identities and knowledge of British prejudices to repackage the radical republicanism of the Risorgimento to appeal to more a moderate anti-Catholic British public.

CHAPTER 4

Reforming Revolution: Cultural Translation in the Propaganda Campaign

The British-Italian women who supported the Italian Risorgimento were simultaneously taking part in nineteenth-century Europe’s culture wars. As Clark and Kaiser have argued, movements like the Risorgimento, which brought about the rise of constitutional and democratic nation-states, sparked “intense conflict between Catholics and anticlerical forces over the place of religion in a modern polity.” Though these conflicts had their origins in nationalist movements, they were transnational and “embraced virtually every sphere of social life,” including schools, the press, and gender relations.1 Women, frequently considered the more moral and religious gender, played a key role in these battles and leveraged their presumed connection to religion to have a greater say in public and political affairs. Debate over the role of religion in the state was particularly fierce in Italy, which witnessed a growing anticlerical and anti-Catholic movement. Like many other southern European countries, Italy had suffered from the transnational condemnation of Catholicism. Historian Manuel Borutta argued that both Roman Catholicism and Italy were “‘orientalized’ by European writers since the Enlightenment: excluded from the universal process of history and civilization and explicitly associated or identified

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 Clark and Kaiser, Culture Wars, 1.

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with ‘the Orient’ albeit with qualifications.”2 Italian patriots attempted to embrace and overcome this discourse by placing the blame for Italy’s relative lack of economic development and political independence on the Catholic Church and on Catholic doctrine. Moderate and radical Italians alike advocated for the separation of church and state, the suppression of religious orders and monasteries, and the reform of certain aspects of Catholic ritual and practice.3 Recognizing a commonality of sentiments, Italian revolutionaries appealed to British anti-Catholicism by making arguments about the despotism of the Papal government and the inherent opposition between Catholicism and the modern ideals of freedom and progress.4 Members of a newly emerged more radical branch of British anti-Catholicism were particularly receptive to these arguments and supported the Risorgimento. In contrast to the traditional conservative anti-Catholic movement, which focused on protecting the established Anglican Church, this newer branch contained more dissenting members and supported anti-Catholicism as an issue of freedom of thought and religion.5 Due to their shared belief in an anti-Catholic vision of reform and modernity for Europe, these British men and women supported Italian patriots both before unification and during their fight to recapture Rome afterward. This chapter analyzes how British-Italian women utilized their transnational identities and understanding of British anti-Catholicism to skillfully repackage the Risorgimento for British audiences and play a pivotal role in 2  Manuel Borutta, “Anti-Catholicism and the Culture War in Risorgimento Italy,” in The Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Italy, ed. Silvana Patriarca and Lucy Riall (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 202–3. 3  Martin Papenheim, “Rome o Morte: Culture Wars in Italy,” in Culture Wars: Secular-­ Catholic Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe, ed. Christopher M.  Clark and Wolfram Kaiser (Cambridge, UK, 2009), 202–26. 4  Carl T.  McIntire, England against the Papacy, 1858–1861: Tories, Liberals, and the Overthrow of Papal Temporal Power during the Italian Risorgimento (Cambridge. UK, 1983); Danilo Raponi, Religion and Politics in the Risorgimento: Britain and the New Italy, 1861–1875 (Basingstoke, 2014); Colin Barr, Michele Finelli, and Anne O’Connor, eds., Nation/Nazione: Irish Nationalism and the Italian Risorgimento (Dublin, 2014); Nick Carter, ed., Britain, Ireland and the Italian Risorgimento (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, 2015). 5  John Wolffe, The Protestant Crusade in Great Britain, 1829–1860 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 253–54; John Wolffe, “North Atlantic Anti-Catholicism in the Nineteenth-Century: A Comparative Overview,” in European Anti-Catholicism in a Comparative and Transnational Perspective, ed. Yvonne Maria Werner and Jonas Harvard (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2013), 31–32.

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the Risorgimento’s propaganda campaign. The first section discusses the women’s transnational identities and connections to both Italy and Britain. The next two sections examine their work in writing, translating, and facilitating the publication of newspapers and other printed media, while the fourth section discusses Jessie White Mario’s work as a public lecturer. Approaching the issue of propaganda from a different angle, the final section then discusses how these reforming women managed the Risorgimento, its key patriots, and its influential supporters on a more personal level. Though other Italian patriots also used anti-Catholic language to appeal to Protestants abroad, Jessie White Mario, Mary Chambers, Giorgina Saffi, and the other British-Italian women were better at appealing to British Protestants because of their shared heritage. As transnational agents, moreover, they were able to make connections between the needs of Italian patriots and the desires of British Protestants. Finally, through their actions, they continued to challenge what constituted appropriate behavior for women participating in foreign politics as well as in the growing sphere of mass media.

Transnational Identities These women had transnational identities and refused to limit their activities, interests, or personal connections to one nation. They spoke multiple languages, traveled and lived in several countries at various points in their lives, and felt an affiliation to more than one nation. Their personal and professional networks likewise transcended national borders. Although the use of a transnational identity can create problems in labeling and easily writing about these women, it is important for recognizing the complicated nature of nineteenth-century women’s identities. In many nations across Europe, including Italy, France, and the United Kingdom, women had a legislated dependent or derivative nationality that came from their male spouse’s status.6 Under these laws, Jessie White and Giorgina Craufurd lost their British subjecthood upon marriage to Alberto Mario and Aurelio Saffi respectively and were forced to assume their husband’s nationality. Similarly, when Julia Schwabe, a German, and Sara 6  Sabina Donati, A Political History of National Citizenship and Identity in Italy, 1861–1950 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), 40–41; Elisa Camiscioli, Reproducing the French Race: Immigration, Intimacy, and Embodiment in the Early Twentieth Century (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009), 18.

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Levi, an Italian, married Salis Schwabe and Meyer Nathan, both German-­ born men who had become naturalized British citizens, they became British. Women were not able to hold and keep their own nationality on a level equal to men until 1927 in France, 1948 in the United Kingdom, and 1975  in Italy.7 It is problematic, however, to continue to define a woman’s identity by that of her husband or to focus on a category of legal citizenship that was effectively meaningless for women who lacked the right to vote. Recognizing the possibilities afforded by women’s subordinate legal position, historian Ros Pesman has suggested that women, as technical non-participants in the nation, may be more naturally suited for transnational lives.8 Additionally, legal status does not guarantee or show how the women saw themselves or how their contemporaries viewed them. While legal identity was limited to one nation and determined by their husbands, these women claimed a more expansive self-identified nationality that allowed them to be both Italian and British in different contexts. Moreover, their transnationality reflects their cosmopolitan vision of nationalism, which promoted cooperation across national borders, and sharply contrasts with the exclusive racial, ethnic, and competitive nationalism that would become more entrenched throughout the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Self-Perceptions of Britishness In spite of their changed legal status, White Mario and Saffi privately still felt quite British after their marriages. They continued to correspond in English with British friends and family. Many of the Craufurd Saffi family letters are in English or a hybrid of English and Italian, such as when Giorgina Saffi wrote to her son, “Balilla mio- Oggi la mia comunicazione sarà short & sweet!”9 Jessie White Mario and Sara Nathan’s son Ernesto 7  Donati, A Political History of National Citizenship and Identity in Italy, 1861–1950, 38–39, 47. 8  Ros Pesman, “The Meanings of a Transnational Life: The Case of Mary Berenson,” in Transnational Lives: Biographies of Global Modernity, 1700-Present, ed. Desley Deacon, Penny Russell, and Angela Woollacott (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). 9  This means, “My Balilla- Today my communication will be short & sweet!.” Giorgina Saffi to Carlo Balillo Saffi, 14 May 1888, MCRR, b.1170, N.14(12); another letter from 1889 was primarily English with a sprinkling of Italian phrases. Giorgina Saffi to Carlo Balillo Saffi, 10 October 1889, MCRR, b.170, N.14 (15).

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Nathan also occasionally corresponded in English, even when discussing Italian matters, such as the campaign against Italy’s system of state-­ regulated prostitution.10 Later in life, however, Giorgina Saffi felt out of touch with her former home. Her parents and brother had died, and she and her sister Kate had settled in Italy. She expressed this sense of distance in an 1894 letter to Jessie White Mario, writing, “almost all links with England seem to have drifted away from me now.”11 White Mario, on the other hand, has more letters in her private correspondence that indicate a sustained personal connection to England throughout her life. In her published writings, White Mario also characterized herself as English. One example comes in a letter criticizing Italian journalist and author Matilde Serao published in La lega della democrazia, a radical paper co-founded by Alberto Mario. Serao had claimed that “Italian women are much more honest and serious than Anglo-Saxon women,” and that women had political sentiments, rather than political opinions, which caused them to support monarchies. Defending Englishwomen and her right to criticize Italy’s monarchy, White Mario wrote, By us less honest and less serious Anglo-Saxons, the monarchy is accepted as what it is. Queen Victoria is respected and also loved, not because she is the queen, but because she is an honest and serious woman, but neither the monarchy nor the monarchs mocked and scourged by our greatest writers have ever inspired the fantasies of female English writers and poets.

At the end of her letter, White Mario wrote that she hoped that the readers were not displeased by these “frank words of a woman, who feels profound respect for women in general and intense love for the Italian woman; neither will it offend you if this woman tells you she is Anglo-Saxon.”12 In a different letter published about a year later, she signed with a similar expression of her dual heritage, writing, “so allow me to sign myself

10  Ernesto Nathan to Jessie White Mario, 2  February 1881, MCRR, b.430, N.1(1); Ernesto Nathan to Jessie White Mario, December 20, 1881, MCRR, b.430, N.1(2). In this letter, also in English, Nathan also wished White Mario, “a merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you in the old English fashion.” 11  Giorgina Saffi to White Mario, 2 April 1894, MCRR, b.430, N.28(6). 12  Jessie White Mario, “I piccoli corpi: lettera aperta alla Signora Matilde Serao,” La Lega della democrazia, May 17, 1880, a. I, n.134.

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daughter of Albion and lover of Italy.”13 White Mario thus presented herself as British to the Italian press with some frequency and did not want to be considered entirely Italian. Despite their foreign births, Sara Nathan and Julia Salis Schwabe also claimed to feel a sense of English identity. Though she was born in Italy to Italian parents, Sara Nathan became a British subject through her marriage to Meyer Nathan, a naturalized British citizen, and lived in in London for over twenty years. Moreover, all of her children were born in England, had British nationality and education, and even English accents. Sara Nathan’s son Ernesto, who would later go on to become mayor of Rome, was known for always speaking Italian with a strong English accent.14 Privately, Sara Nathan expressed appreciation for her adopted homeland. In a letter to White Mario, she wrote, “I love still dear England and appreciate more and more the advantages she has acquired for herself, would that the Italians the same means.”15 Born to a German Jewish family in Hamburg, Schwabe also had to develop her British identity over time. Like Nathan, Schwabe had all of her children in Britain and raised them as British subjects. Both women also came to Britain in their young teens. As Schwabe was only eighteen when she moved to Manchester, by the time she began her work in the Italian campaign, she had spent more of her life in Britain than in Germany. In one letter, Schwabe expressed her assumed affiliation, describing herself “as an English subject who loves her adopted fatherland.”16 Throughout her career, Schwabe also aligned herself with the British public and drew upon British connections and sympathies. Schwabe and Nathan’s expressions of British identity reveal how one’s sense of nationality could be both malleable and multiple and was not easily confined or determined. Perceptions by Italians In contrast to their privately expressed identities, frequently grounded in personal experience and emotional attachment, the public perception of these women tended to focus on their legal status and likely their last 13  Jessie White Mario, “Cretinismo clericale,” La Lega della democrazia, August 5, 1881, a. II, n. 217. 14  Ciani, Da Mazzini al Campidoglio, 31. 15  Sara Nathan to Jessie White Mario, 10 June 1874, MCRR, b.430, N. 22(6). 16  Julia Salis Schwabe to Mr. John Bright, 20 June 1886, MCRR, b.890, N.45(3).

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names. Saffi and White Mario, who married Italians and therefore had Italian last names, were accepted as Italian more often than the women who did not, like Schwabe or Chambers. Saffi and White Mario were sometimes referred to as fellow Italians or were listed alongside native Italian women, with no distinction drawn to their foreign birth or Protestant faith. At a speech given in her adopted home of Forlì in 1873, for instance, Saffi was introduced as “our compatriot.”17 In contrast, Julia Salis Schwabe was always referred to as an outsider and a foreigner, even though she frequently lived in Naples from the 1860s until her death in 1896. La Rassegna Femminile, for example, acknowledged Schwabe’s support of Italy, but set her apart from native Italians, referring to her as “a highly distinguished foreign benefactor of the Italian cause,” while an article in La Donna called her, “another English lady.”18 Sara Nathan’s Italian status and national identity was also subject to debate. When Nathan died in 1882, the Italian press expressed conflicting statements about her nationality. In her obituary, the Lega della democrazia called Nathan “foreign by origin, Italian by aspiration and by enthusiasm.”19 Two days later, White Mario published a different obituary in the paper that similarly emphasized Nathan’s connections to England, explaining that Nathan loved London because it was where her children were born, where she met Mazzini and began their friendship, and where her son Joseph’s body rested. White Mario added that Nathan “was honored and loved in England as in Italy, and especially by the survivors of that group of disciples of Mazzini who were friends of Italy and not of fortune.”20 It was not until the next day’s issue, however, that the Lega della democrazia specifically corrected the error in the initial biography, claiming, “misled by the marital name Nathan, the majority of newspapers, while paying tribute to the merits of the illustrious woman, left their readers to believe that she was of foreign origin.” The article went on to clarify that it would “correct the error. Sara Nathan was not only Italian by sentiment and aspirations, but by origin and birth. She was born in Pesaro in 1821 to the distinguished Levi family then domiciled there but  “Società artigiana femminile in Forlì,” La Donna: periodico morale e istruttivo, February 25, 1873, a. 5, n. 202. 18  “Notizie,” La rassegna femminile, March 1888, a. 2, n.3, 214; “Una bella lezione che danno alle nostre signore le dame forestiere,” La Donna, February 25, 1872, a. IV, n. 178. 19  “Sara Nathan,” La Lega della democrazia, February 21, 1882, a. III, n. 52. 20  Jessie White Mario, “Sara Nathan,” La Lega della democrazia, February 23, 1882, a. III, n. 53–4. 17

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of Roman origin.”21 As not only White Mario, but all three of the Lega della democrazia’s founders, Alberto Mario, Giuseppe Garibaldi, and Agostino Bertani, personally knew Sara Nathan quite well, this confusion is perplexing. In contrast, Nathan’s obituary on the front page of the Dovere, a Mazzinian paper that she had helped to found, correctly categorized her as Italian, calling her “the ideal model of the Italian woman.” While recognizing that she had a British-German husband and had spent much of her life in England and in Switzerland, it affirmed that she “never ceased to consider herself as Italian, which she was through birth and sentiment,” and corrected what they viewed as the wrongful designation of her as a foreigner by many papers.22 A biography written by Sara Nathan’s daughter discussed this confusion, saying that Meyer Nathan’s naturalization may have prompted the idea “that Sarina was English.” The biography added that Sara Nathan “was Italian in everything,” but acknowledged that her prolonged stay in England may have made her a little more serious and tranquil than one would normally see among Mediterranean people.23 This reference to national character highlights the importance many nineteenth-century men and women placed upon nationality and the way it shaped one’s life and actions. Religion and National Identity It is also possible that the confusion over Nathan’s heritage reflected how her Jewish origins made her somewhat foreign in Italy.24 A small minority in the Italian peninsula, Jews generally welcomed the Risorgimento and the promises it offered of religious toleration in a secular state.25 They participated at disproportionate rates in the creation of the Italian state

 “Sara Nathan,” La Lega della democrazia, February 24, 1882, a. III, n. 55.  “Sara Nathan,” Il Dovere, February 26, 1882, a. 5, n. 210. 23  “Biography of Sarah Nathan, likely by her daughter Janet,” MCRR, b. 431, n.42. 24  Ciani, Da Mazzini al Campidoglio, 32. 25  Jews in Piedmont-Sardinia were granted emancipation with the Statuto Albertino that came out of the tumult of 1848 and most other Italian Jews gained equal legal status with the unification of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. Roman Jews, however, were confined to the ghetto under the repressive rule of Pius IX until Rome’s annexation in 1870. Elizabeth Schächter, The Jews of Italy, 1848–1915: Between Tradition and Transformation (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2011), 10. 21 22

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and forged a linkage between Jewishness and patriotism.26 Works on Jewish history from the early twentieth century would even use Nathan and her family as examples of how Jews could be patriots and good citizens.27 However, Jewish Italians still faced much anti-Semitism after unification.28 The leading Catholic newspaper in Italy, La Civiltà Cattolica, claimed that Jews were a foreign race and could not really be Italian.29 Many Jews also felt a pressure to assimilate and lose their distinctive Jewish identity. Historian Andrew Canepa has argued that nineteenth-century Liberals believed that Jews could have rights as individual citizens, but only if they gave up their rights as a collective Jewish nation and would essentially “relinquish their Jewishness.”30 Jewish emancipation, therefore, did not bring with it an acceptance of Judaism, but rather an implicit promise that it would result in the end of a distinctive Jewish community and Jewish traits. Religion was not just an important part of national identity in Italy, but in Britain as well. As historian Linda Colley has argued, Protestantism played a key role in the forging of a more general British identity following the Act of Union (1707) and by 1837, “Protestantism lay at the core of British national identity.”31 It is unsurprising, therefore, that Jessie White Mario, Giorgina Saffi, and Mary Chambers, all of whom had British parentage, were raised in Protestant households. More notably, both Julia Salis Schwabe and her husband converted from Judaism to Unitarianism 26  Ester Capuzzo, Gli ebrei italiani dal Risorgimento alla scelta sionista (Firenze: Le Monnier, 2004); Tullia Catalan, “Italian Jews and the 1848–49 Revolutions: Patriotism and Multiple Identities,” in The Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-­ Century Italy, ed. Silvana Patriarca and Lucy Riall (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 214–31; Marina Beer and Anna Foa, eds., Ebrei, minoranze, Risorgimento: storia, cultura, letteratura (Roma: Viella, 2013). 27  Joseph Jacobs, Jewish Contributions to Civilization: An Estimate (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1919), 304; Primo Levi, “Il Sionismo e il suo congresso,” Nuova Antologia, 1901, 698. 28  Cristina M.  Bettin, Italian Jews from Emancipation to the Racial Laws (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Schächter, The Jews of Italy, 1848–1915; Carlotta Ferrara degli Uberti, Making Italian Jews: Family, Gender, Religion and the Nation, 1861–1918 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). 29  David Lebovitch Dahl, “The Antisemitism of the Italian Catholics and Nationalism: ‘The Jew’ and ‘the Honest Italy’ in the Rhetoric of La Civiltà Cattolica during the Risorgimento,” Modern Italy 17, no. 1 (February 2012): 1–14. 30  Andrew M. Canepa, “Emancipation and Jewish Response in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Italy,” European History Quarterly 16, no. 4 (1986): 403. 31  Colley, Britons, 377.

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when settling in Manchester. Salis Schwabe had converted years earlier and, upon her marriage, Julia converted as well. Manchester had a large German community and many of its German Jews converted to Unitarianism in the 1830s and 1840s, likely attracted by its lack of fixed doctrine and anti-Trinitarian theology.32 The conversion of both Schwabes to Unitarianism indicates the importance of Protestantism for those wishing to fully participate in British society. Their connection to Unitarianism may have also influenced Schwabe’s reformist efforts. Historian Kathryn Gleadle has highlighted the radicalism, interest in social justice and reform, and feminism of certain branches of Unitarianism. Important feminists coming from Unitarianism included some Mazzinian allies, such as the Ashurst sisters and their children and Clementia Taylor.33 Schwabe’s combined German heritage and Protestant faith likely also made her less welcome in some Italian circles, particularly given Germany’s escalating Kulturkampf in the 1870s. An 1873 article reprinted in La Donna (originally published in Enrico Pestalozzi) revealed the impact of the new German state’s actions on the perception of those of German origins. It described Schwabe in her fight with the municipal government of Naples over obtaining a proper building for her school as a German warrior of the Kulturkampf and added that she must have appeared, like a Germanic seductress, sent to Naples perhaps, by the powerful emperor of her native land to conquer with a different strategy than Moltke, the formidable moral forces of the Neapolitan people, and in this way to win on the banks of the Sebeto the battles that were being fought on the banks of the Rhine against the legions of the Vatican.34

The article’s description of Schwabe as the agent of enemy forces shows the wide-reaching impact of the culture wars. It also reinforces how those battles intensified the linkages between religion and national identity and made a careful negotiation of religious issues necessary for anyone engaging in international politics or transnational reform movements. 32  Jonathan Westaway, “The German Community in Manchester, Middle-Class Culture and the Development of Mountaineering in Britain, c. 1850–1914,” The English Historical Review 124, no. 508 (June 2009): 574. 33  Kathryn Gleadle, The Early Feminists: Radical Unitarians and the Emergence of the Women’s Rights Movement, 1831–51 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 4. 34  Linda Maddalozzo, “Venezia, Napoli, Roma, Vicenza,” La Donna, September 10, 1873, a. 6, n. 215, 1533–35.

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Newspapers and the Italian Propaganda Campaign The British-Italian women who supported the left-wing of the Risorgimento utilized their transnational identities and understanding of religion to support the movement’s propaganda campaign. Mazzini and other radicals believed in the power of the printed word and launched an extended press campaign to garner support and spread nationalist fervor. Historian Lucy Riall argues that this strategy became particularly effective during the 1850s with the rise of popular literature and modern mass media.35 Taking advantage of this rise in print culture, these women not only translated Italian articles for the British press and vice versa, but also authored their own pieces, and provided financial and organizational support for the Mazzinian press in Italy. Translation and Facilitation of Publication One of the more common tasks for these activist women was sending letters and articles to the British press intended to garner public support for the radical branch of the Risorgimento. Jessie Meriton White began this work in August 1856 by sending in letters from Garibaldi condemning the actions of both the Austrians and Catholic priests in Italy.36 One of these letters discussed the Austrian execution of Italian patriot Angelo Brunetti, better known as Ciceroacchio, along with his thirteen-year-old and nineteen-­ year-old sons, after fleeing the Roman Republic in 1849. Garibaldi’s letter emphasized the tragedy of the patriots’ fate and the villainy of the foreign occupiers. He lamented the injustice of shooting young and unarmed men, noting that “Ciceroacchio, his young son, and Ramorino, although they accompanied me in the retreat, never carried arms.” The letter also appealed to British anti-Catholicism by mentioning the gruesome death of Italian priest and patriot Ugo Bassi, who had fled the Roman Republic alongside Ciceroacchio, Garibaldi, and his wife Anita. Garibaldi claimed that “Ugo Bassi, after having had the skin stripped from his fingers and the crown of his head, was shot at Bologna.”37 Bassi’s execution was a topic known to incite anti-Catholic fervor. Italian patriot  Riall, Garibaldi, 128,134.  Giuseppe Garibaldi to Jessie White Mario, 7 August 1856, MCRR, Busta 416, N. 2(3). 37   “Austrian Infamies: Giuseppe Garibaldi,” The Morning Post, August 20, 1856, Issue 25782. 35 36

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and anti-Catholic lecturer Alessandro Gavazzi’s previous speeches on Bassi’s death had even led to riots in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1853.38 Hoping that these injustices would appeal to both the British sense of fairness and their anti-Catholicism, Garibaldi’s instructions to White specifically stated, “Entreat the English press, my dear friend, from me, to use their influence in bringing Austria and the priests to account for these atrocities.”39 White eagerly took up this cause. In a letter to Garibaldi, she expressed her desire to publish news of the executions to turn the British against Austria and toward the Italians.40 Her fervor inspired her to send the letter to thirty British newspapers, many of which printed it as well as subsequent correspondences.41 After the success of their first venture, White Mario and Garibaldi continued to work together on the press campaign throughout the pre-unification period. Saffi, White Mario, and Nathan were also active in the Italian press, particularly in the Mazzinian papers Pensiero ed Azione, Italia del Popolo, L’Unità Italiana, and Il Popolo d’Italia. Giorgina Saffi played an extensive role in this process, working alongside her sister Kate Craufurd and husband Aurelio Saffi. One of Giorgina Saffi’s duties was to find articles in the Daily News or other weekly papers that were relevant to the Italian situation and to translate and send them to the Italia del Popolo.42 As her Italian skills were more advanced than White Mario’s, Saffi more frequently translated articles into Italian from English or German, while White Mario translated articles from Italian into English. Giorgina Saffi’s work with German is revealed in a letter from February 1859. Mazzini wrote to Aurelio Saffi, explaining that he was sending “a German correspondence 38  Donald M. MacRaild, “Transnationalising ‘Anti-Popery’: Militant Protestant Preachers in the Nineteenth-Century Anglo-World,” Journal of Religious History 39, no. 2 (June 2015): 239; Stephen Conn, “‘Political Romanism’: Re-Evaluating American Anti-­ Catholicism in the Age of Italian Revolution,” Journal of the Early Republic 36, no. 3 (Fall 2016): 521–23. 39  “Austrian Infamies: Giuseppe Garibaldi.” 40  Jessie Meriton White to G.  Garibaldi, 1856, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-­ Curatulo, 667. 41  Jessie Meriton White to G.  Garibaldi, 23  August 1856, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-Curatulo, 665; “Austrian Infamies: Giuseppe Garibaldi”; “Multiple News Items,” Wrexham and Denbighshire Weekly Advertiser and Cheshire, Shropshire, Flintshire, and North Wales Register, August 23, 1856, Issue 134; “Ciceroacchio’s Murder: Austria’s Defence and Her Defender,” Daily News, August 30, 1856, Issue 3210. 42  Mazzatinti, Lettere di Giuseppe Mazzini ad Aurelio Saffi e alla famiglia Craufurd (1850–1872), 145.

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to Nina [Giorgina Saffi], beseeching her to translate it; I believe it is difficult.” The translated letter was published as correspondence from Berlin on March 1, 1859, in Pensiero ed Azione.43 The women were not simply receiving orders from male Italian patriots, but made their own decisions as to what should be printed in the press. In 1856, Jessie White took a letter from Aurelio Saffi and sent it to both the Daily News and the Italia e Popolo.44 She then wrote to Saffi, advising him about the articles he should write and how they should be published. She claimed, you ought to answer the Times article in the Times especially to disavow all idea of an attempt to initiate a movement under the idea that France & England intend to intervene in the nations behalf & to give the lie to the assertion concerning the war of 1858. You can do this since the Times condescends to think you possessed of ‘good sense.’45

Jessie White Mario and Giorgina Saffi were thus active partners in this scheme, sometimes receiving advice and guidance and sometimes giving it. Placing greater faith in Garibaldi’s vision for Italy, Mary Chambers worked with Garibaldi and Scottish radical John McAdam on a press campaign separate from Mazzini’s. Chambers received correspondence from Italy, transcribed the necessary details, and sent the pieces off to McAdam, who would place them in Scottish papers.46 She also requested her own correspondence from various Italian radicals on the injustices of the Italian government, the Austrian government in Venice, and the Papal and French forces in Rome, and then sent their letters on to papers in England, like the Morning Advertiser.47 Finally, she kept track of which papers actually  Giuseppe Mazzini to Aurelio Saffi, February 1859, Letter #157 in Mazzatinti, 175.  Jessie Meriton White to Aurelio Saffi, 22 October 1856, BAB, Fondo Saffi, Sezione II, b. 16, f. 1, cc. 1–379. 45  Jessie Meriton White to Aurelio Saffi, 24 October 1856, BAB, Fondo Saffi, Sezione II, b. 16, f. 1, cc. 1–379. 46  Giuseppe Garibaldi to John McAdam, Letter 4839, 9  January 1867, in Giuseppe Garibaldi, Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, Vol. XII, Jan.–Dec. 1867 edited by Emma Moscati (Roma: Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano, 2006) 12; M.E. Chambers to G. Garibaldi, 12 October 1864, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-Curatulo, 2209; John McAdam to Mary Chambers, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 2, Fasc. 22, “Italy 1867 e 1868.” 47  Mrs. E.  Chambers to Francesco Plantulli, 12  November 1865, MCRR, Busta 293, N. 25(1). 43 44

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published the letters so that she and McAdam could report on their success to Garibaldi.48 She thus served as an important collection and distribution point for the Italian propaganda network. Mary Chambers and Julia Salis Schwabe also used their social networks to ensure that the newspapers printed items favorable to Garibaldi. Schwabe had personal connections to the press and proudly put them at Garibaldi’s disposal. In a letter from 1861, she wrote that she had seen something about Garibaldi in the newspapers and was concerned that his name had been used without his consent. She offered to arrange the printing of a retraction, claiming, “if you wish a public denial, I can get anything you like published in all the leading English papers…I have friends who write in the ‘Times’, ‘Morning Post,’ etc., through whom I can easily manage it.”49 In 1866, Chambers cultivated influential supporters of her own, having a dinner meeting with the editor of the Telegraph, while her husband attended meetings with the editors of the Standard, the Daily Telegraph, and the Pall Mall Gazzette.50 Through their actions, Schwabe and the Chambers took private steps to control the increasingly important public discourse surrounding the Risorgimento. Authorship of Newspaper Articles These British-Italian activists did more than translate and arrange for the publication of other people’s work and occasionally authored their own pieces. Jessie White Mario was the most prolific in this respect with a decades-long career as a journalist. While few mid-nineteenth-century women worked as journalists for mainstream newspapers, and those who did usually wrote fiction or articles on the so-called women’s issues, White Mario wrote about the economic and political situation in Italy.51 Her journalistic work was inherently political and emerged out of her desire to 48  John McAdam to Mary Chambers, 1 January 1867, ACS Fondo Chambers, Busta 1, Fasc. 10, S. Fasc. 1. 49  Julia Salis Schwabe to G.  Garibaldi, 8  November 1861, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-Curatulo, 2035. 50  M.E. Chambers to G. Garibaldi, 2 October 1866, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-­ Curatulo, 2443; M.E.  Chambers to G.  Garibaldi, 24 December 1866, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-Curatulo, 2444. 51  Silvana Patriarca, “Journalists and Essayists, 1850–1915,” in A History of Women’s Writing in Italy, ed. Letizia Panizza and Sharon Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 151–63.

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support the Risorgimento. In 1857, Mazzini encouraged White Mario to take a position as a foreign correspondent for the Daily News to ensure that Piedmont did not have too strong of an influence on British public opinion.52 He argued, “it is very important to have truth spoken at least in one of the influential organs of the press here.”53 After she wrote a series of successful articles on the Italian situation, William Weir, editor of the Daily News, appointed White Mario as a special foreign correspondent in Genoa in 1857, thereby enabling her participation in the Pisacane conspiracy and subsequent arrest. Weir was willing to appoint her special correspondent again in 1859, though he warned her, “don’t get into prison again…it’s very inconvenient for our paper.”54 His admonition reveals how White Mario’s radicalism both inspired and proved detrimental to her journalistic career. After unification, White Mario continued to write for the Daily News and also worked as a correspondent for British papers the Morning Advertiser, the Morning Star, and the Observer and wrote articles for the Mazzinian papers Pensiero ed Azione as well as Il Dovere.55 Spreading her reach across the Atlantic, she contributed over 140 articles to the U.S.based paper, The Nation, many of which discussed Italian poverty, illiteracy, child labor, social unrest, and organized crime.56 Throughout her career as a journalist, White Mario not only fought for the creation of the Italian state, but also documented the social and economic concerns of the new nation and memorialized the patriots who brought that nation about. While White Mario began her career, to some extent, at Mazzini’s prompting, she was more than his mouthpiece. Mazzini certainly trusted that White Mario would support his views in her writings. He wrote to his frequent correspondent Emilie Ashurst Venturi in October 1864, 52  Mazzini to Jessie Meriton White, 25  April 1857, Letter 4730  in Mazzini, Scritti, 1931, 58:87. 53  Mazzini to Jessie Meriton White, May 1857, Letter 4745 in Mazzini, 58:108–9. 54  Sarah Richardson, The Political Worlds of Women: Gender and Politics in Nineteenth Century Britain (New York: Routledge, 2013), 186–87. 55  Giuseppe Mazzini to Jessie White Mario, 25  April 1860, Letter 5689  in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 67 (1934), 250; Giuseppe Mazzini to Jessie White Mario, 16  April 1863, Letter 7046 and Giuseppe Mazzini to Clementia Taylor, 19 May 1863, Letter 6975 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 74 (1937), 225, 349. 56  Patriarca, “Journalists and essayists, 1850–1915,” 156; for examples, see White Mario, “Cholera, misery, and superstition”; White Mario, “The Housing of the poor in Naples.” Her work chronicling the heroes of the Risorgimento will be discussed in greater detail in Chap. 7.

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expressing his belief in her fidelity, saying, “I do not think Jessie will ever write unfavourably to me or to my fundamental views.”57 However, he did not control her writings or closely supervise them. In an earlier letter from November 1856, Mazzini mentioned that he had not even read White’s articles for the Daily News. He wrote, “really, I ought to read the articles of Miss W[hite] in the Daily News. Can she lend them to me?”58 Moreover, White Mario was also in contact with other Italian radicals who occasionally  disagreed with Mazzini’s approach to Italian Unification, including Carlo Cattaneo and Garibaldi, and accepted their advice on what to print in the press.59 Chambers also wrote her own articles, which focused primarily on criticisms of the Papacy. She worked closely with Giovanni Pantaleo, a former priest and supporter of Garibaldi. Pantaleo would write long detailed letters to Chambers about Italian current events, which she would then translate and use as the basis for her own articles in British newspapers.60 She also found Protestant audiences for Pantaleo’s anticlerical ideas and arranged to have his works published by the Protestant Electoral Union.61 Infamous for publishing the pornographic anti-Catholic work The Confessional Unmasked, the Protestant Electoral Union was founded “to secure the election of members of Parliament, who will oppose the natural recognition and patronage of Popery.”62 The committee’s founding statement made its distaste for Catholicism clear, claiming that the Catholic Church had only deteriorated over the last fourteen years. It argued, “in  Giuseppe Mazzini to Emilie Ashurst Venturi, 3 October 1864, Letter 7539 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 78 (1936), 123. 58  Giuseppe Mazzini to Emilie Hawkes, 15  November 1856, Letter 4592  in Mazzini, Scritti, 1931, 57:209. 59  Carlo Cattaneo to Alberto and Jessie White Mario, 21  May 1861, Le Carte di Carlo Cattaneo, MRM, Cartella N. 3, Plico 21. 60  Pantaleo to Mary Chambers, 10 April 1867, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 2, Fasc. 22, “1867 e 1868”; Pantaleo to Mary Chambers, April 30, 1867, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 2, Fasc. 22, “1867 e 1868.” A letter from Ricciotti Garibaldi to Chambers makes her authorship clear. He wrote, “I have received your kind letter and have translated it to Pantaleo though I do not suppose what he writes can be of much use except to furnish you with something to found the articles you write to the Papers upon.” Ricciotti Garibaldi to Mary Chambers, 5 June 1867, ACS Fondo Chambers, Busta 1, Fasc. 3, S. Fasc. 1, Ins. 6. 61  Pantaleo to Mary Chambers, 22 May 1867, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 2, Fasc. 22 “1867 e 1868.”; Pantaleo to Mary Chambers, 5 May 1867, ACS Fondo Chambers, Busta 2, Fasc. 22, “1867 e 1868.” 62  David Saunders and Dugald Williamson, On Pornography: Literature, Sexuality and Obscenity Law. (London: Palgrave Macmillan Limited, 2016), 67. 57

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dogma, it has abandoned none of its old absurdities, and has even added some new to the list; its creed is daily becoming more unscriptural; its ritual and worship more Pagan. In policy, it is hardening more and more into an inflexible priestly despotism.”63 One of the organization’s original supporters, George Hammond Whalley, MP, was also one of the honorary secretaries of the Garibaldi Yacht Fund in 1864, while his wife had helped Chambers with the bazaar for the yacht. Chambers therefore had an ongoing relationship with notable anti-Catholic activists in Britain and was able to use her knowledge of them to garner support for the Risorgimento. Financial and Organizational Support for the Mazzinian Press In addition to their work translating and authoring articles, Nathan, Saffi, and White Mario worked alongside other Mazzinians to help financially support Mazzinian papers and find subscribers. White Mario collected subscribers for and distributed copies of Pensiero ed Azione and the Unità Italiana.64 She also sold subscriptions to Italia del Popolo on her 1857 lecture tour. Mazzini requested that if she met anyone who spoke Italian on the tour, she should recommend Italia del Popolo as he would like for at least one club, association, or committee to subscribe in each town.65 Giorgina and Aurelio Saffi also worked to gather subscribers in Oxford, where Aurelio Saffi was teaching, while her sister Kate found subscribers in their native Scotland.66 Sara Nathan, in contrast, gave some of her own money to support Italia del Popolo.67 Nathan also helped organize the finances of papers like the Unità Italiana. In 1869, she helped to solve the Unità’s financial crisis by determining how much of the money bookmarked for revolutionary endeavors should be redirected to the press.68 Nathan was particularly close to two of  “‘Protestant Electoral Union’ In England,” The Christian World XIV, no. 11 (November 1863): 333. 64  Giuseppe Mazzini to Jessie White Mario, April 7, 1860, Letter 5680 in Mazzini, Scritti, 1934, 67:225. 65  Mazzini to Jessie Meriton White, March 13, 1857, Letter 4691 MMMMDCXCI in Mazzini, Scritti, 1931. 66   Giuseppe Mazzini to Aurelio Saffi, September 1858, Letter 5151  in Mazzini, Scritti, 1932. 67  Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, July 29, 1855, Letter 4263  in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 54 (1930), 263. 68  Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, July 4, 1866, Letter 8175  in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 82 (1939), 226; Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, August 1867, Letter 8565 in 63

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the paper’s leaders, Maurizio Quadrio and Vincenzo Brusco Onnis, which partially explains her involvement. She continued her support for these efforts into the 1870s and 1880s. La Civiltà Cattolica reported that after Quadrio’s death in 1876, Nathan gave 5000 lire to revitalize the Unità Italiana. The conservative Catholic paper opposed this action and described it as an utter waste of money, “that Sarina Nathan sacrificed…to the tomb of Maurizio Quadrio.”69 Historian Anna Maria Isastia, however, has argued that Nathan worked to restore the paper L’Emancipazione and raised money for what would become Il Dovere.70 Nathan’s efforts, along with White Mario’s and Saffi’s, were crucial in ensuring that these papers, rarely profitable and self-sustaining, would continue to operate and to spread Mazzinian propaganda.

Translation of Memoirs and Other Literary Works In addition to their work in the newspaper industry, these British-Italian activists also applied their skills and perspective to the translation of longer memoirs and autobiographical fiction by male heroes of the Risorgimento. Biographies, memoirs, and letters of famous men had become hugely popular in mid-nineteenth-century Britain, prompting patriots like Garibaldi and Orsini to issue their own.71 These men also attempted to adopt the similarly popular genre of anti-Catholic literature as a tool in the Risorgimento campaign. These projects, however, required the assistance of British colleagues who were able to translate not only the language but also the sentiments of the novels and memoirs, so as best to appeal to a British audience. White Mario’s Translation of Orsini’s Memoirs Jessie White Mario helped to contribute to the Italian cause early on in her career by translating Felice Orsini’s memoir, Austrian Dungeons. Felice Orsini (1819–58) was an Italian revolutionary who was arrested and Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 85 (1940), 187; Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, June 12, 1869, Letter 8923 and Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, June 14, 1869, Letter 8925 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 88 (1940), 51–52, 57. 69  “Roma (Nostra corrispondenza): Il Mazzini carbonaro,” La Civiltà Cattolica, Serie IX, Vol. IX, fasc. 618, 9 March 1876, p. 717–18. 70  Isastia, Storia di una famiglia del Risorgimento, 164. 71  Riall, Garibaldi, 130–32.

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imprisoned by the Austrians in Mantua in 1854. He escaped from prison after a few months and wrote an account of his sufferings, intended to show the harsh treatment of Italians under Austrian rule and to make an argument for why the Italians needed to be liberated. A young and unmarried Jessie White was given the job of translating the manuscript into English.72 After meeting Orsini, White was struck by his story and was hopeful it could be used to reveal the atrocities of the Austrian and Papal governments.73 Through her translation and introduction, White modified Orsini’s story to better appeal to British audiences. She intentionally portrayed Orsini as a romantic and sympathetic hero, like Garibaldi, rather than a dangerous revolutionary. Revealing her aspirations for how the English would regard this patriotic hero, she claimed, the English champions of the cause of Italian liberty, losing sight altogether of Orsini as an individual, a hero of romance, well knowing that millions of his countrymen have done and suffered, and are doing and suffering, at least as much as he, will use his narrative as a telescope, and turning to towards those provinces, where whole populations are groaning beneath the yoke of the oppressor from whom he has escaped, will employ the revelations as fresh incentives to their own energies and as inducements to new volunteers to enlist in the holy cause.74

White also added in anti-Catholic elements to her introduction. While she focused her criticisms on the Austrians, she skillfully linked her attacks on Orsini’s direct oppressors to a condemnation of the Papacy, claiming that the Austrians were unjustly propping up an institution that should have been left in the past. In a clear use of anti-Catholic language, she noted that “world-wide […] are the diseases exhaled by that corrupt and putrefied corpse called the Papacy.”75 The memoir went on sale at the end of July 1856 and within a year had sold an estimated 35,000 copies drawing substantial attention to the  Bacchin, “Felice Orsini and the Construction of the Pro-Italian Narrative in Britain,” 83.  Jessie Meriton White to G.  Garibaldi, 1856, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-­ Curatulo, 667. 74  Felice Orsini, The Austrian Dungeons in Italy: A Narrative of Fifteen Months’ Imprisonment and Final Escape from the Fortress of S.  Giorgio, trans. J.  Meriton White (London: G. Routledge & Co., 1856), vi–vii. 75  Orsini, vii. 72 73

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Italian revolutionary effort and creating much antipathy against Austria.76 White was proud to have made a sensation and sparked debate in the British press; in her later years, she looked back proudly on the time, “when my version of the story of Orsini’s escape (Austrian Dungeons) made a large sensation, and the Leader and the Daily News opened their columns to a series of articles on Italia per gli Italiani.”77 White recognized that it was her manipulation of Orsini’s narrative, and not just the story itself, that drew attention and sympathy. Though Orsini’s work generally received favorable reviews, as did the translation, Jessie White still encountered some resistance. She was not publicly acknowledged as a female translator and was usually referred to as “J. Meriton White” or “Mr. White.”78 Orsini also did not like her translation and criticized her for using his story to serve the needs of the Mazzinian party. Revealing a level of misogyny, he claimed that White did not fully understand the chapters regarding his interrogation. In a letter to Carlo Arrivabene, Orsini likewise wrote that he was embarrassed by the proofs, but reluctant to complain directly about it, stating, “you know how touchy women are.”79 In doing so, he did not treat White like a colleague with slightly differing political views, but as a less intelligent, overly sentimental, and illogical woman. Orsini showed an antipathy and distrust for not just White but all of the British Mazzinian women and criticized Mazzini for including women in the planning of the revolutionary conspiracies. Orisini’s dislike of Mazzini’s female British colleagues contributed to the split between the two Italian patriots in late 1857.80 Translation of Garibaldi’s Works White Mario also worked with Garibaldi on his writings. She briefly edited his autobiography in 1859 and then worked more extensively on his novel Clelia o il Governo del Monaco, collaborating with another one of 76   Bacchin, “Felice Orsini and the Construction of the Pro-Italian Narrative in Britain,” 83–85. 77  White Mario, “Della vita di Alberto Mario,” xlv. 78  “Multiple News Items,” The Morning Post (London, England), Monday, August 4, 1856; pg. 2; Issue 25768; “Literature,” The Derby Mercury (Derby, England), Wednesday, August 27, 1856; Issue 3383; “Literature,” Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper (London, England), Sunday, August 31, 1856; Issue 719. 79  Bacchin, “Felice Orsini and the Construction of the Pro-Italian Narrative in Britain,” 84. 80  Bacchin, 86.

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Garibaldi’s friends and colleagues Esperanza von Schwartz (1818–99).81 Though they performed their work anonymously, private correspondence reveals that Garibaldi approached White Mario and von Schwartz about the project in December 1867. Acknowledging that he was not a great writer, Garibaldi asked the women to translate the novel, add in details, and make it appropriate for a literary public. He specifically asked them to make the writing more appropriate for female ears, and “to sweeten certain expressions that could injure female sentiments.” Showing a great deal of trust in their judgment, Garibaldi also gave the women full control over the content of his work.82 White Mario and von Schwartz used this license to greatly reframe and reshape the novel in their translation. To create sympathy for Garibaldi among the British public, for example, they claimed in their preface that Garibaldi had written the work while imprisoned by the Italian state for his attempt to liberate Rome from its Papal oppressors.83 White Mario and von Schwartz also downplayed Garibaldi’s political radicalism and emphasized his support for both the British government and the British people. They claimed his admiration for the English was evident in the character of Julia, an Englishwoman, possibly inspired by White Mario, who comes to Rome to study art, falls in love with the impoverished patriot Muzio, and repeatedly carries the heroes to salvation on her yacht. The English preface claimed that it was through Julia, “the Author’s evident favourite,” that Garibaldi was able “to exhibit his excessive affection for England and the English people.”84 British audiences liked Julia. Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper noted that “Garibaldi’s affection for England is apparent in many parts of his romance,” and further added that the greatest evidence of Garibaldi’s love for England was found in the character of Julia.85 Much of the translation work also focused on making Garibaldi’s religious views more attractive to a British public. Scholar Sergio Portelli 81  In Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, Vol. IV: 1859, G. Garibaldi to Maria Speranza von Schwartz, Letter 1295, 26  November 1859, p.  192; G.  Garibaldi to Jessie White Mario, Letter 1318, 15 December 1859, p.205, 82  Giuseppe Garibaldi, “G. Garibaldi to Speranza von Schwartz, Letter 5258, 24 December 1867,” in Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, Vol. XII, Jan.-Dec. 1867, ed. Emma Moscati (Roma: Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano, 2006), 235. 83  Giuseppe Garibaldi, The Rule of the Monk; Or, Rome in the Nineteenth Century, Vol. 1 (London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1870), v–vi. 84  Garibaldi, The Rule of the Monk, 1870, 1: xv–xvi. 85  “The Rule of the Monk,” Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, February 27, 1870.

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claims that Clelia was chosen for translation because “it fitted into the Anglo-American universe of discourse and was in a perfect position to enjoy the patronage of the Protestant interest groups who campaigned against Catholicism.”86 Yet Garibaldi’s original religious sentiments in the novel occasionally strayed beyond anti-Catholicism or anticlericalism and seemingly bordered on atheistic. Consequently, White Mario and von Schwartz needed to deny that Garibaldi was an atheist and assure readers that he was a devout Christian ally against corruption, Catholicism, and Popery. The Nottinghamshire Guardian revealed a circulating belief that Garibaldi was an atheist by claiming, “it is well known that he is opposed to all religion, to Catholicism more especially in all its forms, whether as we see it in operation in the Roman Church, the Greek Church, the Anglican Church, or anywhere else.”87 In a section added in the translation, White Mario and von Schwartz confronted this issue directly, telling readers that Garibaldi’s enemies had falsely accused him of atheism in response to his public campaign against collusion between the Italian state and the corrupt Catholic Church.88 They then cited a speech Garibaldi gave in which he said, “it is in vain that my enemies try to make me out an atheist. I believe in God. I am of the religion of Christ, not of the religion of the Popes.”89 Reviews of the novel repeated Garibaldi’s denials of atheism, suggesting their importance to the reading public.90 The greatest challenge for White Mario and von Schwartz, however, lay in convincing readers to accept Garibaldi’s claim that his novel was based in truth. Though it repeated the common tropes of anti-Catholic literature, including unending priestly corruption, seduction, infanticide, torture, and murder, Garibaldi argued his work reflected the reality of Papal Rome. White Mario and Schwartz repeated Garibaldi’s assertions in their preface, calling the novel, “fact founded upon fiction, in the sense that the form alone and the cast of the story are fanciful- the rest being all pure truth lightly disguised.”91 Anticipating the British public’s skepticism, 86  Sergio Portelli, “Anti-Clericalism in Translation: Anti-Catholic Ideology in the English Translation of Giuseppe Garibaldi’s Clelia o Il Governo Dei Preti (1870),” Forum Italicum 50, no. 3 (2016): 1103–4. 87  “Literature, Science, and Art,” Nottinghamshire Guardian, March 25, 1870. 88  Portelli, “Anti-Clericalism in Translation,” 1106. 89  Giuseppe Garibaldi, The Rule of the Monk; Or, Rome in the Nineteenth Century, Vol. 2 (London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1870), 91–92. 90  “Garibaldi’s New Work,” Liverpool Mercury, February 23, 1870. 91  Garibaldi, The Rule of the Monk, 1870, 1: xi.

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White Mario and Schwartz emphasized Garibaldi’s history in Rome and veracity as a witness. Their attempt at bolstering Garibaldi’s credibility was somewhat successful. Sympathetic reviews, like that in the Liverpool Mercury, claimed that “Garibaldi knows perhaps better than most people the power of Papal rule in Rome, and the horrible tortures to which recourse is sometimes had for the punishment of the heretical.”92 The Belfast News-letter, acknowledging that the novel might be slightly “exaggerated and over-coloured,” due to Garibaldi’s perfect hatred of the priesthood, thought that his loathing itself was evidence of the truth of his claims. They argued that, “we do not suppose Garibaldi to be impartial now. But we should like to hear an advocate of the temporal power explaining the cause which planted so bitter and implacable a passion in so generous and unsuspecting a breast.”93 Other newspapers, however, argued that Garibaldi was not believable. British Catholics, in particular, were unwilling to consider the veracity of Garibaldi’s claims and saw acceptance of the novel as evidence of Britain’s harsh anti-Catholicism.94 When contemplating the publication of a revised second edition, Mary Chambers recognized the issue of Garibaldi’s credibility and urged him to provide more facts to support his statements about the immorality of Roman Catholic priests. She claimed, “the only criticisms against the book were that the statements about the priests were not borne out by stated facts- My belief is that far more could be proved against them than you have stated.” She then encouraged Garibaldi and his secretary Giovanni Basso to find a collection of Italian newspaper articles “containing an account of [the priests’] immoral lives &c, &c- Any trials and convictions of them would be most useful.”95 In doing so, she revealed an understanding of the British public and the ways in which anti-Catholic discourses could be wielded to garner maximum effect. Chambers also assumed a guiding role in publishing the work in English. Garibaldi had entrusted Mary and John Chambers with the

 “Garibaldi’s New Work,” Liverpool Mercury, February 19, 1870.  “Literary Notices,” The Belfast News-Letter, April 14, 1870. 94  Diana Moore, “Romances of No-Popery: Transnational Anti-Catholicism in Giuseppe Garibaldi’s the Rule of the Monk & Benjamin Disraeli’s Lothair,” The Catholic Historical Review 106, no. 3 (Summer 2020): 414. 95  Mary Chambers to Giuseppe Garibaldi, 18  April 1873, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-Curatulo, 2774. 92 93

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success of his book and directed inquiries about its publication to her.96 Mary Chambers also selected the English title, The Rule of the Monk, changing it from Garibaldi’s original preferred titles, either Il governo dei preti (The Rule of the Priests) or Roma nel Diciannovesimo secolo (Rome in the Nineteenth Century).97 Though Garibaldi was originally displeased with the title, he later grew to like it and wrote to Chambers stating, “you have worked perfectly with the title given to my novel: Rule of the Monk; and I am most content with the success that, thanks to you, my book work has had.”98 Chambers thus assumed authority as a British woman to know how to best shape Garibaldi’s work for the British press.

Jessie White Mario’s Lecture Tours In addition to her work with the printed word, Jessie White Mario went on four lecture tours in Britain and the United States from 1856 to 1862, thereby taking part in another branch of the Risorgimento’s propaganda campaign. Though White Mario was the only Mazzinian or Garibaldian woman to publicly lecture on the Risorgimento in Britain, the exceptionality of her work makes it worthy of extended discussion. Fellow radical George Jacob Holyoake claimed White Mario was “the first distinguished platform speaker among Englishwomen,” and wrote that “when she first spoke on Italian questions, women had not spoken in public with the view of influencing state affairs.”99 White Mario achieved her success as a public speaker in spite of the limitations placed upon her as a woman and convinced audiences of her ability to coherently and captivatingly speak on Italian political affairs. An examination of her lecture career, however, reveals that she was more successful when appealing to Garibaldi’s  G.  Garibaldi to Emma Chambers, Letter 5805, 6  September 1869, in Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, Vol. XIII, 1868–1869, 262. In a later letter he repeated this assertion that he was leaving the entire publication of the book in the hands of the Chambers. G. Garibaldi to Emma Chambers, Letter 5814, 14 September 1869, in Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, Vol. XIII, 1868–1869, 266. 97  Giuseppe Garibaldi, “G. Garibaldi to Mary Chambers, Letter 5792, 24 August 1869,” in Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, ed. Emma Moscati, Vol. XIII, 1868–1869 (Roma: Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano, 2008), 255. 98  Giuseppe Garibaldi, “G. Garibaldi to Mary Chambers, Letter 5981, 8 March 1870,” in Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, ed. Emma Moscati, Vol. XIV, 1870–14 febbraio 1871 (Roma: Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano, 2009), 38. 99  George Jacob Holyoake, Sixty Years of an Agitator’s Life, Vol. II (London: T.  Fisher Unwin, 1893), 100. 96

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celebrity and British anti-Catholicism than when directly stating her own radical political ideas. White Mario’s Lecture Tours From 1856 to 1862, Jessie White Mario went on a series of lecture tours to promote Italian Unification. Her oratory career began when a group of Mazzinians meeting at the home of James and Caroline Stansfeld decided that she and Aurelio Saffi should give a series of lectures in the major cities of England and Scotland to raise money and political support for the Risorgimento.100 White toured throughout the winter and early spring of 1856–57, traveling throughout the provinces and sketching out the history of Italy’s various revolutionary movements, focusing on the events of 1848–49 and explaining why Italy required revolution and unification in the future. The burdens of the lecture tour put a strain on White’s health and, in March of 1857, she stepped down and allowed Saffi to take over her lecturing duties.101 White’s second tour began on February 26, 1858, and ended on July 31, 1858, in Leeds.102 In these lectures, she continued to speak about what she saw as Italy’s illustrious past, its current suffering under despotism, the failings of the Bourbon and Austrian governments, and a need for greater change. She also espoused a distrust of Cavour, the Prime Minister of Piedmont, and an antipathy toward Napoleon III, the emperor of France. She accused the French leader of selfish ambition and of betraying the Roman Republic of 1849, which she considered a sister to the French Republic.103 After that tour, White Mario made a trip to the United States to cultivate support among the Italian-American and other immigrant communities and to appeal to republican values. She lectured along the east coast from Rhode Island to Washington, D.C., from December 1858 to March 1859.104

 White Mario, “Della vita di Alberto Mario,” xlv.  Mazzini to Jessie Meriton White, March 1857, Letter 4708 in Mazzini, Scritti, 1931, 58:53–54. 102  “Lecture on the Condition of Italy by Miss White,” Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, March 6, 1858, Issue 3048; “Lectures on Italy and the Papacy,” The Leeds Mercury, July 31, 1858, Issue 6827. 103  “France and Italian Independence,” Manchester Times, June 19, 1858, Issue 28. 104  “Madame Mario in New York,” Manchester Times, December 24, 1858, 54. 100 101

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After unification, the Garibaldi Italian Unity Committee then hired White Mario to give lectures on the “Last Italian Campaigns” from 1861 to 1862. She toured starting in Glasgow in the fall of 1861 and ending in London on May 27, 1862.105 In parts of her lectures, she recounted the military exploits of Italian patriots, focusing on the heroic victories of Garibaldi in Sicily and southern Italy. The other portion of the lectures discussed politics and criticized the avaricious plotting of Napoleon III, questioned the motives of Prime Minister Cavour and King Victor Emmanuel, and expressed a hope that Britain would support Italian radicals in their push to reconquer the remaining Italian territories of Rome and Venice. White Mario’s lecture tours were overall financially beneficial for the Risorgimento. She charged admission for each lecture (usually 1s. for reserved seats, 6d. for front seats, and 3d. for back seats) and collected donations on top of that amount. In certain towns, she was particularly effective. After lecturing in Paisley, Scotland, she was able to send Mazzini a check for £60, prompting his praise.106 The last lecture on her first tour in Newcastle was similarly a success, with high attendance, funds raised, and strong coverage in the newspapers. Remembering the event decades later, she wrote, “at the last in Newcastle the subscription went at full sails, Joseph Cowen opening it with 2500 lire.”107 White Mario was thus able to repeatedly lobby for the Italian cause and made an impact as a lecturer. A Female Lecturer While some abolitionist and socialist women had spoken in public earlier in the century and had even given lecture tours, they were an exception. Historian Bonnie Anderson has written about how abolitionist women in the United States in the early to mid-nineteenth century, in particular Lucretia Mott, “violated contemporary practice” by speaking out in public and to mixed gender audiences and received criticism from other abolitionists for their actions. She also claimed that “the strains of public 105  “Madame Mario’s Proposed Lectures on Italy,” Dundee Courier and Daily Argus, November 25, 1861, Issue 2586; “Madame Mario’s Proposed Lectures on Italy,” Glasgow Herald, November 27, 1861, Issue 6826; “Advertisements & Notices,” Daily News, May 7, 1862, Issue 4989. 106  Mazzini to Jessie Meriton White, 13 March 1857, Letter 4691  in Mazzini, Scritti, 1931, 58:9–11. 107  White Mario, “Della vita di Alberto Mario,” xlvii.

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speaking, even before a sympathetic group, should not be underestimated.”108 In 1870, when Josephine Butler initiated her campaign against state-regulated prostitution, she likewise felt it necessary to have her husband publicly give his permission and blessing before she started her speech.109 When White Mario began her lecturing career as an unmarried twenty-four-year-old woman, however, she proudly gave lectures in which she expressed informed and radical political opinions and expected people to listen to her and accept her judgments. Due to the lack of female public speakers, White Mario was seen as somewhat of an oddity based on her gender and had to fight to be accepted as a legitimate authority on the Italian political situation. One article advertising for her lectures claimed, “the ladies are sure to flock in crowds, were it only from curiosity, to see and hear the young and attractive lecturer.”110 To ensure that listeners viewed her as a respected orator rather than a mere spectacle, White Mario emphasized her achievements and connection to the Risorgimento. She was first known as the translator of Orsini’s Austrian Dungeons and later for her complicity and arrest in the failed Pisacane expedition and uprising in Genoa in 1857. After unification, she was recognized as Garibaldi’s nurse and was associated with his image of success, heroism, and celebrity. White Mario was enough of a celebrity in her own right that biographic articles about her were printed in the press to help advertise the lectures.111 Both White Mario’s supporters and detractors appeared uncertain of whether or not a woman could successfully or appropriately speak in public on political matters. Many papers defended White Mario while simultaneously acknowledging her unusual status. The Liverpool Mercury noted 108  Bonnie S.  Anderson, Joyous Greetings: The First International Women’s Movement, 1830–1860 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 120–22. While lecturing in America, White Mario actually met Lucretia Mott and her husband. Mott later described her as, “an earnest, pleasing woman – a little too much ‘fight for Italy’ – but how smart for her to undertake so much! We are to have a visit from her and her husband, to whom she introduced us.” Anna Davis Hallowell, ed., James and Lucretia Mott. Life and Letters. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1884), 386. 109  Elena Bacchin, “Il Risorgimento oltremanica: Nazionalismo cosmopolita nei meeting Britannici di metà Ottocento,” Contemporanea 14, no. 2 (April 2011): 195. 110   “Bank of England,” Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, 8 December 1856. 111  “Jessie Meriton White Mario,” The Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, December 24, 1861, Issue 2249; “Jessie Meriton White Mario,” Liverpool Mercury, January 11, 1862, Issue 4343; “Jessie White Mario,” Manchester Times, February 8, 1862.

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that she spoke well, “unsuited as the subject of the lecture might appear for a lady to attempt to treat of, more particularly when we state that she dealt rather with the political aspect of the late continental struggle for liberty.”112 Similarly, the chair of her lectures in Preston, England, in 1858, Rev. W.C. Squier, said that He hardly knew which most to express his admiration of- her great power of argument, her grace of diction, or her modesty of delivery. She did not seem to be out of place; she was a lady advocating those great principles in which we were all interested, as men and Englishmen- (Loud applause).

He then went on, however, to categorize her as a type of seductress, saying, “and though she was the antagonist of tyranny, she was herself a tyrant,- for while dilating on the chains of the Pope, she herself enchained the attention of her audience and enslaved their hearts.- (Laughter and applause).”113 While Squier praised and supported White Mario, he also emphasized her feminine attributes and claimed that she won her listeners over not through logical arguments but by being young and attractive. In doing so, he devalued her skills as an orator. Many papers also commented on her appearance, emphasizing that she was not unattractive, despite her unladylike choice of profession. The article discussing her Preston lectures, for instance, noted that “Madame Mario is slightly above the middle height, of fair complexion, with auburn hair, a pleasing expression of countenance, and a forehead denoting great intellectuality.”114 The focus on her appearance and attractiveness reinforced her status as an object to be viewed rather than as a source of information to be heard. Criticism of White Mario occasionally reached outright mockery. In 1858, The Royal Cornwall Gazette published a poem condemning her actions on behalf of the Risorgimento. The second verse, which focuses entirely on her and her lectures, reads, Miss White goes through England to lecture right wittily On sunny, delicious, unfortunate Italy: Of course such a strong-minded woman will bloom On the lecturing platform in Bloomer costume! Will come on the stage with a hop and a fling,  “Garibaldi and the Italian Campaign,” Liverpool Mercury, January 15, 1862, Issue 4346.  “Madame Mario’s Lectures,” The Preston Guardian, July 3, 1858, Issue 2392. 114  “Madame Mario’s Lectures.” 112 113

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In silk trousers and tunic and that sort of thing! To the girl to be just, She’s a capital bust, And if we’re to credit the sayings of rumour, Looks uncommonly well when she’s dressed as a Bloomer.115

The poem reveals the harsh and somewhat sexually demeaning criticism White faced as a young single woman in the public sphere. Furthermore, it suggests that her lectures caused her to be associated not only with the Risorgimento but with female emancipation as well. In 1862, the satirical magazine Punch issued a similar piece on White Mario entitled “Woman’s Work,” which was reprinted in numerous papers. Reporting on White Mario’s lectures at the Whittington Club on Garibaldi and his followers, known as the Red Shirts, it claimed that “the point of her lecture seems to have been the announcement that ‘red shirts were coming into fashion, in Italy, in the spring.” It continued, “we are glad to see the lady at last turning her attention to subjects legitimately within her sphere, and we hope that Signor Mario has buttons on all his shirts, red or not.”116 In this piece, they took White Mario’s public interest in politics and mocked it, urging her back into the domestic sphere. Punch’s comments on White Mario’s laundering abilities and its veiled criticism of her marriage also fit into a larger pattern of attacks on British radicals that emphasized their challenges to traditional hierarchies of race, class, and gender. Thomas Carlyle, for instance, condemned philanthropists and Utilitarians by claiming they “were not real men,” but rather “‘windy sentimentalists’ and ‘effeminate types’ whose ‘unhappy wedlock’ could only lead to ‘benevolent twaddle’ and ‘revolutionary grapeshot.’”117 It was not only White Mario’s transgressive actions, therefore, but also her affiliation with the left-wing of the Risorgimento that drew opponents’ ire.

115  “Mr. Walter Savage Landor,” The Royal Cornwall Gazette, Falmouth Packet, and General Advertiser, September 10, 1858, Issue 2281. The poem included an attack on White, but was written about Walter Savage Landor, who had famously written a letter to her offering a reward for tyrannicide. 116  “From Punch,” Manchester Times, February 1, 1862. 117  Catherine Hall, White, Male and Middle-Class: Explorations in Feminism and History (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), 273.

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Anti-Catholicism as a Veil for Radical Politics White Mario needed to overcome opposition not only to her gender but also to her radical politics and did so most successfully when appealing to Garibaldi’s celebrity and British anti-Catholicism. Audiences were eager to listen to White Mario’s recounting of Garibaldi’s military triumphs in Sicily and Naples. One report claimed that “her description of various movements and the heroism of the Garibaldians was also exceedingly vivid. The audience was enchained by her fervid eloquence.”118 Her political views and calls to future action, however, were much more controversial. The Daily News wrote that while there could be no difference of opinion “as to the interest of the narrative portion of Madame Mario’s lecture, which was delivered yesterday evening with an excellent elocution, and a wonderful power of lucid and vivid description,” there “will probably be some difference of opinion as to the soundness of these extreme views.” The “extreme views” the article mentioned were White Mario’s preference for Mazzini and aversion to Cavour.119 White Mario was scathingly critical of Cavour and in one lecture accused him of conspiring with Napoleon III and of selling Garibaldi’s birthplace, Nice, where the ashes of his mother rested, to “a foreign usurper.”120 Criticism of White Mario’s political views revealed the inherent sexism of her audience. Rather than simply challenging her political stance, some of the papers accused White Mario of being overly emotional and partisan. One author wrote, “The political views of Signora Mario were expressed with a sharpness and a limitation one would reasonably have expected. The right was very right and the wrong was very wrong.”121 The Daily News argued that her sharp criticism of Cavour was the result of the weakness of her female brain. The report claimed that her speech was so strong, they “might respectfully describe it as ‘manly,’ were it not for the occasional vehemence of that peculiarly saltatory logic, of which the gentler sex, accustomed to argue through the feelings, have the secret.” Defining this saltatory logic, they explained, “it is a logic that jumps from an arbitrary premise to a foregone conclusion, and back again, with a dexterity at  “The Last Italian Campaigns,” The Bradford Observer, December 26, 1861, Issue 1457.  “Garibaldi and Italy- Madame Mario’s Lecture,” Daily News, January 24, 1862, Issue 4901. 120  “Garibaldi and Italy,” The Leicestershire Mercury and General Advertiser for the Midland Counties, May 24, 1862, Issue 1367. 121  “Signora Jessie White Mario on Italy.” 118 119

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once deadly and delightful.”122 According to this account, White Mario was not a dedicated radical or insightful political observer, but rather an illogical and prejudiced woman incapable of advanced political thought. To compensate for the opposition to both her gender and radical politics, White Mario appealed to the anti-Catholic sentiments linking Italian patriots and British moderates. In a lecture in Edinburgh, she argued that once the Romans were freed from the French and the Papacy, “they would have an opportunity of judging whether the Italians were as Catholic, and as fond of the Papacy, as they were sometimes represented.” She also argued that while Missionary and Bible Societies had done a great deal of good, “she could not see how it was that the religious portion of the British community had so entirely overlooked the Roman question.”123 These appeals to anti-Catholic sentiment could be quite lucrative. After attending one of her lectures, Peter Stuart, a shipbuilder from Liverpool, contributed a £50 subscription toward the Italian Unity Fund and then announced that he also would give £500 to the soldier who first planted the Italian flag on the walls of the Capitol at Rome.124 Though moderate British audiences were not always interested in hearing her criticisms of the Italian monarchy or of Napoleon III, they were eager to listen to attacks on the Pope.

Politics on a Personal Level In addition to their work in print media and the public sphere, British-­ Italian reforming women were also active behind the scenes, using their personal connections and skill as hostesses to aid the Risorgimento. Historian K.D.  Reynolds has analyzed how aristocratic British women performed politics through their social lives. She noted that among the aristocracy, “social events could thus be endowed with political significance,” allowing aristocratic women to find a role for themselves “at this interface between the social and the political.” These aristocratic hostesses’ tasks included inviting the correct guests, facilitating proper discussions, and informally guiding the movement. Reynolds argues this work  “Garibaldi and Italy,” Daily News, May 22, 1862, Issue 5002.  “Signora Mario on Italy and Garibaldi,” The Caledonian Mercury, March 29, 1862, Issue 22621. 124  “Garibaldi and the Italian Campaign,” Liverpool Mercury, January 16, 1862, Issue 4347. Smaller donations were also collected from the audience. £5 10s. 61/2 d. was taken at the doors, in pence and small silver. 122

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was significant but hard to document as “the influence which they wielded was usually personal and conversational.”125 While Reynolds focused on aristocratic women, an analysis of the actions of middle-class women like Mary Chambers and Julia Salis Schwabe reveals that they too adeptly blended their personal and professional lives to support the Risorgimento. Political Hostessing in Garibaldi’s 1864 Visit to Britain Both Chambers and Schwabe attempted to use their skills as hostesses to shape the course of Garibaldi’s famed 1864 visit to England. Although some contemporaries and later scholars have dismissed women’s desire to host Garibaldi as mere amorous or celebrity interest, their motivation was much more about policy than personal gratification. Involved from the onset, Mary Chambers and her husband had spent three months at Garibaldi’s island home of Caprera planning the visit. The couple also led negotiations between the British aristocrats and Mazzinians who supported Garibaldi. Their position was somewhat tenuous as certain English radicals, like P.A. Taylor and George Jacob Holyoake, did not like the Chambers whom they viewed as too moderate.126 Finally, Mary Chambers was also involved in producing propaganda for the visit.127 Describing Chambers at this time, Scottish author and feminist Isabella Fyvie Mayo wrote that she was “busy with Garibaldian correspondence and Garibaldian propaganda, and her writing-room was literally ankle-deep in manuscripts and printed papers.”128 The Chambers also accompanied Garibaldi to England.129 Newspaper accounts at the time documented what they viewed as a prideful battle of wills between Mary Chambers and Mary Seely over who would host Garibaldi.130 While Chambers claimed a right to host Garibaldi as his longtime friend, Seely and her husband Charles, an influential 125  K. D. Reynolds, Aristocratic Women and Political Society in Victorian Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 154. 126  Derek Beales, “Garibaldi in England,” 196. 127  Emma Chambers to G. Garibaldi, 13 February 1864, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-­ Curatulo, 2207. 128  Fyvie Mayo, Recollections of What I Saw, What I Lived Through, and What I Learned, During More Than Fifty Years of Social and Literary Experience, 178. 129  “Garibaldi at Southhampton,” Daily News, April 5, 1864, Issue 5588. 130  “Garibaldi,” Liverpool Mercury, April 5, 1864, Issue 5041; “Visit of General Garibaldi,” The Morning Post, April 4, 1864, Issue 28174.

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Liberal MP, claimed the honors as the ones who issued the invitation.131 Despite what was reported, their struggle was not simply about a desire to be associated with Garibaldi or his fame, but an interest in determining the quality of Garibaldi’s visit and the types of political parties to which he would be exposed and, therefore, the views he would be encouraged to support. When he chose to stay with the Seelys, Garibaldi opted for a slightly more radical approach and, while staying at their home, Brook House, he met with Mazzini and Russian radical Alexander Herzen.132 In contrast, Chambers informed Garibaldi that he was to avoid all political radicalism during his visit and focus on more generalized anti-Catholic sentiments. She advised him not “to attach yourself to any party,” and instead to emphasize common enemies, stating, “if you thought first to say that the enemies of England & Italy are the same it would certainly gratify them.”133 This is similar to how Mazzinian Agostino Bertani envisioned Garibaldi’s visit. Bertani wrote that Garibaldi was to largely avoid politics, claiming he “should appear twice at the most- say little and appeal to the English people as the embodiment of a young nation, resolved to take up its place in the world and finish its achievements.” Bertani added that “from his mouth the cry of Rome will be a bolt of lightning amongst those Protestants and Francophobes.”134 He thus shared Chambers’ belief that Garibaldi should take advantage of British anti-Catholicism to gain support for the conquest of Rome. Though Garibaldi did not stay with Chambers, he followed her advice and Bertani’s about appealing to British anti-Catholics. He met with the Evangelical Continental Society a few weeks after Chambers sent her letter, and in the visit stated, “you are the true friends of progress, and I am glad to see you. In Italy the moral influence of the Papacy is extinct, and if the French were withdrawn from Rome the Papacy would cease to exist in Italy.”135 This meeting was held at the Seely home, indicating that

131  Curàtulo, Garibaldi e Le Donne, 259–64. Mary Seely would later write passionate letters to Garibaldi and their relationship had amorous undertones. 132  Alfonso Scirocco, Garibaldi: Citizen of the World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 338. 133  Emma Chambers to G. Garibaldi, 14 March 1864, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-­ Curatulo, 2208. 134  Riall, Garibaldi, 331. 135  Henry Edward Manning, The Visit of Garibaldi to England: A Letter to the Right Hon. Edward Cardwell, M.P. (London: W. Clowes and Sons, 1864), 11.

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anti-Catholic sentiment was popular among both Garibaldi’s radical and moderate supporters. Schwabe also fought hard in 1864 to have Garibaldi stay at her house in Manchester and assert her influence upon his visit. In April, she issued her invitation, arguing that as her name was associated with her husband’s philanthropic works and his politics, which were neither radical nor conservative, Garibaldi would offend no one by staying with her and would be able to “enlist all parties in your cause of humanity.” Schwabe added that it was important that Garibaldi be surrounded by people who “know the localities & all principal parties in the place” and who were motivated to support him, “by pure, unselfish, loving interest in you & the cause you represent,” and therefore put herself forward as the best person to guide him. She wrote, for your & your party’s personal ease & comfort, as well as for your public interests you can be at Manchester not in better hands than mine, for my dear husband was beloved there by poor & rich, & I have felt there ever since most vividly the benefit he has bestowed on me & my children by the good reputation he left amongst his townsmen, & I believe I may conscientiously say, I may be at Manchester really useful to you & your cause.136

Schwabe’s admonitions for Garibaldi to appeal to a larger political base were quite wise, as his planned visit to the north of England and Scotland was soon thereafter cut short due to fear of his radicalism’s influence on British workers.137 Due to this curtailment, Garibaldi had no opportunity to stay at the Schwabe residence.138 After Garibaldi’s departure, Schwabe wrote and recommended that he return to Britain in July or August to visit her and take advantage of her connections, particularly among the middle class. She wrote that though I rejoiced in your glorious reception at London, which I feel sure will benefit your cause, I still feel vividly you have not seen the men, who, if 136  J.  Schwabe to G.  Garibaldi, 10  April 1864, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-­ Curatulo, 2271. 137  Scirocco, Garibaldi, 340. 138  On April 15, 1864, Garibaldi wrote to Schwabe, thanking her for her invitation to visit her home while he was in Manchester, but explaining he was not sure if it would work with his schedule. Giuseppe Garibaldi to Julia Salis Schwabe, 15 April 1864, MCRR, Busta 890, N. 41(1).

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an opportunity should offer again, could, & I believe would serve you & your cause, men who instead of aristocracy & ambition, have heart & money- & with these men I should try to bring you in connection. – From my house you could visit the most important towns, as Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle-on-Tyne, & Birmingham, refusing at once the invitations to the small places, which would be too fatiguing to visit all, not desirable in any way.139

Though Schwabe’s correspondence with Garibaldi reveals a high level of self-esteem, it does not indicate an overly personal or romantic interest. In contrast, she appeared genuinely interested in helping Garibaldi achieve maximum political support on his visit. Advising Moderation Unlike White Mario, who publicly pushed her radical agenda, even at the cost of alienating some more moderate supporters, Schwabe promoted a more outwardly measured and moderate approach to the Italian propaganda campaign. This restrained approach reveals her independence from Garibaldi and reflected her acceptance of concessions and temporary setbacks to achieve a greater good. She expressed these views in her very first letter to Garibaldi, from December of 1860, when she praised him for sacrificing his republican principles and working with Piedmont. Schwabe believed this was necessary for “the good of the cause,” as Italian unity had “certainly a higher probability of success under a constitutional monarchy rather than with Mazzinian principles.” While Schwabe acknowledged that Mazzini’s principles would work in an ideal world, she maintained that in the current world, they faced too many opponents to succeed.140 In a later letter she added that though the Mazzinians had been “in their time most valuable,” at the present moment, “their day is over…& for want of discretion will do more harm than good.” She added, “it is a pity that their, I believe honest zeal is not properly guided.”141 Schwabe was not entirely happy with the Italian monarchy, but unlike

139  J.  Schwabe to G.  Garibaldi, 12  May 1864, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-­ Curatulo, 2273. 140  Curàtulo, Garibaldi e le donne, 213–15. 141  Julia Salis Schwabe to G.  Garibaldi, 9  November 1861, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-Curatulo, 2036.

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White Mario, Nathan, and Saffi, she was willing to work with it rather than constantly against it. Possibly as the result of the lessons she learned in Britain as a woman of foreign birth and Jewish heritage, Schwabe urged Garibaldi to cultivate support for his radical plans through moderate language. She believed that it was important to keep both her personal reputation and Garibaldi’s free from radical associations. In November 1861, she refused to join the Garibaldi United Italy Committee, despite her private support for it, “on the ground that it would give my educational endeavours a political colour, whilst I consider it desirable to remain as the Agent of the Turin Committee far from all political & religious movements, belonging to no party or ism, but humanism.”142 She also worked to make sure that Garibaldi maintained good relations with his wealthy and aristocratic supporters, including Lady Shaftesbury.143 Schwabe recognized that Garibaldi needed to tone down his radical views and work with more moderate members of society if he wanted to cultivate enough money and support to enact his plans for Italy. Schwabe was also able to use her knowledge of both British and German politics to advise the Risorgimento’s patriots in their expansion into the Adriatic. She wholeheartedly supported the conquest of Venice and believed that the English people could be made to support it too once they were made aware of the true status of the city. She urged Garibaldi to, immediately send your representative to the English People, possibly a Venetian who speaks correct English and who can give speeches in various cities narrating the history of Venice, explaining to the people how Venice, like a poor abandoned woman, was violently captured by the Austrians, etc.

Schwabe hoped that if the English people supported the taking of Venice, then the British government would have to follow suit and support the plans of the Italian state.144 In contrast, she opposed the conquest of Trieste and believed the German people would not accept it. In a letter to Italian patriot Federico Bellazzi in 1862, she explained that while Venice did not belong to the  Julia Salis Schwabe to G. Garibaldi, 9 November 1861.  Giuseppe Garibaldi, Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, ed. Sergio La Salvia, Vol. VIII (Roma: Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano, 1991), 57–58. 144  Curàtulo, Garibaldi e le Donne, 213–16. 142 143

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German confederation, Trieste did, and “every German believes he is in honour bound to defend the rights of every place belonging to the German confederation.” She further explained, “I feel morally convinced that at your next campaign you will find many German volunteers to fight valiantly on your side, who if Trieste be attacked, will find it their duty to turn against you, & to defend what they consider belonging to their Fatherland.”145 Historian Dominique Reill has similarly demonstrated how many Triestine and other Adriatic elites supported a multinational cosmopolitanism and were not interested in belonging to any single homogenous nation-state.146 She added that following the failed revolutions of 1848–49, there was “a firm conviction” that Trieste’s fate was “better served within the Habsburg Empire than within an Italian or Venetian state.”147 Schwabe thus utilized her hybrid Germanic and British status to provide advice as to what would be acceptable for both the British and Germans.

Conclusion Though women’s legal identities in the nineteenth century were restrictive and grounded in a patriarchal system of derivative nationality, women’s experienced identities were much more amorphous and hybrid. The British-Italian women who supported the Italian Risorgimento had truly transnational identities and utilized their position as transnational agents to act as linguistic and cultural translators in the Italian propaganda campaign. While doing so, they paid careful attention to issues of religion, which formed a key part of national identity and informed both national and international political affairs. Within the context of the nineteenth-­ century culture wars, one cannot sufficiently stress the importance of anti-­ Catholicism or its role in cultivating support for the Risorgimento among both Italians and Britons. As the presumed more religious gender, women were particularly well-placed to wield these discourses effectively. These British-Italian women were once again able to leverage their connection  Julia Salis Schwabe to Federico Bellazzi, 24 March 1862, MCRR, Busto 254, N. 100 (1).   Dominique Kirchner Reill, Nationalists Who Feared the Nation: Adriatic Multi-­ Nationalism in Habsburg Dalmatia, Trieste, and Venice (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2012), 5–6. 147  Reill, 178–79. 145 146

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to a traditionally feminine sphere, in this instance religion, to challenge ideas about what constituted appropriate feminine behavior. They wrote newspaper articles and organized the translation and publication of other articles, memoirs, and novels, gave public lectures, and advised influential men on foreign politics. The following chapter will again examine their participation in the culture wars, noting how they promoted secular and nondenominational education in the new Italian state.

CHAPTER 5

Emancipating Education: Primary Education in the New Italian State

Many nineteenth-century women used their involvement in educational institutions to organize, assume leadership roles, and make a name for themselves. The educational projects of British-Italian women in Italy, however, further allowed those women to participate in the new state’s mission to reshape its populace through education. While they were denied the vote in both Britain and Italy and could not directly impact legislation in either country, this group of women utilized their individual wealth and connections to form independent educational institutions and shape Italian educational policy. These women took advantage of the weakness of the Italian state and its reliance on private donors to form independent schools in which they could promote their unique political agendas. Furthermore, through their organizations, they participated in debates over the role of education in the heated conflicts between the lower and middle classes and between the church and the state. As foreign women who established schools in Italy and argued that the Italian people required uplift and education, they were proponents of the civilizing mission and arguably acted as agents of Britain’s growing Mediterranean empire. The Risorgimento itself, however, was a somewhat elitist and imperial phenomenon that carried strong tones of the civilizing mission. Most middle-class proponents of the Risorgimento and politicians of Liberal Italy likewise shared the women’s concerns about the illiteracy, degeneracy, and lack of patriotism among the Italian people and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Moore, Revolutionary Domesticity in the Italian Risorgimento, Italian and Italian American Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75545-4_5

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took part in a shared transnational movement to avoid socialist revolution and create a more orderly generation of workers. Rather than acting as conquerors in Italy, therefore, these British-Italian women worked in partnership with other urban, cosmopolitan, and anticlerical Italian men and women and formed a cohesive group unified against the poor, rural, southern, or devoutly Catholic Italians whom they othered. This chapter begins with a brief review of the major laws and trends of primary education in nineteenth-century Italy before introducing the three educational projects of Julia Salis Schwabe, Mary Chambers, and Sara Nathan. It then argues that they, like many other women from Europe and the United States, took advantage of the perceived connections between motherhood and education to become active outside of the private sphere and promote the education, advancement, and professionalization of women and girls. The following section discusses how these women attempted to ameliorate class conflict through their schools and took part in a larger program of using education to create a more industrious and docile working class. The penultimate section then examines the women’s attempt to introduce secular or nondenominational education in their schools and the difficulties they faced from many Catholic Italians in doing so. To conclude, the chapter highlights how their work formed part of the Risorgimento’s ongoing campaign to educate and uplift the Italian people and how many proponents of the Risorgimento supported their project.

Early Childhood Education in the New Italian State Education was a key priority in the newly created Italian state. Italian legislators sought to use education to combat high rates of illiteracy and what they viewed as an embarrassing level of superstition and misguided religious belief pervading the population.1 The first major law governing Italian education, the Casati Law, was first enacted in Piedmont in November 1859 and then applied to the entire state of Italy after unification in 1861. Influenced by the success of public education in 1  In 1861, 74.7 percent of the population and 81 percent of women were illiterate. Lucia Re, “Passion and Sexual Difference: The Risorgimento and the Gendering of Writing in Nineteenth-Century Italian Culture,” in Making and Remaking Italy: The Cultivation of National Identity around the Risorgimento, ed. Albert Russell Ascoli and Krystyna Von Henneberg (Oxford: Berg, 2001), 159.

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German territories, Piedmontese legislators sought to create a more modern, educated, and prosperous populace by establishing a system of universal education, ranging from primary schools to the university level, separate from the Catholic Church.2 While the Ministry of Education provided the curriculum and established national norms regulating schooling and teachers’ wages, municipal governments were required to fund the projects, build schools, hire teachers, and enforce attendance. As the law did not provide any means for taking into account regional differences in the ability to pay for schools, those in poor communities and particularly in the south were often inferior to their counterparts in the north.3 The first major change to the Casati Law came with the Coppino Law of 1877, which clarified the Casati Law’s stance on mandatory education and confirmed that children from ages six to nine must attend school.4 The Coppino Law was a product of the left’s rise to power in 1876 and reflected its promotion of universal and secular education. In contrast, Italian legislators of the right believed that with Italy’s failing budget, it did not have money to spend on teachers and schools or the right to intervene in private family affairs in such a way. They were also displeased with the steps the government had taken away from the Catholic Church and wanted to ensure that Catholic morality remained part of education. Furthermore, they feared that education would give workers the tools to stage a socialist revolt. Both the left and right, however, expressed a distrust of the working class and favored an educational system that produced industrious, dutiful, and compliant citizens. Women played a key role in the construction and design of these new schools and their curriculum. Nineteenth-century pedagogy had placed an increasing emphasis on the importance of early childhood education and on the role of mothers, and women in general, in guiding that development. Romantic thinkers, like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, argued that primary education was truly pivotal and Pestalozzi added that as a result mothers needed to be trained and respected as educators. Rousseau and Pestalozzi’s theories sparked the formation of  Mariannina Sponzilli, Storia della scuola italiana dal 1859 al 1919 (Firenze: L’Autore libri Firenze, 1992), 11–15. 3  Gabriele Cappelli, “One Size That Didn’t Fit All? Electoral Franchise, Fiscal Capacity and the Rise of Mass Schooling across Italy’s Provinces, 1870–1911,” Cliometrica 10 (2016): 315–16. 4  Giovanni Vecchi, In Ricchezza e in povertà: Il Benessere degli italiani dall’unità a oggi (Bologna: Il mulino, 2011), 25. 2

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institutions known as asili infantili, which were infant schools or day-care centers. In 1827, Ferrante Aporti, a Catholic cleric who lived in Austrian-­ controlled Lombardy, established what was arguably the first Italian asilo d’infanzia. As time passed, more asili were opened throughout Lombardy and the concept spread to other Italian regions.5 While upper-class Jewish or Protestant men and women often promoted asili, Catholics opposed their establishment disliking their independence from the Catholic Church and Catholic doctrine as well as their promotion of co-education for young children.6 Many supporters of asili were also interested in the kindergarten movement of Friedrich Froebel (1782–1852). A student of Pestalozzi, Froebel founded a system of education for young children, which he called the kindergarten, that focused primarily on singing, dancing, gardening, and self-directed free play with toys he had designed. With the help of his patron, the Baroness Bertha Marie Marenholtz von Bülow (1810–93), he established multiple schools for children and one specifically for the training of female kindergarten teachers. The Froebel system promoted the primacy of the mother-child relationship and the professionalization of kindergarten teachers. Through their work in kindergartens, women asserted agency and sought a higher status in society.7 A distinctly liberal phenomenon, the kindergarten movement stressed the uplifting power of education, preached nondenominational religious tolerance in schools, and harbored a lingering fear of working-class insurgency, which it hoped to suppress by educating an orderly new generation of workers. It found adherents across Europe and the United States and became a nearly global phenomenon. While only Julia Salis Schwabe created a kindergarten, Sara Nathan and Mary Chambers also participated in Italy’s national education project by founding similar primary schools.

5  Avril Wilson, “Ferrante Aporti- Apostle of Infancy,” British Journal of Educational Studies 27, no. 3 (October 1979): 221–31. 6  Albisetti, “Froebel Crosses the Alps,” 160–63. 7  Barbara Taylor Allen, “Spiritual Motherhood: German Feminists and the Kindergarten Movement, 1848–1911,” History of Education Quarterly 22, no. 3 (Autumn 1982): 321.

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An Introduction to the Schools Julia Salis Schwabe’s Neapolitan Project Julia Salis Schwabe established a series of schools in Naples culminating in the Victor Emmanuel II International Froebel Institute, which included a kindergarten, orphanage, vocational school, and teacher training school. Schwabe found inspiration for her educational efforts in the poverty she witnessed during a visit to Naples in the winter of 1860–61 to raise funds for the Risorgimento. Appalled at the conditions of Neapolitan education, she raised money for the reconstruction of the school of Torre del Greco, a small town south of Naples, which had been destroyed by an earthquake in 1860.8 With Schwabe’s aid, the school reopened in 1861 under the leadership of Emily Reeve, the daughter of an English doctor. Like Schwabe, Reeve was interested in both education and philanthropy, as well as more reformist and radical politics. She was friends with both Alexander Herzen, the Russian political activist and founder of peasant populism, and Malwida von Meysenbug (1816–1903), the German radical political thinker and promoter of kindergartens.9 The Torre del Greco school flourished from 1862 to 1865, but was closed when Reeve died in a cholera epidemic.10 In 1872, Schwabe restarted her project by founding a kindergarten in Naples with help from Italian pedagogue Pasquale Villari (1827–1917), who would later become well known for his studies of the southern Italy. Schwabe had been exposed to the kindergarten through the large German immigrant community in Manchester, of which she and her husband were a part, and even served as a patron for Meysenbug during her time promoting kindergartens in the city. The movement was also supported by Schwabe’s fellow Unitarians. In 1850, Unitarian minister W.H. Herford had founded a Froebel school in Lancaster.11 Schwabe’s kindergarten in Naples accepted forty children of both sexes from ages three to six or seven.12  Albisetti, “Education for Poor Neapolitan Children,” 642.  Jacques Le Rider, Malwida von Meysenbug: 1816–1903, Une européenne du XIXe siècle (Paris: Bartillat, 2005), 246. 10  “Di nuovo istituto di educazione popolare in Napoli,” La Donna, a. 5, no. 188 (July 25, 1872): 1101–2. 11  Westaway, “The German Community in Manchester” 572, 595–96. 12  Albisetti, “Education for Poor Neapolitan Children,” 647. 8 9

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In addition to the kindergarten, Schwabe established a primary school, where students from ages seven to thirteen or fourteen were provided a mixture of “instruction, education, and work.” The children learned Italian, reading, writing, arithmetic, geometry, geography, universal history, natural sciences, and French. In addition, girls were taught to be good housewives and to comport themselves properly and be modest, but were also given a professional education which would have allowed them to make an independent living outside of marriage.13 At age fourteen, the students had the option to enter into the army or a trade, to continue their education and become Froebel teachers, or to further learn domestic skills in preparation for entry into domestic service.14 In 1876, Schwabe added an orphanage and, in 1877, a teacher Training College.15 Continuing to expand the project, in 1890, she then added an industrial wing, where “handicrafts are taught after the ordinary school hours.” By 1890, the Training College had 19 students, the kindergarten had 174 students, and the elementary school department had 417 students. Even more children were interested in attending, as no fewer than 200 children were turned away that year for want of room. In total, over the period of 1873–1890, the school had taken in 9632 pupils.16 Schwabe was thus able to create a multifaceted and long-standing institution in Naples. Mary Chambers’ Industrial Schools in Sardinia While Schwabe focused her efforts on the city of Naples, Mary Chambers worked alongside Garibaldi to open industrial schools in Sardinia. As the parliamentary representative of Ozieri in Sardinia, Garibaldi was dedicated to improving conditions on the island and the industrial schools formed part of this project.17 Industrial schools were designed to take low-income or neglected children at risk of entering a life of crime and teach them a useful trade instead. In her schools in Sardinia, Chambers implemented a 13  G. Ricciardi, “Un prezioso istituto in pericolo,” Cornelia: Rivista letteraria educativa dedicata principalmente agli interessi morali e materiali delle donne italiane, April 16, 1877, a. 5, n. 10. 14  “Di nuovo istituto di educazione popolare in Napoli.” 15  Le Rider, Malwida von Meysenbug, 414. 16  Friedrich Froebel, Froebel’s Letters on the Kindergarten, trans. Emilie Michaelis and H. Keatley Moore (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1891), 198. 17  Pantaleo to Mary Chambers, 30 April 1867, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 2, Fasc. 22, “1867 e 1868” (Vol. D).

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combination of methods from British ordinary, industrial, and technical schools and taught her students basic skills, “including a practical variety, from simple sewing and laundress work to a capacity for spelling, reading, writing, and understanding the cardinal points of morality.”18 Garibaldi and Chambers both worked to fundraise and gain supporters and publicity for the school. As little has been written about these schools, it is difficult to uncover how many there were and when they opened. In July 1869, the Daily News reported that about 80 children under age seven attended the school in Ozieri. Another school, they claimed, had 120 students while 338 men and boys attended two evening schools. It further asserted that the schools were “said to be very popular; the people in the small villages of Sardinia beg for them, and the Government authorities are not at all adverse to their establishment.”19 In June 1869, Garibaldi and Chambers began plans to open additional schools on the island.20 By February 1870, they had opened one school in the town of Maddalena and another in Santa Teresa, each with two teachers.21 In August 1870, they still had these two schools and the four teachers and the students were progressing nicely.22 Demonstrating their desire to educate the general population, not just the youth, they also worked with Luigi Gusmaroli, a former priest who had abandoned his vocation to follow Garibaldi in his battles, to set up a public reading room.23 Though Chambers’ schools in Sardinia were not as famous or prolific as Schwabe’s in Naples, they similarly illustrate her commitment to improving education in the new Italian state.

18  Bazaar Flyer, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 2, Fasc. 22, “Italian schools 1869” (Vol. B); “Multiple News Items,” The Standard (London, England), Saturday, August 15, 1868; pg. 4; Issue 13738. 19  “The Industrial Schools in Italy,” Daily News, July 17, 1869, Issue 7242. 20  Giuseppe Garibaldi to Emma Chambers, Letter 5714, 13  June 1869, in Giuseppe Garibaldi, Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, ed. Emma Moscati, Vol. XIII (Roma: Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano, 2008), 217–18. 21  Giuseppe Garibaldi to Mary Elisabeth Chambers, Letter 5956, 15  February 1870, in Giuseppe Garibaldi, Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, ed. Emma Moscati, Vol. XIV (Roma: Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano, 2009), 25. 22  Giuseppe Garibaldi Mary Elisabeth Chambers, Letter 6138, 1 August 1870, in Garibaldi, Vol. XIV:120. 23  Giuseppe Garibaldi to Mary Elisabeth Chambers, Letter 5920, 7  January 1870, in Garibaldi, Vol. XIV:6.

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Sara Nathan’s Mazzini School in Rome After Mazzini’s death in March 1872, his followers debated how best to honor his memory; the majority advocated for the erection of a monument, while a smaller group, made up of the Nathans and close British friends of Mazzini, advocated for the establishment of an educational institute. They believed this was a more fitting tribute to a man whose theories of duty focused so much on the education of the Italian people.24 For her part, Sara Nathan worked to establish the Roman branch of the Sala Mazzini, an institution that organized conferences and evening adult elementary education courses, and created a separate primary school for girls, called the Scuola Mazzini.25 According to her daughter, Adah Nathan Castiglioni, Sara Nathan started the Scuola Mazzini just months after Mazzini’s death. Explaining her desire to carry on his memory and mission through the school, Nathan wrote to Jessie White Mario in March 1873, claiming, “we have then nothing left to do than studying the education of the young and of the unharmed by means of His writing.”26 Therefore, she explained, they had opened the school in Rome. Nathan established a girls’ elementary school, which offered curriculum identical to that of boys’ schools, and was arguably the first secular private school in Rome. In 1876 the school had 30 students and by 1880 it had 100, divided into four classes.27 By 1890 it had close to 120 students, mostly local children from Trastevere. While Nathan’s primary mission was to promote the instruction of Mazzini’s religious and educational ideas, she also hoped the school would help provide poor girls with a practical education that would improve their quality of life.28 The Scuola Mazzini was an important project for both Nathan and her family. Revealing her deep personal interest, Nathan gave much of the instruction herself and ensured that it was different from other municipal or denominational schools, particularly in its substitution of Mazzinian

 Ciani, Da Mazzini al Campidoglio, 67.  Modena, “Jewish Women in Non-Jewish Philanthropy in Italy (1870–1938),” 17. 26  Sara Nathan to Jessie White Mario, 25 March 1873, MCRR, Busta 430, N.22(4). 27  Modena, “Jewish Women in Non-Jewish Philanthropy in Italy (1870–1938),” 17. 28  Adah Nathan Castiglioni and Ernesto Nathan to Jessie White Mario, MCRR, Busta 405, N.6. 24 25

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principles for traditional religious instruction.29 The school was maintained by an endowment and annual donations by the Nathan family, which meant it did not charge tuition. The family also bought the building for the school and paid to modify it.30 After Sara Nathan’s death, her daughter Adah Nathan Castiglioni took over as director.31 Though Nathan had not lived in Rome previously, she chose to establish her school in the poor Roman neighborhood of Trastevere just across the river from recently opened Jewish ghetto.32 Nathan selected the location in Trastevere in part because she had moved to Rome to help her son Ernesto run the Mazzinian paper Roma del Popolo.33 As the city was recently incorporated into the Italian state, the Roman educational system was quite weak, which provided Nathan with an opportunity to create her school. She was also interested in the region, however, due to its history in the Risorgimento and connection with the Papacy. In a 1922 speech reflecting back on the history of the school, Gustavo Canti claimed that Nathan was pleased to establish her school “in this district where the people have such shining traditions of patriotism, in this proud Trastevere sacred to the memories of the Republic of ’49, guardian of the memory and example of Giuditta Tavani Arquati.”34 Canti’s evocation of Arquati, a symbol of female patriotism and resistance to Papal oppression, and his claim that Nathan was also inspired by her, suggest that the school was intended as a means of producing women like Tarquati, who would fight for Italy and against the oppressive shackles of the Catholic Church. An 1877 article in La Donna similarly suggested that the school was designed to overcome the influence of the priesthood on the people of Rome. The 29  “Cronaca femminile: Italia: La premiazione delle fanciulle alla scuola Mazzini di Roma,” La Donna, April 16, 1890, a. 17, n.7. 30  Modena, “Jewish Women in Non-Jewish Philanthropy in Italy (1870–1938),” 17. 31  “Cronaca Femminile: Italia” 32  “Cronaca Femminile: Italia” 33  Ciani, Da Mazzini al Campidoglio, 66. 34  Gustavo Canti, Parole pronunciate dal Prof. Gustavo Canti alla scuola professionale femminile “Giuseppe Mazzini” Opera Pia “Sarina Nathan” Il 20 febbraio 1922 in occasione della premiazione annuale (Milano: Albrighi, Segati & Co., 1922), 10. Arquati was the daughter of Giustino Tavani, a defender of the Roman Republic in 1849, and herself fought for the republic alongside her husband, Francesco Arquati. After spending a period in exile in Venice, Arquati and her family returned to Rome in 1865. During Garibaldi’s attack on Rome two years later, Arquati, her husband, and her young child were killed by Papal Zouaves in a wool factory in Trastevere where they were planning a simultaneous uprising to support Garibaldi’s efforts.

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article claimed that observing the girls who attended the school, one witnessed “those daughters of a people in which the ancient Roman value is far from dead at the moment” and noted that “despite the emasculating dominion of the priests it could still produce little girls of such exceptional vivacity of ingenuity.”35 Through her school, therefore, Nathan not only carried on Mazzini’s specific legacy, but participated in the transnational project of creating a more secular, orderly, and industrious populace.

Education as a Feminist Act Through these projects, Chambers, Nathan, and Schwabe adopted executive leadership roles, dealt with budgets and legal contracts, and fought with government agencies for appropriate funds and locations. They also promoted education for young girls and the training of women as professional primary school educators. As women, they could not legislate educational policy, but could act privately, as non-state agents, to create educational institutions and carve out a space for female agency. The Professionalization of Primary Education Throughout the nineteenth century, primary education slowly evolved from a duty of motherhood to a serious profession. Due to the popularity of the discourse of republican motherhood, which argued that women could serve the nation by teaching civic values and morality to their children, primary education was often conceived of as an extension of a woman’s maternal duties. Much of the praise Sara Nathan received for her school in Trastevere emphasized the maternal and caring aspects of her work rather than the radical politics or non-traditional education she espoused.36 The Froebel kindergarten method tried to introduce an element of professionalization to women’s work in primary education by saying that women, though naturally suited for education, needed proper training. Because of its promotion of female education and professionalization, many of the most ardent supporters of the kindergarten

 “Alla Scuola Mazzini,” La Donna, April 30, 1877, a. IX, n.292.  L’Opinione nazionale (Florence), a.XVI, n.53, Wednesday, February 23, 1882, in MCRR, Busta 426, N.2(5). 35 36

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movement were women.37 Schwabe shared this belief, claiming that teacher training was “the professional training appropriate to the nature and condition of woman,” and set up a Froebel training school at her institute in 1877.38 She had previously also promoted advanced education for her teachers. In April 1872, Schwabe sent the Mosca sisters, two young educated Neapolitan women, to Germany at her own expense so they could study for six months at Paulsen Stiff, a voluntary organization that taught the Froebel method, to prepare them to direct her institute.39 She thus contributed to the professionalization of the teaching profession in Italy and offered valuable career opportunities for her female students. To further ensure that her school had the best possible teachers, Schwabe hired Adele von Portugall, a respected pedagogue trained in the Froebel system. After the death of her husband and stepson, Portugall had channeled her grief into the study of the Froebelian pedagogy under Henriette Schrader-Breymann and Marenholtz von Bülow. She later worked as a kindergarten teacher in a private school in Manchester from 1861 to 1863 before replacing Schrader-Breymann in Geneva in May of 1864. While in Geneva, she oversaw the implementation of the kindergarten system in all the infant schools in the canton, an act which made Geneva the first state in the world to formally adopt and carry out Froebel’s principles as the basis of education.40 In 1884, Portugall then came to work at Schwabe’s institute in Naples as head of the kindergarten.41 Promoting pedagogy as a serious field of study, she twice served as the principal examiner for the Froebel Society of London, organized the twelfth annual conference on infant education at Schwabe’s institute in Naples in September 1895, and authored a book in German on Froebel and his methods.42 By furthering the advancement of Froebel’s pedagogy

  Taylor Allen, “Spiritual Motherhood: German Feminists and the Kindergarten Movement, 1848–1911,” 322. 38  Relazione rendiconto amministrativo per gli anni 1878 e 1879, Istituto Froebel Ex. Collegio Medico, Largo S.  Agnello a Capo Napoli, March 1, 1880, MCRR, Busta 426, N. 6(13). 39  “Di nuovo istituto di educazione popolare in Napoli”; Linda Maddalozzo, “Venezia, Napoli, Roma, Vicenza,” La Donna, September 10, 1873, a. 6, n. 215. 40  Froebel, Froebel’s Letters on the Kindergarten, 195–96. 41   Adele von Portugall, “Forty Years a Kindergartener: Reminiscence. Part II,” Kindergarten Magazine XIV, no. 6 (February 1902): 344. 42  Froebel, Froebel’s Letters on the Kindergarten, 195–96; Adele von Portugall, XII Conferenze sull’educazione infantile (Napoli: Stab. Tip. Pierro e Veraldi, 1896); Adele von Portugall, Friedrich Fröbel Sein Leben Und Wirken (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1905). 37

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and demanding respect for herself as an educational theorist, Portugall thereby aided Schwabe in her mission. Italian feminist newspapers appreciated how Schwabe’s school and other kindergartens like it promoted the education, professionalization, and advancement of women. In January 1871, La Donna published an article by Aurelia Cimino Folliero de Luna, founder of Cornelia, promoting kindergartens in which she argued that the mixing of the sexes in schools, part of the kindergarten platform, made girls stronger and made boys more moral.43 An article in Cornelia likewise praised Schwabe’s school because it promoted the role of women and glorified their duties as mothers, saying that it “sanctified the family returning the house into a temple of virtue.”44 These Italian feminist papers also recognized the contributions to feminism of individuals active in the kindergarten movement. In 1865, La Voce delle donne reported on the death of Emily Reeve, who had directed Schwabe’s first school in Naples, claiming that Reeve had been “one of the first initiators of progress and of female emancipation.” It also said that with her death, the female sex had lost “one of its first champions.”45 The connection between the kindergarten movement and the Italian feminist movement was thus quite strong. Assuming Leadership in Private Institutions More importantly, as directors of their institutes, Schwabe, Chambers, and Nathan acted in executive capacities usually reserved for men. The large degree of control they had over curricula, staffing, and budgets was made possible by their schools’ private status. While state-run schools needed to more closely follow the policies dictated by male legislators and were more likely to have state-appointed male leaders, private schools gave wealthy women the ability to leverage their class and economic privilege to gain personal autonomy and power. One way each of these women asserted their authority was by determining the pedagogical content of her school. To maintain control over her institute, Sara Nathan had it recognized as a private philanthropic 43  Aurelia Cimino Folliero De Luna, “L’indolenza in Italia e la donna italiane,” La Donna, January 22, 1871, a. 3, n.145. 44  Leonardo Galimberti, “Inaugurazione dell’istituto froebelliano per maestre giardiniere in Napoli,” Cornelia, December 16, 1877, a. 6, n. 2. 45   “Miss Emilia Reeve,” La Voce delle donne: Giornale politico, scientific, letterario, November 18, 1865, a. 1, n. 23.

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endeavor. By making her school private, she ensured that it could remain secular as well as independent from the Commissione direttive delle Società Operaie, an organization responsible for carrying on Mazzini’s legacy.46 Just as Nathan was inspired by Mazzini, but adamant that she not be dictated to by male Mazzinians, Schwabe was inspired by male pedagogues William Ellis and Froebel, but unwilling to blindly follow their dictates or those of their followers. In an 1888 letter, Schwabe expressed her belief that she was not constrained by their models. She wrote, Froebel and Ellis did not, as so many wrongly imagine, give to the world stereotyped mechanical systems, to be blindly followed by the unthinking and superficial, but they, each in his own way, taught the principles of eternal truth, and left it to each true-hearted and intelligent pedagogue to build on this foundation his own superstructure. Hence are their teachings adaptable to the needs of the day at all times and to all countries.47

Though she respected the models provided by these men, Schwabe believed in her ability to modify their doctrines as she saw fit. She and Nathan thus took full advantage of the ability to dictate pedagogy offered by the private status of their educational institutions. Schwabe, Chambers, and Nathan also assumed a large share of the responsibility for their schools’ fundraising efforts and often relied on the same female-dominated fundraising techniques they had used during the Risorgimento. To supplement the private donations from her family, Nathan used the standard Mazzinian fundraising method of subscriptions to raise the 5000–6000 lire her school cost annually.48 Chambers likewise repeated her strategy of hosting bazaars, which she had used to raise money for wounded Italian soldiers and for Garibaldi’s yacht, to raise money for her Italian industrial schools.49 Both Chambers and Schwabe also held concerts. In February 1869, Chambers hosted a concert at her London residence, Putney House, to raise money for her schools. Tickets  Modena, “Jewish Women in Non-Jewish Philanthropy in Italy (1870–1938),” 17.  Edmund Kell Blyth, Life of William Ellis, Founder of the Birkbeck Schools, With Some Account of His Writings, and of His Labours for the Improvement and Extension of Education (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trürner & Co, 1892), 348. 48  Sara Nathan to Jessie White Mario, December 9, 1873, Busta 430, N. 22(5); Adah Nathan Castiglioni to Jessie White Mario, June 7, 1890, MCRR, Busta 405, N.6. 49  “Metropolitan Gossip,” The Sheffield & Rotherham Independent, August 22, 1868, 4718; “The Industrial Schools in Italy.” Bazaar Flyer, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 2, Fasc. 22, “Italian schools 1869” (Vol. B). 46 47

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were five shillings each, but a family of five could purchase entrance for twenty shillings. The Era reported that Tito Mattei, a musical virtuoso and former court pianist to King Victor Emmanuel II, conducted the concert.50 Violinist Thomas Lamb Phipson, who also played at the concert, recollected Chambers’ persuasive nature and noted that she “had caused a distinguished artist, an Italian, to play a piano solo and to aid generally in this concert, free of charge, as it was for an Italian charity.”51 For her concert in London to raise funds for the school in Torre del Greco, Schwabe likewise benefited from the star power of her friend and illustrious Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind Goldschmidt, who gave a performance. Lind Goldschmidt’s concert alone raised over 1000 pounds or over $75,000 in today’s terms.52 The concert was one of Schwabe’s numerous successes and she became well known for her ability to fundraise. Historian James Albisetti has argued that she skillfully utilized her international connections and adopted different fundraising strategies and rhetoric for each country. In Britain and France, for instance, she focused her appeals on the industrial wing, while in Germany, the home of the kindergarten movement, she asked for funds for the Froebel training college.53 A published budget from her Froebel Institute from 1878 to 1879 reveals her vast network of donors. The donations, totaling 2884.65 lire for 1878 and 3828.40 lire for 1879 (roughly $30,000 in today’s terms), came from 104 individuals and organizations from within Italy (forty-three from Naples, seventeen from Rome, and sixteen from Milan), and 16 from outside of Italy (six from Germany, one from Austria, eight from Britain, and one from an American friend in Paris). Her largest individual donors were German-­ British electrical engineer and businessman Karl William Siemens, who donated 1420 lire in 1880, Miss Fox (of the Association of Friends from Plymouth) who donated 284.75 lire in 1878 and 280 lire in 1880, and the Prefect of Naples, who donated 250 lire in both 1878 and 1879.54 Schwabe 50  “Amateur Concert at Putney,” The Era, February 21, 1869, Issue 1587. Concert Flyer, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 2, Fasc. 22, “Italian schools 1869” (Vol. B). 51  Thomas Lamb Phipson, Confessions of a Violinist: Realities and Romance (London: Chatto & Windus, 1902), 33. 52  Adele von Portugall, “Work and Workers. V. Mrs. Salis Schwabe’s Froebel Institution in Naples (Written under Her Own Direction),” Time: A Monthly Magazine of Current Topics, Literature, and Art, May 1888, Vol. VII, 517. 53  Albisetti, “Education for Poor Neapolitan Children,” 648–49. 54  Relazione rendiconto amministrativo per gli anni 1878 e 1879.

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was thus able to draw on a large network of wealthy supporters from across Europe. She published the budget of the Froebel Institution in 1880 to publicly explain why the administration was closing the fiscal year with a deficit. She maintained that the deficit was due to unforeseen circumstances and not to a mismanagement of public funds or poor administration.55 By publishing the account, she acknowledged a responsibility to her donors to ensure that their donations were properly spent and carefully documented. Chambers also felt a strong sense of responsibility for the proper management and operation of her schools. Though she mainly directed the schools in Sardinia from her home in Britain, she required that Garibaldi keep her well apprised of all developments on the island. These could be quite minor. In one letter from September 21, 1869, he notified her that the school teacher in Maddalena had gone to Florence on vacation but would return in time for the opening of the school.56 Garibaldi also sent his receipts to Chambers and seemingly felt a need to defend the high expenses he was incurring in hiring teachers. In a letter from August 1, 1870, he explained that the expenses were “rather heavy, for the reason that one must go on the Continent to look for the Teachers and anticipate to them their monthly salary, beginning from last October – a salary which is not less than £40 – each (sterlings).”57 Private correspondence further reveals that both Garibaldi and Signor Maggioni, the Inspector of Schools in Sardinia, deferred to her judgment.58 In September 1869, Garibaldi wrote to Chambers to inform her that Maggioni had located a new teacher for the school in Ozieri, but they could not hire her without Chambers’ approval.59 Though she was not physically present to manage the day-to-­ day operations of the schools, Chambers was thus still active in their governance.  Relazione rendiconto amministrativo per gli anni 1878 e 1879.  G. Garibaldi to Mary Chambers, 21 September 1869, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 1, Fasc. 1, S. Fasc. 5, Ins. 25. 57  G. Garibaldi to Mary Chambers, 22 February 1870, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 1, Fasc. 1, S. Fasc. 6, Ins. 8. 58  G. Garibaldi to Mary Chambers, 13 June 1869, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 1, Fasc. 1, S. Fasc. 5, Ins. 10; G. Garibaldi to Mary Chambers, 22 June 1869, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 1, Fasc. 1, S. Fasc. 5, Ins. 12; G. Garibaldi to Mary Chambers, 27 September 1869, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 1, Fasc. 1, S. Fasc. 5, Ins. 26. 59  Giuseppe Garibaldi to M.E. Chambers, Letter 5822, 21 September 1869, and Giuseppe Garibaldi to M.E. Chambers, Letter 5828, 27 September 1869, in Garibaldi, Epistolario di Giuseppe Garibaldi, 2008, Vol. XIII:270, 274. 55 56

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Determined to ensure the high-quality of the schools, Chambers occasionally fired teachers who were underperforming or who did not meet her standards. While termination was generally a simple process, it became a drawn-out struggle when Chambers fired one of her employees, Antoinetta Borghi.60 In December 1868, Borghi had signed a contract with John Chambers, Mary Chambers’ husband.61 According to the contract, Borghi had been hired by the Committee for Italian and English Industrial Schools, with Mary Chambers as president, to found schools in Italy under the rules and guidance of the committee and to instruct in areas of technological education (including the use of Judkin’s sewing machine and Bradford’s washing machine). In return, Chambers promised to pay Borghi an annual salary of 70 lire sterling, payable by trimester. The contract specified that in addition to her salary, they would pay for travel to the school, appropriate clothing, and housing. Borghi also had the right to use John Chambers’ credit to make necessary purchases for the school. Either party had the right to end the contract, but needed to send notice three months in advance to the residence of the other party.62 These details of the contract reveal how Chambers and her committee were aware of and on guard against any potential legal or financial problems or liabilities. On February 4, 1869, John Chambers sent Borghi her official letter of termination. His letter stated that in agreement with the terms of their contract, he was giving her three months’ notice of her termination.63 Mary Chambers wrote a longer letter that same day explaining her reasoning for firing Borghi. It opened, “your letters surprise me, more and more and with this you will receive a registered letter forcing a very early termination to your employment by the Committee over which I preside.”  Wrexham Advertiser, October 3, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 2, Fasc. 22, “Italian schools 1869” (Vol. B). Borghi was a governess for George Hammond Whalley, who had cooperated with Chambers on the Garibaldi Yacht Fund in 1864. During the fighting in Italy in 1859, she worked in the hospitals and received commendations for her care treating the foreign soldiers. 61  Unlike Schwabe and Nathan, who were widows when they started their schools, Chambers had a living husband and was unable to sign a contract independently of him. Borghi thus entered into the contract with John Chambers rather than Mary Chambers. Believing that marriage was a true partnership toward shared goals, the Chambers often worked together on their projects, which will be discussed more in Chap. 6. 62  Contract, December 8, 1868, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 1, Fasc. 7, S. Fasc. 1, Ins. 1. 63  J.H. Chambers to Antonietta Borghi, 4 February 1869, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 1, Fasc. 7, S. Fasc. 1, Ins. 1. 60

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Expressing her displeasure that Borghi had selected a location for the school without proper authorization, she added, “for regard to the Countess’ house no one ever received the slightest authority from me even to enter into the least negociation [sic] respecting it much less take it, and I have nothing whatever to do with it.” Chambers was also upset that Borghi had placed advertisements without her approval. She wrote, “I learn with surprise and displeasure that you have allowed advertisement in the Sardinian papers alluding to the opening of the schools, without those advertisements having been first sent for my approbation.” She concluded with a forceful statement of Borghi’s termination, writing, “after what has passed you will not open the school at all.”64 Chambers’ ire in this situation reveals how determined she was to be involved in the decisions of the school and the punitive actions she would take if her authority was questioned. She was by no means a figurehead in this organization nor did she restrict her involvement to fundraising and publicity. In their leadership positions, Chambers and Schwabe also demanded financial and institutional support from the local government. Obtaining this aid from the largely underfunded municipal governments was sometimes quite difficult and caused problems for the schools’ operation. The opening of Chambers’ third school in Ozieri, for example, was delayed after the town failed to provide a suitable building. Garibaldi wrote to Chambers about the delay in February 1870, stating, “the Municipality of Ozieri behaved badly, and it is but proper that they should be a little mortified.- Where they have prepared a suitable building for the schools in that town, then the school Mistresses will be sent.”65 Schwabe similarly fought with the Italian government to obtain a proper building for her school in Naples. Upon starting her second educational project in the winter of 1871–72, Schwabe went to Rome and Naples to meet with Cesare Correnti, the Minister of Public Instruction, who introduced her to the municipal authorities in Naples. The Neapolitan government then promised her part of an old monastery called Donna Regina and 24,000 francs for its adaptation. After a change in the personnel of the city government, however, the building was withheld. Schwabe was about to give up when Antonio Scialoja, Correnti’s successor, requested that she renew her 64  Mary Chambers to Antonietta Borghi, 4 February 1869, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 1, Fasc. 8, S. Fasc. 1, Ins. 2. 65  G. Garibaldi to Mary Chambers, 22 February 1870, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 1, Fasc. 1, S. Fasc. 6, Ins. 8. d

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attempt and gave her both the 24,000 francs previously promised and a three-year lease for a different government building in Naples. The new building, the Ex-Collegio Medico, was in better condition and better suited to their purposes than the Donna Regina.66 With the free assistance of the architect Castelli, Schwabe was then able to turn the Ex-Collegio Medico into a proper school.67 It was an expensive endeavor, however, and from 1873 to 1879, the Institute spent 61,723.76 lire on the reconstruction and adaptation of the building.68 Though the original lease was only for three years, Schwabe was granted the building for thirty more years in 1876.69 By navigating the various ministries and changes of power in the Neapolitan government, drawing on private support, and appealing to philanthropic and patriotic sentiments, Schwabe established a proper and permanent location for her school. Moreover, her efforts reveal the difficulties that women faced when assuming leadership of their institutions. Though the private status of their schools offered women like Schwabe, Nathan, and Chambers the opportunity to act in an executive capacity, they needed to fight to maintain control and achieve their goals.

Education as an Alternative to Socialism Schwabe, Chambers, and Nathan each emphasized practical education, instruction in job skills, and proper discipline in their school’s curriculum, believing that this type of instruction would improve the lives of the working classes in a controlled fashion and prevent class conflict. Through their institutions, therefore, they participated in the larger middle-class program of using education as a tool to control the working class and stifle discontent. As workers organizations, labor unions, and Marxism grew in strength throughout the nineteenth century, members of the upper and middle classes in both Britain and Italy grew fearful. While there was only limited socialist activity in Italy during the 1860s and 1870s, that minor influence was enough to concern many Italian legislators, who pushed to restrict the franchise. These anxieties also impacted the creation of primary education  Portugall, “Work and Workers,” 517.  “Varietà: Napoli,” from Giornale Roma printed in La donna, a. 7, n.231, May 1874, p. 1791. 68  Relazione rendiconto amministrativo per gli anni 1878 e 1879. 69  Portugall, “Work and Workers,” 518. 66 67

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legislation in Italy. In debates echoed across Europe, Italian proponents of primary education argued that it could be used to offset the impact of socialism, while opponents feared that universal primary education would only further fuel the socialist party. La Civiltà Cattolica, a popular Catholic newspaper, frequently spoke out against public education, arguing it would give poor Italians ideas about revolution as well as the tools to carry it out. In contrast, Senator Casimiro Sperino, a representative of the right from Turin, argued that primary education would mitigate the natural indolence of the Italians, making them more disposed to work and less vulnerable to the lures of socialism.70 Some liberal supporters of the kindergarten likewise argued that though it was originally radical and focused on middle-class freedoms, it could be used to educate the working class to be orderly and respectful.71 In all instances, education was conceived of as a tool for the middle class to quell working-class discontent. Like many British and Italian women of their class, Schwabe, Nathan, and Chambers shared some of these fears of Marxist socialism. They recognized the suffering of the working classes and hoped to alleviate their poverty but opposed Marx’s focus on class conflict rather than cooperation. Furthermore, though they were interested in earlier models of utopian socialism, including that espoused by the Saint Simonians, their spirituality made it difficult to support a system as avowedly materialistic as Marxism. By teaching their students basic jobs skills and discipline, Schwabe, Nathan, and Chambers hoped to simultaneously improve the lives of the working class and avoid socialist revolution. Each of the schools included a focus on practical skills that the students could use to earn a respectable living for themselves as adults. Chambers’ schools in Sardinia, for instance, were intended for “the acquirement, not only of elementary knowledge, but of specific callings, capable of affording the means of life in after years.”72 Nathan similarly taught her working-­ class students sewing and embroidery to provide them with “a practical and useful instruction that could ease their lives, and render them ready and able to earn money and to live independently.”73 Her school would 70  Atti parlamentari. 1876–77, v.2 (Discussioni del camera dei deputati), 5 March 1877, 1812. 71   Taylor Allen, “Spiritual Motherhood: German Feminists and the Kindergarten Movement, 1848–1911,” 324. 72  “The Industrial Schools in Italy.” 73  Adah Nathan Castiglioni and Ernesto Nathan to Jessie White Mario, MCRR, Busta 405, N.6.

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later become a vocational school, named the Opera Pia Sarina Nathan.74 Finally, Schwabe claimed that by offering her students an education focused on practical skills and discipline, she taught them to understand duty, have confidence in their strength, focus on the joys of domestic life, and avoid vanity and frivolousness.75 She was inspired in part by a letter from Pasquale Villari in 1877, in which he encouraged her to open an industrial school at her institute, which would transform “paupers and vagrants into workmen.”76 This shared approach reveals how Schwabe, Chambers, and Nathan recognized the necessity for practical solutions for the working class, but also patronizingly believed that if left unaided, it might descend into vagrancy, crime, or socialist revolution. Another way in which these schools sought to prevent socialism from taking root in Italy was by providing direct charitable services, such as lunches for the children, that would alleviate the stresses of poverty. Schwabe’s Froebel Institute provided a daily meal for many of its students, at the cost of roughly 1150 lire per year (10,125.24 lire from 1873 to 1879).77 Chambers and her committee likewise agreed to provide one meal a day for the students, but required that the children cook it themselves, “not only in an economic and proper, but even in a scientific manner.” They required the students to cook for themselves, because “good cookery is an essential thing to civilized man, whether regarded as a matter of luxury or health.”78 Attempts to provide this food were not always successful. At first, Nathan provided her students with soup at lunchtime, but stopped after realizing that the girls did not eat it and instead brought their own bread from home.79 These attempts at providing charity sometimes met with resistance from donors and paying students at the school. Inspired by the popular 74  Modena, “Jewish Women in Non-Jewish Philanthropy in Italy (1870–1938),” 17. The Opera Pia Sarina Nathan also ran the Unione Benefica, which was founded in 1882 to provide vocational training and accommodations to girls arriving in Rome, so that they might avoid falling into illicit circles or engaging in prostitution 75  “Di Nuovo istituto di educazione popolare in Napoli.” 76  Portugall, “Work and Workers,” 519. 77  Relazione rendiconto amministrativo per gli anni 1878 e 1879. The Institute also spent a large portion of its budget on feeding the live-in workers of the institute and its orphans (L. 66,366.51 from 1873 to 1877). It also spent money on laundry, lights, doctors and medicine, clothing and linens, and furniture for the kindergarten, elementary school, and the home. 78  Bazaar Flyer, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 2, Fasc. 22, “Italian schools 1869” (Vol. B). 79  Adah Nathan Castiglioni to Jessie White Mario, June 7, 1890, MCRR, Busta 405, N.6.

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doctrines of self-help and self-advancement that discouraged unrestricted charity, these opponents demanded that the institutions were placed on a restricted budget and limited what could be given to poorer students. Schwabe had initially planned on educating poor children alongside rich ones, but was unable to do so without alienating her paying pupils and was required to educate the children separately.80 Chambers was similarly forced to move away from her egalitarian vision to accommodate the realities of her budget. To keep her schools from being too expensive, she sold her pupils’ labor as they learned technical, industrial, or domestic skills.81 Schwabe and Chambers both relied on fundraising and advertising for their schools. By advertising her plan to sell the products of her students’ labor, Chambers not only showed potential donors that she was thinking critically about finances and would make effective use of their donation, but also emphasized that her school was one in which children would not be taught to rely on handouts, but would instead be given the tools and opportunities to learn to provide and care for themselves. Schwabe also received praise in the Italian press for her efforts in instilling a desire to work among her pupils and forestalling socialist revolution. In 1877, Cornelia noted that her school positively dealt with the issue of poverty and would help people avoid prison and begging.82 Another paper praised her for teaching the children of the people to become “good citizens and happy workers,” and described her work as “the most effective remedy for neutralizing the propaganda of the international.”83 Building on this reputation, Schwabe appealed to donors by proposing a “good international,” a network of supporters of education, which would counter socialist tendencies.84 The liberal middle-class fear of socialism was thus an important part of both of their projects and influenced Nathan’s as well.

Non-traditional Religious Education In their schools, Chambers, Nathan, and Schwabe consciously chose not to provide Catholic religious instruction and instead promoted either secular or nondenominational education. While this choice won them  Relazione rendiconto amministrativo per gli anni 1878 e 1879.  Bazaar Flyer, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 2, Fasc. 22, “Italian schools 1869” (Vol. B). 82  Galimberti, “Inaugurazione dell’istituto froebelliano per maestre giardiniere in Napoli.” 83  “Varietà: La Sig. Salis Schwabe,” La Donna, December 25, 1875, a. 8, 270–71. 84  Albisetti, “Education for Poor Neapolitan Children,” 651–52. 80 81

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support from liberal middle-class Italians, who saw freedom of religion as a key component of a modern state, and from radical anticlericals, who thought that years of Catholic monopoly on education had made Italy corrupt and weak, it also earned them the contempt of Catholic and more conservative Italians. The Contested Issue of Religion in Public Education Italian legislators, even some anticlerical liberals, generally supported religious instruction, believing it necessary for imposing morality and order among the people. These views were most established among the Catholic right. Neapolitan Senator Francesco Correale argued in 1868 that one needed morals to be a good citizen and that the only way to obtain them was through “our religion.”85 Similarly, Senator Paolo Lioy, a noble from Vicenza, claimed in 1872 that religious education was necessary to prevent criminality. He argued, “it is not just the abacus and the math textbooks that will depopulate the prisons, it is the education associated with the school, it is the Gospel and labor.”86 Proponents of religious instruction on the left believed that instilling morality was more important than fighting the dogmatism of the Catholic Church and sought to find a more enlightened means of education that still resulted in a law-abiding and authority-fearing society. Due to these widespread beliefs about the need for some type of moral instruction, religious education was a requirement for primary schools in Liberal Italy. Title V, Article 315 of the Casati Law mandated religious instruction in the lower level of the elementary school and required that all students, with the exception of non-Catholics and the children of parents who specifically requested exemption, take an examination given by the parish each semester.87 The Correnti Circular of September 29, 1870, then made religious instruction optional rather than obligatory. Arguing that it respected “not only the diversity of sects, but the various opinions and authority of parents,” the Ministry of Public Education claimed that parents must be the ones who decide if their children attend religious  Atti parlamentari. Rendiconti del parlamento italiano (1867–1868), June 5, 1868, 868.  Atti parlamentari v.1 (1871–72), March 1, 1872, 920. 87  Julie Kazdan Pak, “Italy’s Primary Teachers: The Feminization of the Italian Teaching Profession, 1859—1911” (Los Angeles, University of California, Los Angeles, 2012), 160, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing (3508947). 85 86

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instruction. The Ministry stated that it “gave discretion to the parents” and will “attribute to the fathers of the family the safeguarding of the liberty of conscience of their own children.”88 This was not an attempt to promote secular morality, but rather an acknowledgment that the state did not have a right to force religious instruction on unwilling participants and reflected classic liberal theories of laissez-faire government, religious tolerance, and individual decision-making. The last major change to religious education came with the Coppino Law on July 15, 1877, which omitted the issue of religious education entirely and required instead that students learn about the rights and duties of a citizen. Even after this law, however, many public institutions still taught catechism and dogma in addition to biblical history and morality lessons.89 Religious instruction was likewise an issue in Britain. Prior to the Education Act of 1870, religious and philanthropic institutions had mainly guided primary education. These groups had clear religious biases and divisions. The major organizations were the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church, which was predominantly Anglican, and the British and Foreign School Society, which was technically nondenominational but largely made up of dissenting members. Edward William Forster and Robert Lowe, leaders behind the Education Act of 1870, had hoped it would resolve religious tensions in schooling by creating a more neutral system. The Act forbade voluntary schools from requiring school children to attend Sunday schools or church services of any particular denomination. It also required that any religious instruction or services would be offered at the beginning or end of the school day, to make exemption easier for those students who wished to abstain.90 Aware of the difficulties posed by religious denominationalism in education in both Britain and Italy, Nathan, Schwabe, and Chambers hoped to find a solution in the promotion of a secular or nondenominational education.

88  Raccolta delle leggi, decreti, circolari emanati dal Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione fra il 1870 ed il 1874 (Torino: Stampa reale di G. B. Paravia, 1877), 182. 89  Pak, “Italy’s Primary Teachers,” 164. 90  David Mitch, “The Elementary Education Act of 1870: Landmark or Transition?,” in School Acts and the Rise of Mass Schooling: Education Policy in the Long Nineteenth Century (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 303–7.

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Secular and Nondenominational Education in the Schools Schwabe, Chambers, and Nathan each took alternate approaches to religious education in their schools. Chambers and the anticlerical Garibaldi had initially contemplated providing a fully secular education and agreed “to not accept priests of any denomination for the instruction of the youth.”91 Garibaldi’s son Menotti Garibaldi also urged Chambers to avoid any religious instruction in their schools. Expressing his adamant belief that religion was harmful, he said that, “for me combatting one religion by substituting another is an erroneous thing,” and explained that he believed that religions were “invented by parasites of humanity.”92 Despite their hopes for a fully secular school, Chambers and Garibaldi ultimately decided to offer a nondenominational Christian education. Advertisements for the schools explained that they would be free “to children of every denomination” and that “instruction will be given from the New Testament by the Ladies’ Committee, except in cases where the parents of the children may be of the Jewish persuasion.”93 This nondenominational vaguely Protestant approach to religious education would have found many supporters among the British middle class. In contrast, in her schools, Schwabe took a strictly secular approach and left religious instruction to the families. In a letter to Garibaldi from March 1865, Schwabe praised Garibaldi for bringing “the freedom of conscience” to Naples before celebrating that “we have succeeded in establishing our system of education without the question of cults, and a school where no priest, neither Catholic nor Protestant, could enter and sow discord.”94 Though she was a Unitarian, she did not want to use her schools to proselytize for Protestantism and refused to affiliate herself or her school with any type of religious agenda or organization. In 1866, Chambers approached Schwabe and offered to send her Bible extracts for distribution in the school in Naples. Schwabe refused this offer, saying that it would be a “breach of confidence” on her part to do so in a school that

91  G. Garibaldi to Mary Chambers, 30 November 1868, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 1, Fasc. 1, S. Fasc. 4, Ins. 14. 92  Menotti Garibaldi to Mary Chambers, 9 December 1868, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 1, Fasc. 2, S. Fasc. 1, Ins. 24. 93  Bazaar Flyer, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 2, Fasc. 22, “Italian schools 1869” (Vol. B). 94  Julia Salis Schwabe to G. Garibaldi, 5 March 1865, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-­ Curatulo, 2393.

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had always proclaimed to be “exclusively secular.”95 In a speech at the International Educational Congress in Brussels in 1880, she further stated her desire for neutrality by claiming, My worthy and able helpmeets in Naples and I try to impress upon our children that the only true liberty is to be free of human passions and worldly prejudices, and to respect the opinions of others as we wish ourselves to be respected, acting on Christ’s great and comprehensive lesson- ‘To do unto others as ye would that men should do unto you.’96

A supporter of secular education, Jessie White Mario wrote positively about Schwabe’s approach in La Miseria in Napoli—her investigation of Neapolitan poverty—and in multiple articles.97 In her school in Rome, Sara Nathan promoted a unique version of religious instruction and taught morality and religion according to Mazzinian principles. Instead of traditional religious instruction, students learned lessons on morality according to the principles laid out by Mazzini in the Duties of Man.98 This substitution of Mazzinianism for Catholic teachings reflects how many of Mazzini’s followers viewed his teachings as a faith and saw Mazzini himself as a somewhat Christlike figure.99 Jessie White Mario called him “the Christ of the century,” while many of the Nathan-­ Rosselli family called him “the New Moses,” or “the great rabbi.”100 Both his male and female followers also saw themselves as apostles or priests of Mazzini’s faith. In a private letter to White Mario, Nathan called Maurizio Quadrio, “the first amongst the Apostles.”101 In his 1901 work, Benedetto Radice referred to Saffi, White Mario, Nathan, and Mazzini’s other female followers as “consecrated deaconesses of the new patriotic religion.”102 95  Julia Salis Schwabe to G. Garibaldi, 20 March 1866, MRM, Fondo Giuseppe Garibaldi-­ Curatulo, 2516. 96  James Montgomery Stuart, Reminiscences and Essays (London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co., 1884), 183–84. 97  Jessie White Mario, La Miseria in Napoli (Naples: Quarto Potere, 1978), 211–12. 98  Modena, “Jewish Women in Non-Jewish Philanthropy in Italy (1870–1938),” 17. 99  Simon Levis Sullam, Giuseppe Mazzini and the Origins of Fascism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 7; Sarti, Mazzini: A Life for the Religion of Politics, 82–83. 100  Capuzzo, Gli Ebrei italiani dal Risorgimento alla scelta sionista, 43; Jessie White Mario, Della Vita di Giuseppe Mazzini (Milan: Edoardo Sonzogno Editore, 1886), 372. 101  Sara Nathan to Jessie White Mario, 28 March 1872, MCRR, b.430, N.22(2). 102  Benedetto Radice, Gl’inglesi nel Risorgimento Italiano: Discorsi Due (Livorno: Tip. di Raffaello Giusti, 1901), 21.

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Even into the twentieth-century, therefore, authors and scholars recognized the religious aspect of Mazzini’s ideals and mission. These Mazzinians saw syncretism between their political and religious faith and viewed their beliefs and practices as an alternative to a more institutionalized church. In a more public letter written after Quadrio’s death, which was published in both L’Emancipazione and La Donna, Nathan claimed that with his death “humanity loses in him one of his most ardent apostles,” and expressed a belief in the afterlife, claiming, “the pure and fervent soul of Maurizio Quadrio, having accomplished his mission on this earth, is ascendant on the path to eternal Truth.”103 In her obituary of Nathan, meanwhile, White Mario explicitly stated that her friend and colleague had “firmly believed, peacefully, unswervingly in the immortality of the soul, and believed she would be united in the next life with those loved and lost in this life.” White Mario acknowledged that readers may have been confused by Nathan’s faith, which did not limit itself to common religious forms, saying, But one must bear in mind, that this belief and this hope in no way resembled that taught by the priests of every religion, the belief that generates selfishness, that pushes the individual only to the care of his own soul and makes him neglect the well-being of others, making this land a true valley of tears.104

White Mario thus showed how Mazzinianism was a true faith, providing spiritual guidance and comfort to its adherents like any other religion, and claimed that it was not simply a patriotically infused Christianity but a pure and distinct faith of its own. The Trastevere school’s religious curriculum reflected this Mazzinian faith and its principles and included lessons on one’s duty toward God, humanity, country, family, and oneself.105 Reporting on the instruction in Mazzinian duties witnessed during a visit to the school, an article in La Donna claimed, “it was not catechism, no, what we heard those dear and sweet little voices repeat; it was the application in practical, real, everyday life, of duty; how to do it, and why.”106 Careful to avoid materialism as well  “Un madre,” La Donna, a.8, n.274–75 25 (February/March 1876) 2485–88.  White Mario, “Sara Nathan,” 2. 105  “A Free Girls’ School in Rome,” Englishwoman’s Review of Social and Industrial Questions CXXV (September 15, 1883): 429–31. 106  “Alla Scuola Mazzini.” 103 104

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as sectarian conflict, Nathan was proud that her schools provided children with a “true civil education, as independent of Catholic or Pietistic prejudices as of the unpleasant affectations of bigoted and intolerant atheism.”107 Her approach was again in line with Mazzini’s faith, which eschewed atheism as much as it did Catholicism. The non-Catholic status of the schools was also important to Nathan’s family. In November 1898, Ernesto Nathan, Sara Nathan’s son and then leader of the Freemasons in Italy, even wrote a letter to his brother David, explaining that their sister Adah had become unfit for leading the Mazzini school after marrying a marquis and becoming a Catholic.108 Religious Education in the Culture Wars These programs for secular and nondenominational education were not just individual choices but reflections of the women’s stance in the ongoing culture wars. By choosing this type of education, they appealed to liberal elites interested in promoting a secular state as well as anti-Catholic British Protestants, but risked earning the ire of Catholic Italians and had to carefully balance between the different groups. Nathan, Chambers, and Schwabe shared a desire to provide specifically non-Catholic education that reflected not only the anti-Catholicism of the left-wing of the Risorgimento, but also British Protestantism. Chambers and Schwabe cultivated many of their supporters and fundraised from among the British middle-class by appealing to British anti-Catholicism. Middle-class British reformers also approved of Nathan’s school. In 1883, The Englishwoman’s Review published an article supporting her stance against Catholicism and described how she was trying to instill Mazzinian principles of duty into those Roman girls, “whose parents were not completely under the thralldom of priestly superstition.” The article added that Nathan was fighting against corruption, parental scruples, and “the superstition and the coarse engrained greed of the priests.”109 Despite their schools’ lack of official religious affiliation, therefore, Nathan,  “Cronaca Femminile: Italia.”  Ernesto Nathan to David Nathan, 22 November 1898, in “L’educazione popolare di orientamento Mazziniano a Roma: La Famiglia Nathan e la scuola ‘Giuseppe Mazzini’ in Trastevere,” in L’associazionismo Mazziniano. Incontro Di Studio (Roma: Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano, 1979), 119–67. 109  “A Free Girls’ School in Rome.” 107 108

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Schwabe, and Chambers were accepted as part of a larger movement by British women to impose Protestant education in Italy. Affiliation with British Protestantism often angered local Catholics, however, so these women and their supporters needed to carefully frame their projects and the reasoning behind them. An article in Victoria Magazine explained that it was announcing the nondenominational character of Chambers’ schools in anticipation of Catholic opposition. It claimed, it must be clearly understood that there is no covert idea of proselytism in connection with their desire. This explanation we are most anxious to give in anticipation of the blind and bigoted opposition which ever attends the efforts of reform. The programme of Mrs. Chambers’ Committee has nothing in common with those isolated sectarian establishments in existence in the Peninsula.110

While the women had anti-Catholic supporters and privately expressed a distrust and distaste for the Catholic clergy and Catholic education, they were unable to publicly espouse those views or overly affiliate themselves with the side of the Protestants in the ongoing culture war. Moreover, their schools were also genuinely not covert attempts at proselytism formally affiliated with any Protestant church. Catholics led a fierce resistance to the project of non-Catholic education. Opposed to the Risorgimento and the Italian state’s attempt to gain control of education, the Catholic Church argued that by instituting compulsory secular education, the Italian government was corrupting the people. It further argued that mass literacy would spread anarchist and socialist ideals.111 Due in part to this opposition, Nathan originally had only seven students in her school. According to Nathan’s children, local Roman priests “saw eternal damnation in this teaching and therefore refused Easter and communion to the girls who confessed that they attended this School.” Even more sinisterly, they claimed, the priests would tell the parents of naturally pale children who attended the school that the children’s pallor was a sign that the school was deleterious to the students’ health. The frightened parents would then pull their children

 “Italian Industrial Schools,” Victoria Magazine, October 1868, Vol. 11, 483.  Pak, “Italy’s Primary Teachers,” 161.

110 111

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out.112 Revealing her preparation for this resistance, Nathan wrote to Jessie White Mario soon after opening the school, explaining that “the difficulties are many and we do not illude ourselves with the idea of succeeding.”113 The Catholic Church also opposed the kindergarten system that Schwabe utilized in her schools in Naples, believing that Froebel based his teachings on atheism or was secretly a Protestant.114 Schwabe also received criticism because of her resolutely secular agenda, and the Catholic clergy convinced local political authorities to reduce the municipal financial support allotted to her institutions.115 This clerical opposition occasionally made it more difficult for Schwabe to fundraise. In 1874, The Piccolo reported that Schwabe was having some difficulty finding financial supporters for her school due to tension with religious authorities, saying that one woman was reluctant to give too much money at risk of displeasing the Cardinal.116 While some Catholics opposed her project, Schwabe’s secular aims required her to remain open to working with them and to show no preference for any single religious denomination. Revealing an outward respect for Catholicism, she even had a priest come into her school to teach the catechism to her Catholic students in 1874.117 Her balanced approach drew praise. The Progresso Educativo wrote in 1872 that Schwabe was “one of the few women who aspired to do good, not to remove a soul from the Papal paradise and give it to a Protestant paradise, but for a purely moral principle, free from the fixations of one or another faith.”118 In July of 1888, moreover, Time reported that Professor Angiulli and Adele von Portugall gave lectures at Schwabe’s Froebel institute, which were attended by “more than fifty ladies willing to teach on this system.” The article specified that this number included “nine or ten nuns, a fact hitherto unparalleled in Italy.”119 Schwabe’s attempts to work with 112  Adah Nathan Castiglioni and Ernesto Nathan to Jessie White Mario, MCRR, Busta 405, N.6. 113  Sara Nathan to Jessie White Mario, 25 March 1873, MCRR, Busta 430, N.22(4). 114  Albisetti, “Froebel Crosses the Alps,” 167–69. 115  Modena, “Jewish Women in Non-Jewish Philanthropy in Italy (1870–1938),” 14. 116  “Varietà,” La Donna, July 10, 1874, a. 7, n. 235. 117  “Varietà.” 118  “Di Nuovo istituto di educazione popolare in Napoli.” 119  “Time’s Footsteps for the Month,” Time: A Monthly Magazine of Current Topics, Literature, and Art, July 1888, Vol. VIII.

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Catholics reveal her deep-seated commitment to transdenominational cooperation and a willingness to work with local Italians rather than forcing them to adopt Protestant British tendencies. Like Chambers and Nathan, however, she prioritized secular and nondenominational education. Through their separate projects, these women all contributed to realizing the Risorgimento vision of a system of non-Catholic education in Italy.

Continuing the Dream of the Risorgimento As previously demonstrated, by providing high-quality primary education that included practical job skills and nondenominational or secular education, Nathan, Chambers, and Schwabe attempted to carry on the dreams of the Risorgimento. Though the rhetoric surrounding these educational programs could take on elitist and orientalist tones, middle-class Italian liberals shared the women’s concerns about Italian poverty and supported their institutions. Much of the rhetoric of the Risorgimento had, in fact, stressed how political oppression had stunted the development of the Italian people. After unification, the Italian government focused on education as a way to correct the deficiencies caused by years of oppression and was quite willing to work alongside these women to achieve their goals. Moreover, Schwabe and Chambers supported similar measures within Britain, suggesting that their rhetoric reflected a transnational middle-­ class civilizing mission toward working-class and Catholic populations rather than a specifically imperial project in Italy. Orientalism and British Prejudice Recognizing the sometimes elitist and civilizing language of the British women who established schools in southern Italy, some historians have argued that their schools were orientalist and part of a British colonial effort. Based on her reading of a series of articles in the Englishwoman’s Review that discussed Schwabe’s school project, historian Maura O’Connor has argued that the British women saw themselves “as nation builders” in southern Italy.120 British press coverage of Chambers’ school can likewise be read to align with O’Connor’s findings. In August 1868, The Standard published an article announcing the creation of Chambers’ schools. The  O’Connor, “Civilizing Southern Italy,” 258.

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paper claimed that the Italian people had played a “singularly small part” in politics and placed partial blame for the Italians’ apolitical nature on Italy’s lack of education. Noting that more than 17 million Italians could not read or write, it claimed that “Italy is the most ignorant country of Europe, Spain not excepted,” and that the “masses remain in a state of utter intellectual degradation.” Reflecting their belief in Chambers’ project, the article argued that the schools would help Italy remove “its weight of ignorance, helplessness, and mendicancy.”121 These patronizing sentiments provide strong evidence of an elitist civilizing mission at work. Narratives coming from Schwabe’s organization similarly reveal orientalist sentiments and criticism of the Italians. In an essay written under Schwabe’s guidance, Adele von Portugall described the Neapolitans as “a demoralised people sunk in ignorance and superstition; a people where disorder, uncleanliness, and improvident negligence join hands in a fatal contract against well-being and regulated family life.” She added that many Neapolitans were homeless or beggars. Echoing a classic orientalist trope, Portugall then wrote about the natural beauty of Naples, remarking “truly a blessed land this Naples. Nature, with a prodigal hand, has strewn her richest treasures around, yet, in the midst of our enjoyment of all these beauties, there mingles a feeling of sadness.”122 In another essay, Portugall expressed the Anglo-Saxon belief in Italian laziness, writing, “instead of intellectual life, one saw a dead routine everywhere in which my pupils, with the innate Italian indolence, participated.”123 Portugall’s characterization of Naples as its people as somehow full of natural potential yet decayed through ignorance and superstition certainly conforms to many orientalist stereotypes. Her condemnatory language, however, echoed the earlier language of the Risorgimento. She wrote that the poor state of the Neapolitan people was a result of their bad political system and clerical oppression, claiming, Slavery can only produce slaves; obstruction and restraint, deceit and lying. An ever-changing foreign rule, constant servitude and oppression, and in the last century, with few interruptions, systematic stupefaction and submission under an abject priesthood- what people could fail to lose its self-­ reliance and energy and to die an intellectual death?

 “Multiple News Items,” The Standard, August 15, 1868, Issue 13738.  Portugall, “Work and Workers,” 513. 123  Portugall, “Forty Years a Kindergartener: Reminiscence. Part II,” 345. 121 122

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She then specifically praised the Risorgimento patriots, who “raised their voices fearlessly, risking freedom, life, and personal happiness, to secure the rights of their oppressed and enslaved brethren.”124 Her negative characterization of the Italian people was thus a reflection of how deeply she, and presumably Schwabe, had internalized the rhetoric of the Risorgimento. Affiliation with Italian Patriots and the Italian State While Nathan’s school in Trastevere was clearly a continuation of her work with Mazzini, Chambers’ and Schwabe’s schools also formed part of their ongoing investment in Italian state-building and had support from both Italian patriots and the Italian state. Chambers’ work in Sardinian schools evolved directly out of her partnership with Garibaldi and relied on the strength of his popularity to gain supporters. In March 1869, for instance, admiration for Garibaldi inspired a volunteer committee to construct tables, chairs, and blackboards for the school Garibaldi and Chambers had opened in Ozieri.125 The secretary of this committee, Giuseppe Antonio Parés, taught French and English at the school. He gave a speech on April 26, 1869, expressing his gratitude that Chambers had selected him for his position, his honor at being associated with Garibaldi, and his fervent desire to work for them to the best of his ability. Later in the speech, Parés also mentioned his support for Garibaldi retaking Rome as the capital of Italy.126 The connections between radical politics, anti-Catholicism, and education, therefore, were important for Chambers’ work. Schwabe’s activity in Naples also came directly out of her involvement in the Risorgimento and was done in collaboration with Italian women from its early stages. In 1861, Garibaldi made a speech to Italian women, asking them to help elevate the country. This led to the founding of the Italian Ladies’ National Philanthropic Association in Turin later that year. When the Association issued its manifesto in November 1861, its stated goal was to work toward opening schools in Naples, and it asked women across Italy to become involved. Evincing a patronizing maternalism, the women of the association wanted to guide, uplift, and educate the poor of  Portugall, “Work and Workers,” 514.  Pres. Giuseppe Baroli and Sec. Giuseppe Antonio Parés, March 30, 1869, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 2, Fasc. 22, “1867 e 1868” (Vol. D). 126  Copy of speech by Giuseppe Antonio Parés, April 26, 1869 (Ozieri), ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 2, Fasc. 22, “1867 e 1868” (Vol. D). 124 125

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Italy, particularly those in the south. They claimed that their goal was to improve the conditions of the poor so that Italy could become as civilized as other European nations.127 In letter from June 1861, however, Garibaldi suggested the association was actually Schwabe’s idea. He wrote, “an English Mrs. Schwabe proposed to me to ask the Italian women to form associations to improve the condition of the people, mostly in Naples and Palermo.” He added that he had written to the Marchesa Anna Pallavicino Trivulzio and she had accepted the position of leader of such a committee.128According to Portugall, in July of 1861, the marchesa wrote to Schwabe asking for her participation in their endeavors, saying, Our will is strong but our hands are feeble; and therefore we appeal to you, who are so well acquainted with the destitute condition of the lower classes of Naples, as well as with the philanthropic intentions of Garibaldi, and our own objects, trusting that you kindly will be the interpreter of our intentions to our English sisters.129

While she was a foreigner in Italy, Schwabe had been invited in by Italians and worked alongside them in their patriotic mission. Feminist supporters of the Risorgimento also approved of Schwabe’s project. Erminia Fuà Fusinato, Risorgimento patriot, poet, and supporter of education, called Schwabe a “holy woman” and “an apostle of charity.”130 Through Aurelia Cimino Folliero De Luna, founder of the feminist paper Cornelia, Schwabe also received support from Giuseppe Ricciardi. A Neapolitan Mazzinian anticlerical pedagogue and feminist, Ricciardi spent most of the years prior to unification in exile after joining Young Italy in 1834. He was later elected to the Italian parliament and supported the Historic Left. De Luna was friends with Ricciardi and in December 1871 asked him to support Schwabe’s institute in Naples.131 In 1877, he then  praised Schwabe’s school in Cornelia for its work in 127  Programma dell’Associazione nazionale filantropica delle donne italiane, November 1, 1861, Turin, MCRR, Busta 321, N. 10(3). 128  Giuseppe Garibaldi to Maria Stuarda Bereguardi, Letter 2093, 15  June 1861, in Giuseppe Garibaldi, Epistolario Di Giuseppe Garibaldi, ed. Sergio La Salvia, Vol. VI (Roma: Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano, 1983), 123. 129  Portugall, “Work and Workers,” 516. 130  P.G.  Molmenti, Erminia Fuà-Fusinato e i suoi ricordi (Milano: Fratelli Treves, 1877), 122. 131  Angela Russo, “‘Vostra obbligata amica’: Giuseppe Ricciardi e le amiche emancipazioniste (1860–1880),” in Politica e amicizia, 52.

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a­lleviating the poverty and ignorance among the people of Naples.132 Schwabe responded to Ricciardi’s article with her own published account, thanking him for his plea and the Italian government for the aid they had provided.133 The linkages between Schwabe’s school and the Risorgimento are further evident through one of her headmasters, Giuseppe Quarati. As a young man, Quarati fought in the campaign of the Mille and later joined the Italian military but deserted when commanded to attack Garibaldi’s troops at Aspromonte in 1862. After his desertion, Quarati went into exile in Britain, where he met Schwabe, who, after unsuccessfully trying to get him a pardon, sent him to train as a teacher at the Peckham Birbeck Schools. In 1866, she then helped arrange Quarati’s reenlistment in the Italian army so he could fight against the Austrians. After another four years in the army, however, he returned to his pedagogical studies and work with Schwabe.134 Quarati’s participation in Schwabe’s schools suggests that the patriot and military veteran also saw her efforts as part of the larger campaign to regenerate Italy. Both Schwabe and Chambers also received support from the Italian government. In 1868, The Standard reported that Chambers’ school would operate “with the full consent and co-operation of the Government,” and would be opened by a member of King Victor Emmanuel’s cabinet. The article stressed that the schools were not a partisan project of Garibaldi’s but one with a wide base of support, claiming that, “although General Garibaldi approves warmly of the scheme, it is one of national and not of factious significance.”135 The city council of Ozieri also expressed its thanks to Chambers in a letter from April 20, 1869. Emphasizing her foreign status, the letter noted that she had “passed over immense seas” and had “not feared the inconveniences of land and of sea to bring yourself to a country altogether unknown.”136 In 1888, the Minister of Public Education paid formal homage to Schwabe with a medal of honor as a thanks for her help with education, while jurist Augusto Pierantoni praised

 Ricciardi, “Un prezioso istituto in pericolo.”  “Alla Direttrice della rivista Cornelia,” Cornelia, June 16, 1877, a. 5, n.14. 134  Blyth, Life of William Ellis, Founder of the Birkbeck Schools, With Some Account of His Writings, and of His Labours for the Improvement and Extension of Education, 250–53. 135  “Multiple News Items,” August 15, 1868. 136  To Mary Chambers, 20 April 1869, ACS, Fondo Chambers, Busta 2, Fasc. 22, “1867 e 1868” (Vol. D). 132 133

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her in the Italian senate, calling her “a true heroine of charity.”137 These accolades reveal that Chambers and Schwabe’s educational projects, despite their elitist overtones, were not viewed as objectionable by the Italian government and were, in fact, in line with its own mission. Education as Uplift in Britain Schwabe and Chambers also created similar schools in Britain suggesting that their motivation was based on class and a belief in educating the poor, regardless of nationality. During her marriage, Julia Salis Schwabe and her husband Salis Schwabe were active in educational philanthropy in Britain and operated a school out of their factory in Manchester that was considered quite exemplary for the time.138 Salis Schwabe was also a founding member of the Manchester Society for Promoting National Education and on the directory committee of the Manchester School of Design.139 Later in life, Schwabe brought her kindergarten work to Britain and created the Froebel College in London in 1892.140 She thus believed that the Froebel system would benefit both British and Italian children. Chambers was similarly active with industrial schools in Britain. She contributed to an industrial school that opened in Bayswater, a neighborhood in London, on March 1, 1869. The Bayswater school had sixty pupils and provided two meals a day for the children at a moderate cost. The children’s day was divided into three portions: three hours for reading, writing, and arithmetic; three hours of exercise and labor, including washing, sewing, ironing, mangling, tailoring, shoemaking, and printing; and three hours of cooking, cleaning, and domestic economy. There was a desire to make the school self-supporting through the work of the students; toward that goal they had a printing press which allowed them to both create circulars for the school and give the boys productive work.141 The school served poor street children and taught them reading, writing, and arithmetic, but also washing, ironing, and sewing. Though religious instruction was provided, it was open to children of all denominations.

 “Notizie,” La Rassegna femminile, March 1888, a. 2, n.3.  Albisetti, “Education for Poor Neapolitan Children,” 641. 139  Le Rider, Malwida von Meysenbug, 137. 140  Le Rider, 414. 141  “The Industrial Schools in Italy.” 137 138

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Chambers was known for her interesting approach to discipline in her British school. In 1883, the Birmingham Daily Post reported that at the famous Garibaldi School she had established in the Moscow Road, the door was always left wide open, for the optional, not compulsive, attendance of the waifs and strays, with whom that quarter abounds. They were free to come, and what she judged as better still, were free to go, as they chose.

Her only rule was that the children remain quiet during their lessons: if they needed to talk, they could go outside. Though older children rarely returned, the younger ones did. Their return was apparently because they were the ones “to whom the love of learning, and may be also the certainty of a good dinner, formed a more powerful attraction than the savage love of freedom from restraint, grown irrepressible in their elders.” The article added that the school eventually closed due to a lack of interest, claiming that “even the temptation of rice and boiled mutton will not always compensate your real street Arab for the loss of liberty.”142 The condescending language of the article reveals how middle-class Britons also saw their efforts among the British poor as a civilizing mission and gives important context for their educational projects in Italy.

Conclusion This chapter has shown how Sara Nathan, Mary Chambers, and Julia Salis Schwabe worked as non-state agents in private educational institutions to claim a space for themselves as political actors, promote the advancement of women, and continue their work in shaping the development of Italy. Though all three women were to some extent foreigners importing new teaching methods with the stated intent of providing uplift to the Italian people, their work was not explicitly colonial. They worked alongside and with the approval of middle-class Italians who shared their fear of working-­ class insurgency and believed that producing a more orderly and industrious working class was part of the Risorgimento’s project of remaking Italy. Their efforts challenging the power of the Church by promoting secular or transdenominational education were likewise done in cooperation with many Italians of the center-left and left. Sara Nathan was particularly unique in this endeavor by promoting Mazzini’s ideals as a form of  “London Gossip,” Birmingham Daily Post, May 11, 1883, Issue 7755.

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religious instruction. Throughout, these female reformers demonstrated how individual women could leverage their class-status and wealth to overcome gender-based oppression. Though they could not vote to change national educational policy, they could shape it in their individual schools and use the example of those schools to argue for a wider adoption of their methods.

CHAPTER 6

The Personal is Political: Companionate Marriage, Republican Motherhood, and the Campaign Against State-Regulated Prostitution Rather than rejecting marriage, motherhood, and familial life, the British-­ Italian women who supported the Italian Risorgimento embraced the private sphere as an arena for change. Finding emancipation and agency through their roles as wives and mothers, they sought to reform rather than eliminate the practices that were so often used to confine and oppress women. Like other feminists of their time, they chose husbands who supported their political and philanthropic endeavors and found purpose and pride in their roles as mothers by imparting egalitarian and republican values to the next generation. Moreover, they believed their moral status as mothers gave them a right to challenge medical authorities and politicians and argue against practices like state-regulated prostitution. This chapter centers on the idea that the personal was political for Victorian feminists and shows how these British-Italian reformers made choices in their private lives that reflected their political philosophies. The first section of this chapter provides greater background on nineteenth-­ century marriage and motherhood before discussing how these activists and philanthropists forged marriages based on shared values and a true sense of intellectual partnership dedicated to a larger purpose. The second section looks more closely at their roles as mothers, focusing in particular on how Giorgina Saffi, Julia Salis Schwabe, and Sara Nathan radicalized © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Moore, Revolutionary Domesticity in the Italian Risorgimento, Italian and Italian American Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75545-4_6

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contemporary republican motherhood discourse. The final section then examines how Saffi and Nathan used their platform as mothers and the language of chastity to speak out in the public sphere against state-­ regulated prostitution and challenge the authority of male medical and legal authorities. I note how they, along with Jessie White Mario, also participated in the burgeoning international feminist movement as part of this campaign.

Radically Companionate Marriages These British-Italian reforming women built on the increasingly popular discourse of companionate marriage to form true partnerships with their spouses based on love, respect, an assumption of equality, and an interest in pursuing shared political and social goals. Within these marriages, wives had a strong sense of political and intellectual autonomy that was atypical for the time and that stood in stark contrast to the legalized inequalities of marriage. Entering into Marriage In the nineteenth century, marriage in both Italy and Britain was legally based upon hierarchy. The 1865 Pisanelli Code, the first civil code of the Italian state, subordinated women to men in their marriages, requiring them to adopt their husband’s name and citizenship and to live where he demanded. Though married women could own, inherit, or bequeath property, the law required their husband’s consent to take any step regarding its management.1 British women faced similar restrictions; it was only with the passage of the Married Women’s Property Acts in 1870 and 1882, that British women could control their own earnings and property respectively.2 Despite the legal inequalities of marriage, marital ideals across western Europe increasingly focused on love, equality, and companionship. According to historian Sharon Marcus, most historians of kinship agree that the ideal of marriage as a union of soulmates had become the norm

1  Anna Maria Isastia, “La Questione femminile nelle discussioni parlamentari postunitarie: Il Codice Civile del 1865,” Dimensioni e problemi della ricerca storica 2 (1991): 167–84. 2  Hammerton, Cruelty and Companionship, 30.

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by 1830 across all classes of English society.3 Likewise, throughout the nineteenth century in Italy, a bourgeois emphasis on the nuclear family slowly supplanted an older familial model that prioritized relations with the extended family. This shift was accompanied by a reduction in the age gap between husband and wife as well as a decrease in the hierarchical nature of the husband-wife relationship in favor of a companionate ideal. Parents likewise assumed a less authoritative attitude toward their children and allowed them a greater say in the selection of a spouse. However, even in this new model, the legal primacy of the husband as the head of the household was not challenged and was considered essential to the proper functioning of individual families and, by extension, the state.4 Italian patriots grouped companionate marriage alongside other new practices and behaviors of a rejuvenated and unified nation in contrast to what they saw as the dissolute and libertine morals of the ancien régime.5 More radical participants in the Risorgimento, including Elena Casati and Achille Sacchi, Enrichetta di Lorenzo and Carlo Pisacane, Jessie White and Alberto Mario, and Giorgina Craufurd and Aurelio Saffi, formed romantic and marital pairings that challenged traditional familial expectations and were based on shared political and civic values.6 Many Mazzinian women in both Britain and Italy found their husbands through their shared commitment to Mazzini’s ideals. It is important to note that these women were already Mazzinian disciples when they met their husbands. Their husbands did not bring them to Mazzini; Mazzini brought them to their husbands. 3  Sharon Marcus, Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 6. 4  Bruno Wanrooij, “Italy: Sexuality, Morality and Public Authority,” in Sexual Cultures in Europe, ed. Franz X Eder, Lesley Hall, and Gert Hekma (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), 117; Mark Seymour, Emotional Arenas: Life, Love, and Death in 1870s Italy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 49. 5  Patriarca, Italian Vices; Lucy Riall, “The Sex Lives of Italian Patriots,” in Italian Sexualities Uncovered, 1789 – 1914, by Valeria P. Babini, Chiara Beccalossi, and Lucy Riall (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 39–40. 6  Schwegman, “In Love with Garibaldi: Romancing the Italian Risorgimento”; Fulvio Conti, “Amicizia, amore e politica: Relazioni affettive e battaglie ideali nel secondo Ottocento,” in Politica e amicizia; Guidi, “Nobili o Maledette?”; Ros Pesman, “The Marriage of Giorgina Craufurd and Aurelio Saffi: Mazzinian Nationalism and the Italian Home,” in Intimacy and Italian Migration: Gender and Domestic Lives in a Mobile World, ed. Loretta Baldassar and Donna R. Gabaccia (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011), 25–36; Fabbri and Zani, Anita e Le Altre.

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Not all of these marriages, however, were truly radical at their outset. An examination of the age at marriage and the age gap between spouses of the women in this study reveals a clear divide between those who followed the more traditional or more feminist patterns. Schwabe’s and Nathan’s marriages illustrate the more traditional pattern of marriage at a young age to a much older man. Julia Salis Schwabe and Sara Nathan were both born to Jewish families in 1819 and married in their late teens to men roughly twenty years older than they were.7 Both women also married men known to their family circles, with Nathan marrying a trusted business associate and Schwabe her cousin. Giorgina Saffi, Jessie White Mario, and Mary Chambers display a different pattern of marriage at a later age that was more typical of feminists of the period.8 All three women were born in Britain, between four and thirteen years after Schwabe and Nathan, and were older when they were married. White Mario was twenty-five, while Saffi and Chambers were both nearly thirty. The age gap between husbands and wives was also smaller. Alberto Mario was only roughly seven years older than his wife, and Aurelio Saffi was approximately eight years older than Giorgina Craufurd.9 Violating the conventions of the time, Mary Chambers was actually four to five years older than her husband John Chambers. Their actions thus more closely conform to the model of Victorian feminism, in which one married at a later age for love and shared ideals rather than convenience, stability, or societal pressure. They also suggest that these select British families accepted their daughters’ radicalism and did not pressure them to marry at a certain age or to a specific type of person. Giorgina Saffi and Jessie White Mario’s courtships and marriages most clearly illustrate the trend among Victorian feminists to choose a spouse 7  Sara Nathan was born on December 7, 1819, and married on May 29, 1836, to Moses Meyer Nathan, who was born on April 22, 1799. Julia Salis Schwabe was born on January 31, 1819, and married on October 14, 1837, to Salis Schwabe, who was born on February 20, 1800. 8  In her study of Victorian feminists in England, historian Philippa Levine found that many married at older ages, with 58 percent of the studied women marrying after age 23. Levine, Feminist Lives in Victorian England, 43. 9  Jessie White Mario was born on May 9, 1832, and married in December 1857, to Alberto Mario, who was born on June 4, 1825. Giorgina Craufurd was born October 11, 1827, and married on June 30, 1857, to Aurelio Saffi who was born on August 13, 1819. While Mary Chambers’ exact birthdate is unclear, as her parents were married in April 1822 and her mother died in August 1823, she was likely born between January and August 1823. Born in 1827, John Chambers was roughly twenty-four or twenty-five at the time of his marriage.

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based upon shared ideals and common affection as both women found their husbands through their political work and affiliation with Mazzini.10 After meeting Aurelio Saffi through her connections to political radicals in London, Giorgina Craufurd fell in love with the former triumvir of the Roman Republic. Though she later developed a reputation as a reserved woman, Giorgina Saffi was rebellious in her youth to the point that her sister, Kate Craufurd, had doubts when hearing of the marriage. According to Ros Pesman, Kate Craufurd, doubted whether the amiable scholar [Saffi] filled with ‘noble principles and sentiments’ and ‘lovingness of character’ was the ‘strong and severe man’ who would eventually win over Giorgina, a strong-minded young woman, a ‘anima ribella’ who had displayed from childhood ‘a mania for independence.’11

Giorgina Crafurd’s father, Sir John Craufurd, was also hesitant about the marriage and initially withheld his consent. In contrast to Kate, who worried that Aurelio Saffi was too staid, John Craufurd was reluctant to support a marriage between his beloved daughter and a penniless radical exile. When the two were forbidden to see each other, they stayed connected by reading the same passages of the Divine Comedy at a designated time each day.12 John Craufurd’s scruples kept the couple apart from 1854 until 1856, when they were reunited and began planning for their 1857 wedding.13 Giorgina Saffi later viewed this period of struggle before her marriage as a special time of sacrifice. When her son asked to see copies of his parents’ letters a year after Aurelio Saffi’s death, she even struggled to hand them over. Asking her son to treat the letters seriously, she said they were, “for me today more than ever a sacred religious recording,” and asked that he read them “with religious reverence.”14 This concern reveals the importance she placed upon the letters and on her courtship, not just personally, but for her family, her nation, and humanity.

10  Levine, Feminist Lives in Victorian England, 47. In this way, they were unlike their later Edwardian counterparts, who tended to reject traditional heteronormative marriage. 11  Pesman, “The Marriage of Giorgina Craufurd and Aurelio Saffi,” 30. 12  Fabbri and Zani, Anita e le altre, 123. 13  Pesman, “The Marriage of Giorgina Craufurd and Aurelio Saffi,” 31. 14  Giorgina Saffi to Livio Quadrento, 1 March 1891, MCRR, Busta 1170, N.5.

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Jessie White and Alberto Mario also came together through shared political commitment, meeting in Genoa in 1857 as the two participated in planning the Pisacane conspiracy. As discussed in Chap. 2, they began their courtship by visiting local sites of patriotic history and debating Italian poetry during breaks from their covert efforts. The pair developed their relationship further after their arrests, writing letters to each other from prison and establishing an analytical and humorous rapport. In his letters, Alberto Mario flirtatiously wrote about the genius of Italians like Dante, Petrarch, and Ugo Foscolo, and asserted that Italian genius was superior to its English counterpart. He claimed, English genius (at this moment, O daughter of Albion, I bet a gleam of light flashes from your sea-colored eyes), English genius is exclusively objective, exclusively analytical, and therefore profound but not vast: as reason and sensation prevails over sentiment and fantasy, so it is unsuitable for synthetic comprehension and formulating an ideal principle.

He continued his criticism of the English by decrying their excessive individualism. A later letter from him indicates her good-natured reception and critique of his theories. Mario wrote, “proud islander, if you recall, I had hinted at speaking of the English, but your second letter tells me that you would have rebelled had we had done so.”15 The prospect of a heated debate seemed to please rather than upset Mario. The pair married in Britain in December 1857 after White’s release the previous month. Like Sir John Craufurd, White’s father was also apprehensive upon meeting the young Italian radical who was to marry his daughter, but she later claimed that, “not a day had passed before the cheerful blond became the favorite son.” In the same account, White Mario proudly described her civil ceremony, the first in the family, which reflected the couple’s shared anticlericalism and belief in the separation of church and state.16 An anecdote in Alberto Mario’s The Red Shirt displays how humor also formed a part of their marriage and how they projected it to the world. After Mario loudly complained about a lack of food in a house where they were staying during the campaign of 1860–61 and demanded that they be served dinner immediately, White Mario teasingly  White Mario, “Della vita di Alberto Mario,” lxiv–lxv.  White Mario, lxxiii.

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told him, “you take kindly to dictatorial airs.” He then lit a cigar and fell asleep waiting for dinner. Later waking him up with another joke, White Mario said, “Signor dittatore [dictator], the supper is ready…You would have set fire to your kingdom, Nero-like, if I had not taken away your cigar.”17 As this is Alberto Mario’s account, it shows that he was pleased to joke with White Mario and did not feel she owed him any respectful deference. The marriages between the thirty-six-year-old Meyer Nathan and sixteen-­ year-old Sara Levi and between the thirty-seven-year-old Salis Schwabe and eighteen-year-old Julia Schwabe were less likely based on shared political ideals and more on a general belief in compatibility as a result of their similar backgrounds. Both partnerships, however, appear to have grown into love marriages and were presented as such. The Nathan children, for instance, retold their parents’ history as a love story. A biography compiled by their daughter Janet Nathan said that Meyer Nathan fell in love with young Sara Levi upon first sight, claiming, “and as soon as he saw Sarina he fell in love (she was beautiful) and within a week made her his wife, recognizing in her all of the most sublime qualities of a superior soul.”18 The story of their marriage was thus self-consciously presented as one of love and companionship. Those who knew the Schwabes likewise claimed their marriage was based on love and affection. In an 1848 letter, Schwabe’s friend and British novelist Geraldine Jewsbury wrote about this love, claiming, “if you knew her, and saw what a good, kind-natured, hearty, handsome creature she is, you would feel, as I do and her husband does, that you could refuse her nothing.”19 Jewsbury also wrote about a surprise birthday concert Schwabe held at her home for her husband. Though she thought it a poor idea, she believed that Salis Schwabe would accept the gesture out of love for his wife, writing, “fancy the poor man going innocently into his drawing-room, and finding it full of people, all come to do him honour, and themselves pleasure! And he will take it as it is meant, and be as pleased as she can wish.”20 Jewsbury’s letter suggests a level of happiness, love, and  Alberto Mario, The Red Shirt. Episodes (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1865), 194–96.  Biography of Sara Nathan, MCRR, b.431, N.42. 19  Geraldine Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle, Letter 68, 4 October 1848, in Annie Ireland, Selections from the Letters of Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1892), 259. 20  Geraldine Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle, Letter 75, 19 February 1849, in Ireland, 283. 17

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affection within the Schwabe marriage. Following a feminist model, therefore, these women all developed marriages based on love, respect, and shared goals. Marital Partnerships Toward Shared Political Goals Despite their disparate reasons for choosing to marry, all of these marriages grew into supportive partnerships. Julia Salis Schwabe and her husband together supported charity and education in Manchester, while Meyer Nathan worked with Sara Nathan in her Mazzinian campaign and financially supported the Italian radicals. John and Mary Chambers also collaborated frequently, whether raising money to buy a yacht for Garibaldi, creating schools in Sardinia, or traveling to Italy to contribute to the battles for independence. Moreover, Chambers’ obituary claims that she heavily contributed to her husband’s book Garibaldi and Italian Unity, and deserved to be named as the primary author.21 Within Mazzinian circles, in particular, marriage was a partnership between equals devoted to a common goal. Aurelio and Giorgina Saffi believed themselves to be a unit, sharing the same goals and dreams. Their desire for emotional, intellectual, and spiritual closeness is apparent in an October 1874 letter from Aurelio to Giorgina during his imprisonment in which he described their strong connection. He wrote that now, as in the early days of their courtship, “a sacred harmony ties together our thoughts, our aspirations, our destinies.” He went on to explain, in his opinion, the purpose of their love, saying, I feel strongly, my beloved, as I have always felt, in the best and most solemn moments of my life- since heaven has granted me your love- that our spirits were made for each other- that a fraternal communion ties us together for mutual comfort in the struggles of life, to love each other and help each other, on the same path towards a common Ideal.

At the end of the letter, Aurelio Saffi signed off, saying, “and this is the dearest hope of my life- a family worthy of the fatherland, a fatherland 21  “Theodora of Lothair Died a Few Weeks Ago at Her Residence, Putney House, Putney,” Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post or Plymouth and Cornish Advertiser, November 16, 1881, Issue 6092. The article claims that “Her husband, Colonel Chambers was a great advocate of Volunteer development and though his name is appended to a book called ‘Garibaldi and Italian Unity,’ the deceased lady was the real authoress.”

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worthy of Humanity- and it is the wish I share with you with affection and united thoughts.”22 In another letter from 1877, Aurelio Saffi revealed his reliance on his wife as a partner: “but I feel more than ever the need for your company- the need to come together, in advice and in work, to overcome the difficulties of our condition.” His letter also connects emotional intimacy with the desire to achieve a greater good and reflects the Mazzinian belief that the primary purpose of the family was the betterment of society.23 Throughout their marriage, Aurelio and Giorgina Saffi worked together toward their common political goals, raising money, writing and translating articles, and working with labor organizations to unite and reform Italy. As this chapter will later show, they also both sought to eliminate the system of state-regulated prostitution in Italy. White Mario shared similar sentiments about the greater purpose of marriage beyond domestic happiness. In a memorial piece written after her good friend Elena Casati Sacchi’s death, White Mario praised the Sacchi marriage for being one focused on the common good, rather than just on individual love or companionship, saying, “for certain their union was not an egoisme a deux, as Sand has defined love. It seemed instead to redouble in each of them their forces for the difficult fight for the fatherland.”24 La Coscienza Pubblica, the paper of the abolitionist movement, similarly lauded the Sacchi marriage for their shared outward focus. In its obituary of Casati Sacchi, the paper praised her for raising her children to the ideals of virtue, and for selecting a companion who would work alongside her in these goals.25 Jessie White Mario and Alberto Mario also had a strong sense of partnership in their marriage. As prolific writers, their work often took the form of intellectual collaboration. Since Alberto Mario could not write as well in English, White Mario translated everything he wrote that they wanted to publish in that language, including his book on Garibaldi and the Red Shirts.26 In exchange, he helped her write the articles on Italian 22  Aurelio Saffi to Giorgina Saffi, 14 October 1874, BAB, Fondo Saffi, Sezione II, b.11, fasc.4, cc.1-119. 23  Aurelio Saffi to Giorgina Saffi, 9 July 1877, BAB, Fondo Saffi, Sezione II, b. 12, f. 1, cc.1-289 24  Jessie White Mario, Il Giugno MDCCCLXXXIII: Elena Casati Sacchi (Bologna: Tipografia di Nicola Zanichelli, 1883), MCRR, b.426, N. 4(3). 25  “Elena Casati Sacchi,” La Coscienza Pubblica, a.1, n.5, May 8, 1882, pg.1 in MCRR, b.426, N.4(7). 26  Mario, The Red Shirt. Episodes.

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politics for British and U.S. newspapers that provided their daily living.27 In 1877, an Italian paper accused Mario of being a republican for love and following in his wife’s footsteps. He countered by saying that he had been a republican even before he met his wife and clarified that their conjugal bond, while strong, had not radically altered either of their political views. He did, however, acknowledge White Mario’s influence on his thought process. After stating that he was always most content with the example she provided of loyalty, courage, devotion, and hard work, he explained that, She taught me how to practice the sentiment of duty in the course of every day. She has profoundly modified my political and literary education, stripping away as much as possible all rhetorical luxuriance, calling me back to the observation of the real and initiating me in the secrets of English thought: a new world for me, who had been sailing peacefully on the lake of Hegelian idealism. I confess to you that I have profited not just a little from her example, from her virtue, from her school.28

This public acknowledgment of an intellectual debt to his wife is clear evidence of the level of respect within the Mario marriage. After Alberto Mario’s death from lip cancer in 1883, White Mario aided in the publication of his collected writings. In her introduction to the volume, she explained that while she knew it was necessary to carry on Alberto’s last wishes and honor his memory, she found it difficult to write without him, as previously, “in every work he helped me.”29 Both spouses, therefore, were openly proud of their marital cooperation. Maintaining Independence Within Marriage The Mazzinian marriages were unusual for their time because they encouraged wives to have differing political opinions from their husbands and to maintain their own separate identities. The shared beliefs that formed the basis for their partnership did not preclude occasional differing opinions or intellectual disagreements. The Marios, for instance, had opposing views on writing style. While Alberto Mario preferred a more literary approach, White Mario believed a more direct style was better suited for  White Mario, “Della vita di Alberto Mario,” lxxxiv, clv.  Pier Luigi Bagatin, Tra Risorgimento e nuova Italia: Alberto Mario: Un repubblicano federalista (Firenze: Centro editoriale toscano, 2000), xv. 29  White Mario, “Della vita di Alberto Mario,” clxxiv. 27 28

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talking to the people.30 More substantially, they disagreed about politics. White Mario was always much more of a Mazzinian, whereas Mario favored Carlo Cattaneo’s federalism and often sided with Garibaldi when he was in dispute with Mazzini. Mario wrote that their differences of opinion actually made their marriage stronger, claiming that, “from this variety of thoughts and studies, which bloomed in a bed of shared affections and ideals, a harmony that has lasted for twenty-five years was born.” White Mario agreed with her husband and added that it is a mistake to believe dominating the intellect of others marks a victory… Many friendships break down and marriages are made unhappy for lack of this elementary respect for reciprocal freedom, which does not at all prevent free discussion and good faith efforts to convince others of their views.31

Despite their differing political and philosophical leanings, they respected the other’s opinion and their right to form it. White Mario advocated that a woman should not be subservient, submissive, or subsumed by her husband. In an 1869 article for The Nation, she stated these views, writing, “The Italian lady need not look up to her husband, and in some respects may look down upon him.”32 From the very beginning of her own marriage, she also sought to retain an independent identity. As she had already achieved a level of fame before her marriage, White Mario was reluctant to become absorbed under her husband’s identity. Mazzini encouraged her in this, suggesting that she use her own names in the advertisements for her lecture tours. He wrote, “you need to maturely consider if you intend to omit your name in everything! It is better to set aside tradition: your name is the known name, and constitutes half of the success.”33 During this transitional period, the advertisements listed both her maiden and married name to ensure the public were aware of her name change and would not forget who she was. Even the conservative press recognized that White Mario’s fame was greater than or equal to Alberto Mario’s. In 1859, for instance, La Civiltà Cattolica referred to

 White Mario, lxxxiv.  White Mario, lxxix. 32  Jessie White Mario, “On the position of women in Italy,” The Nation, Vol. 9, No. 231, December 2, 1869, pg. 481. 33  White Mario, “Della vita di Alberto Mario,” lxxiii. 30 31

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Mario as “the famed companion of the famed Miss White.”34 In maintaining her maiden name along with her married name, White Mario again followed the model of many Victorian feminists who likewise retained their maiden names in some form.35 Alberto Mario also encouraged his wife to move out of Mazzini’s shadow and not just follow his orders blindly. Even during their early courtship, he wrote to praise her intellect, enthusiasm, and work with Mazzini and exhorted her to get Mazzini to listen to her and respect her as an equal partner. Claiming this partnership would benefit the Italian cause, he wrote, With you as free and independent collaborator, you and He will represent a force, not doubled, but multiplied, as in the theory of falling objects when speed increases in proportion to the squares of distance: if he will have you passive executor, you will not even represent a doubled force; and the cause of my homeland would be damaged.36

While Alberto Mario’s advice in this instance may have somewhat stemmed from his lack of faith in Mazzini’s plans, it still indicates a great respect for White Mario’s intellectual capabilities. The Saffis also had disagreements, including one over the proposed plan to implement Mazzini’s ideals throughout the early 1860s. Pesman described their differences, stating, “Aurelio was reflective, a man of reason and tolerance whose beliefs were intellectually grounded and underpinned by a classical and literary education. Giorgina was the inflexible and intransigent true believer, little able to cope with difference of opinion.” As a result, when Aurelio Saffi was initially willing to work within the monarchy and accepted election into the first Italian parliament, Giorgina Saffi saw his actions as a betrayal of Mazzini. Pesman adds that in the early 1860s, Giorgina Saffi wrote “letter after letter” in which she “pleaded, begged, and harassed her husband to return to her intransigent position, arguing that only isolation from the nation, compromise, and corruption could result from cooperation.”37 While she would occasionally describe 34  “Cronaca Contemporanea: Stati Sardi: I Mazziniani in Lombardia,” December 31, 1859, ser. 04, v. 05, p.119. 35  Levine, Feminist Lives in Victorian England, 113. 36  White Mario, “Della Vita di Alberto Mario,” lxxvi. 37  Pesman, “The Marriage of Giorgina Craufurd and Aurelio Saffi,” 31.

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herself as weak, reserved, or humble, her letters to Aurelio and their disagreements in them show that she had her own beliefs and would steadfastly fight to impose those beliefs upon her husband. Schwabe, Nathan, White Mario, and Saffi all also found greater legal independence in their widowhoods, suggesting the potential limitations of even a companionate marriage.38 Meyer Nathan, for instance, left Sara Nathan in complete control of their property upon his death in 1859.39 Both Schwabe and Nathan became widows at young ages, Schwabe at thirty-four and Nathan soon before her fortieth birthday, and were most politically and socially active during their widowhood.40 Due to their young age at becoming widows, however, it is difficult to tell how their partnerships with their husbands could have impacted their work moving forward, particularly once the women were beyond childbearing age. Though White Mario and Saffi were older when they became widows, at ages fifty-one and sixty-two respectively, it was still an emotionally significant experience for them.41 White Mario was known to sign her letters and works as Jessie Vedova (widow) Mario and both women worked to carry on the legacy and publish the papers of their husbands. As they also outlived many of their political contemporaries, this worked formed only a part of their larger mission of preserving the memory of the Risorgimento, which will be discussed more in the next chapter.

Feminist Motherhood While some later feminists rejected motherhood as an oppressive expectation placed upon women, these reformist British-Italian women embraced it. Recognizing the importance of generational change, they believed they could apply the same reformist principles to the raising and education of their children as they did to their philanthropic causes. Refusing to accept a division between the private and public spheres, they saw the family as the building block of society and a key part of its development.

 As she predeceased her husband, Chambers did not become a widow.  Biography of Sara Nathan, MCRR, b.431, N.42. This biography compiled by the Nathan children saw this as a sign of love and respect and also claimed that Meyer Nathan’s last words were of Sara Nathan. 40  Salis Schwabe died on July 23, 1853. Meyer Nathan died on August 4, 1859. 41  Alberto Mario died on June 2, 1883. Aurelio Saffi died on April 10, 1890. 38 39

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Embracing Motherhood Popular nineteenth-century discourses argued that procreation was integral to marriage, and glorified motherhood as a woman’s major duty in life. In England, the focus on childrearing stemmed from an evangelical emphasis on domesticity which elevated motherhood and the moral power of women.42 On the other hand, Italian republicans claimed that mothers were responsible for the moral upbringing of children, which included religious and patriotic values as well as a basic education. This emphasis on a mother’s vital role in the upbringing of her child was not accompanied by an increase in legal authority over her offspring. Though ideally both parents were to have a say in their children’s affairs, the Pisanelli Code determined that the father’s view would prevail in any parental disagreements.43 Sara Nathan, Mary Chambers, Giorgina Saffi, and Julia Salis Schwabe all took pride in their role as mothers. Both Nathan and Schwabe had large families and gave birth on average every one to two years. Over a twenty-­ year period, Sara Nathan had twelve children, who alternately went by Italian and English versions of their names: Davide/David (1839), Enrico/Henry (1840), Giannetta/Janet (1842), Adolfo/Adolf (1843), Ernesto/Ernest (1845), Enrichetta/Harriet (1847), Giuseppe/Joseph (1848), Filippo/Philip (1850), Gualtiero/Walter (1852), Alfredo/Alfred (1854), Adah/Adele (1856), and Beniamino/Benjamin (1859). Julia Salis Schwabe had seven children: Harriett (1839), Edmund (1841), George (1843), Frederick (1844), Julia Rosetta (1847), Catherine (1850), and Arthur (1852). As she became a widow at age thirty-four, it is likely that Schwabe would have had more children had her husband lived. In contrast, Giorgina Saffi and Mary Chambers had fewer children, perhaps due to the later age at which they married. Saffi had four sons, Attilio (1858), Emilio (1861), Carlo, known as Balilla (1863), and Rinaldo, often referred to as Naldino (1868), while Chambers had three children, Lydia (1856), Edward (1859), and Evelyn (1861).44 The dates of birth  Hammerton, 71.  Willson, 7. 44  Though he went by Balilla, the third Saffi son was actually named after Carlo Pisacane. Balilla was the nickname of Giovan Battista Perasso, a Genoese boy who started the revolt of 1746 against the Habsburg forces that occupied the city in the War of the Austrian Succession by throwing a stone at an Austrian official. Bugani, Giorgina Saffi: Una gentile mazziniana di ferro, 16. 42 43

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reveal a similar spacing between children, with Nathan having the closest spacing and Saffi the greatest. As Levine has noted, many married feminists did not have children or had only one or two. Few dedicated themselves to the procreation of large numbers of children in the way that Schwabe or Nathan had.45 The differing spacing and total number of children, therefore, likely reflected Saffi and Chambers’ adherence to a more emancipated model for women’s private lives. Jessie White Mario did not have children of her own, and some evidence suggests that she may have been unable to do so. In a letter to her friend Barbara Smith Bodichon, she referenced her compatriot Elena Casati Sacchi’s then nine children, saying, “fancy having nine of your very own. I wish I had. I don’t care what people say about the trouble & pain of losing them. Better the pain that comes from love than any other pleasure.”46 White Mario found an outlet for her maternal impulses in her relationship with the numerous Sacchi children, caring for them when needed and inviting them to stay with her. She was particularly close to the youngest Sacchi child, Ada, and proudly recounted an example of Ada’s affection for her to Bodichon. She explained that when she returned Michelangelo and Ada Sacchi to their parents after a visit with her, little Ada demanded to “sleep in the room with ‘La Jessie.’”47 White Mario’s letter suggests the joy she received from her relationship with Ada and the other Sacchi children. The Marios truly found an extension of their nuclear family with the Sacchis. White Mario expressed their perfect closeness and harmony in another letter to Bodichon from 1877, claiming, “Elena and I were friends before our marriage, so Alberto & Achille. Never a rift… nothing ever clashing across the friendship. Achille my comrade in 3 campaigns, a very ideal family this, so good, so happy it reconciles one with life to watch them.” Continuing, she noted that Elena Casati Sacchi would joke that, “she never quite knows whether Ada & Mike are hers or are mine.” The Sacchis even named one of their daughters, Jessie, in honor of White Mario and another child Alberto.48 Expressing his shared belief in the tight linkage between the two families, Alberto Mario wrote, “throughout twenty-four years the Sacchi family and mine were, so to speak, a single  Levine, Feminist Lives in Victorian England, 45.  White Mario to Barbara Smith Bodichon, Date Unknown, MCRR, b.110, N.51 (19). 47  White Mario to Bodichon, 13 October 1877, MCRR, b.110, N.50 (20). 48  White Mario to Bodichon, 13 October 1877. Unfortunately, this child died young. 45 46

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one.”49 Given their closeness, White Mario’s relations with the Sacchi children can provide evidence for how she believed children should be raised. Nathan, Saffi, Chambers, and Schwabe prized their roles as mothers and valued their emotional connection to their children and grandchildren. Archival collections of letters between Giorgina Saffi and her sons reveal a portrait of a mother intimately involved in the daily activities of her offspring.50 In 1880, she wrote to Balilla Saffi, claiming, “Oh! I do not ask nor can I ask heaven for a greater joy than seeing you and knowing you are good and therefore happy in the best meaning of the word!”51 She later felt a similar closeness to her grandchildren. After the birth of her first granddaughter (born to her son Emilio and his wife Mary), Saffi spent four and a half months acting as the child’s head nurse in Bologna. She wrote about the experience to White Mario, saying, “it seemed & was like a dream to be allowed at last to have a little girl (after such a lot of boys) to nurse & fondle.”52 Sara Nathan’s grief upon the loss of her son Joseph Nathan in 1881 likewise reveals their strong bond. Expressing her anguish in the face of the premature death of her son at only thirty-three years of age, Nathan wrote to White Mario, There are no words for a Mother separated from her child and a child like mine. The cherished existence and in whose cares I found an encouragement in life is gone. The anguish for one of his looks and for his sweet smile will be with me till we meet again.53

Nathan’s letter revealed the emotional depth of her connection to Joseph Nathan, which existed in addition to and in correlation with their shared interests in Mazzinian conspiracy and the campaign against state-regulated prostitution. Her act of reaching out to White Mario for solace, moreover, reinforces how Mazzinian circles blurred the lines between professional

 Alberto Mario, Il Giugno MDCCCLXXXIII: Elena Casati Sacchi.  The letters are available at the Museo Centrale di Risorgimento di Roma and the Fondo Saffi at the Biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio in Bologna. 51  Giorgina Saffi to Balilla Saffi, 6 January 1880, MCRR, b.1170, N. 14. 52  Giorgina Saffi to Jessie White Mario, 28 March 1894, MCRR, b.430, N.28 (5). The girl was named Giorgina and her older brother had been named Aurelio. This was a traditional method for honoring family in Italy and, by following that custom, Emilio Saffi showed that he was taking the responsibility of his family legacy seriously. 53  Sara Nathan to Jessie White Mario, 5 May 1887, MCRR, b.430, N.22 (12). 49 50

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and personal and forged a close-knit emotional community out of their shared political radicalism. Mazzinian Motherhood Nathan, Saffi, and White Mario all ascribed to the Mazzinian belief in the primacy of the family and argued that there should be no distinction between private and public morality. Their conviction that the family should hold a sacred place as the first site of education and central institution of the nation reflected an intensification of more general Risorgimento imagery of the nation as an extended kinship network.54 Their active parenting, therefore, took on political significance. Both Aurelio and Giorgina Saffi viewed raising their sons as a civic duty and held themselves up as a model family for other Italians to emulate.55 The Marios also recognized the connections between patriotism and parenting. In her memorial piece for Elena Casati Sacchi, White Mario approvingly described how the Sacchis consistently devoted their entire familial resources toward the common good and saw the future of their individual children in the future for the country. She wrote, in this occasion, if friends had not intervened, the wealth of the family, with the desires of both, would have been entirely used for the fatherland. When they were asked: And the children? They would respond: When Italy becomes free we will teach them to work for their living.56

These two families thus illustrate the various ways in which republican families merged their national and domestic concerns and believed in the larger ramifications of their parenting strategies. Like many of Mazzini’s followers, Sara Nathan also expressed her conviction in the inextricable link between family and nation by teaching Mazzinian values to her offspring. In a letter to Jessie White Mario, she claimed that it was her highest aspiration that her children follow the principles laid out by Mazzini in the Duties of Man. She added that she believed her daughters would best follow his maxims by making good matches and becoming good wives and mothers.57 Maurizio Quadrio, who acted as a  Banti, La Nazione Del Risorgimento.  Pesman, “The Marriage of Giorgina Craufurd and Aurelio Saffi,” 33. 56  Jessie White Mario, Il Giugno MDCCCLXXXIII: Elena Casati Sacchi. 57  Sara Nathan to Jessie White Mario, 9 December 1873, MCRR, b.430, N.22 (5). 54 55

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tutor and later as a surrogate father figure for the Nathan children, similarly taught them Mazzinian values, placing an emphasis on duty and public virtue. In a letter to Janet Nathan, for instance, he claimed that God had not given them life simply for pleasure, “but he has placed us on this earth, as on a testing ground, because we work to perfect each other.” Sharing Sara Nathan’s belief in the civic and moral importance of motherhood, he added that “the mother is the first link in the chain that unites God to the human creature.” He also told Janet that she had been blessed with a particularly strong mother and should follow her example as much as possible.58 Within their private lives, therefore, the Nathans tried to follow Mazzinian dictates that glorified the role of the mother as the first source of moral and civic education. The Saffi family also promoted Mazzinian values and even celebrated significant dates in the Genoese patriot’s life, including the anniversary of his death, as civic and religious holidays.59 Saffi’s letters to her children, moreover, reveal her use of Mazzinian-inspired maternal guidance. In one letter, she praised “my Balilla,” for being “brave, diligent, and attentive in the carrying out of your duties,” referencing Mazzini’s emphasis on the duties rather than rights of a citizen.60 Letters from Aurelio Saffi to his children contain similar language. In one letter to Balilla, he wrote, Work to educate yourself, in every means, my good son, in the firm exercise of your will in the performance of your duties… In this way you will become a brave, useful, and worthy man; and your loved ones will have the consolation of your work in life.61

The similarity of the sentiments in each letter indicates a shared vision for their children. The recording, saving, and eventual archiving of the family’s private letters, moreover, reinforce how the Saffis believed their private behavior could be held up to public scrutiny and would be useful in serving lessons about how one raised a family according to Mazzinian values. Giorgina Saffi’s letters also include numerous admonitions that her sons had a duty to live up to the patriotic legacy of their father and family.  Maurizio Quadrio to Janet Nathan, 3–4 December 1858, MCRR, b.407, N.5 (30).  Pesman, “The Marriage of Giorgina Craufurd and Aurelio Saffi,” 34. Their celebrations are also visible in their letters. See, for instance, Giorgina Saffi to Aurelio Saffi, 10 March 1878, BAB, Fondo Saffi, Sezione II, b. 12, f. 2, cc.1-209. 60  Giorgina Saffi to Carlo Balilla Saffi, 17 February 1877, MCRR, b.1170, N.14. 61  Giorgina and Aurelio Saffi to Balilla Saffi, 6 January 1880, MCRR, b.1170, N.14. 58 59

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In April 1890, after the death of Aurelio Saffi, she wrote a letter of comfort to Balilla, saying that in this moment of sadness he must “restore your spirit to the duties of life,” and argued that the fulfillment of these duties was “the greatest testimony of your religious worship to the Memory of that Saint who was your Father,” and would be the best way to find comfort.62 In March 1891, she then warned Balilla of his “moral ruin” and asked him to keep in mind the responsibility he bore not only toward his brother but also toward the “Sacred Memory of your Father.”63 Letters to Balilla and her other sons repeat these themes of duty, morality, and self-­ discipline, and reveal her conviction that her sons’ comportment needed to reflect the respect they held for the name they carried. Other Mazzinians also believed that the next generation of children had a duty to live up to the legacy of their patriotic parents. White Mario, for example, claimed that Elena Casati Sacchi’s children had a responsibility to her legacy. In a memorial piece about Casati Sacchi, she wrote that the Sacchi children could comfort themselves after their mother’s death “by fulfilling the serious task that attends them and reveals them worthy of such a mother.”64 Some of the Nathan children seem to have particularly absorbed this lesson and strove to live up to their own Mazzinian heritage. After Sara Nathan’s death, David Nathan wrote to White Mario, expressing his grief and stating, “I trust Her children may act in life in a way not unworthy of such a mother. The loss of whose advice and love is the greatest inestimable misfortune.”65 The emphasis on legacy, memory, and duty was thus quite common. The children of these circles, moreover, were raised with fairly radical ideas on anticlericalism and gender equality. None of the twelve Sacchi children were baptized due to their parents’ stringent anticlericalism, while Ernesto Nathan would go on to become leader of the anticlerical Freemasons in Italy.66 As a likely consequence of their parents’ more progressive views on female emancipation, these republican daughters received a stronger education than many of their peers. The daughters of the Nathan family were proudly educated on an equal level with the sons.67  Giorgina Saffi to Balilla Saffi, 22 April 1890, MCRR, b.1170, N.14.  Giorgina Saffi to Balilla Saffi, 5 March 1891, MCRR, b.1172, N.7. 64  Jessie White Mario, Il Giugno MDCCCLXXXIII: Elena Casati Sacchi. 65  David Nathan to Jessie White Mario, 3 March 1882, MCRR, b.430, N.11(1). 66  Gazzetta, “«Sposa, madre, cittadina impareggiabile». Il mazzinianesimo femminile tra maternità e cittadinanza.” 67  Biography of Sara Nathan, MCRR, b.431, N.42 62 63

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White Mario likewise supported a progressive education for the Sacchi children, particularly Ada and Maria. In 1877, as Maria Sacchi prepared to attend medical school, White Mario planned to use her connections to Dr. Emily Blackwell to find out pertinent information about the possibilities and practicalities of women entering medical school in the United States.68 Praising the academic success of the two eldest Sacchi brothers and Maria Sacchi the next year, she claimed, “they will make splendid citizens in the future.”69 In 1880, Alberto Mario’s paper, La lega della democrazia, celebrated their academic achievements by proudly reporting that Maria Sacchi had completed her studies at the liceo of Mantua and was able to apply for university, “regularly like any other scholar.”70 Both Ada and Beatrice Sacchi were also active in the feminist movement of the early twentieth century with Ada Sacchi leading the stridently pro-suffrage Mantuan section of the Associazione per la donna.71 The values imparted to these individuals as children thus appear to have inspired them to pursue greater change within society in their adult lives. Progressive Education Within the Home Though she was not a Mazzinian, Schwabe also supported a progressive and non-traditional education for her children, which can best be illustrated by her selection of the radical Malwida von Meysenbug as a tutor for her daughters.72 After being introduced through Johanna Goldschmidt, Schwabe’s cousin and Meysenbug’s friend, the women met in person when the German radical arrived in London fleeing the tumult and repercussions of the 1848–49 revolutions.73 After learning that Meysenbug was  White Mario to Bodichon, 13 October 1877, MCRR, b.110, N.50(20).  White Mario to Bodichon, 14 September 1878, MCRR, b.100, N.52 (4). 70  “Le donne e l’istruzione,” La lega della democrazia, a.I, n. 45, February 18, 1880. 71  Maria Teresa Sega, “Beatrice Sacchi e il suffragismo italiano,” in La repubblica, la scienza, l’uguaglianza: una famiglia del Risorgimento tra mazzinianesimo ed emancipazionismo, ed. Costanza Bertolotti (Milano: Italy : F. Angeli, 2012), 79–94; Paolo Camatti, “Ada Sacchi e il movimento emancipazionista,” in La repubblica, la scienza, l’uguaglianza: 95–110. 72  Meysenbug participated the 1848 revolution in Frankfurt due to her interest in Christian socialism and democratic radicalism. Later in the 1850s, she lived among the exiles in London and was particularly close to the Russian Alexander Herzen. Meysenbug became part of the Herzen family and was a mother figure to Olga Herzen. Later in life, Meysenbug moved to Italy and became close with Wagner and Nietzsche. In 1876, she received some celebrity status in Germany after publishing her memoir there. 73  Le Rider, Malwida von Meysenbug, 136. 68 69

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unsure how she would support herself, Schwabe put her in contact with a Jewish family that was looking for a governess and would not want her to provide any type of religious guidance. Due to her lack of experience, however, the family did not hire her. Schwabe then invited Meysenbug to her property in rural Wales in the summer of 1850 to discuss pedagogical ideas. She paid for a first-class train ticket and welcomed the radical thinker warmly into her home. Meysenbug found the Schwabes to be very formal, wealthy, and English and she liked Salis Schwabe, who, as a self-made man, represented to her enlightened liberalism, practical progress, and magnificent generosity.74 During her visit, Meysenbug witnessed the luxury in which the Schwabe children were being raised with a German tutor, a French governess, and multiple upper and under nurses. She also witnessed tension between Julia Salis Schwabe and an upper servant, Miss Braddon, who, Meysenbug claimed, was obsessed with manners, idolized the Church of England, and hoped for aristocratic marriages for the children. The Schwabes were unashamed of being middle class, self-made, and Unitarian, however, and would not allow Braddon free reign.75 Schwabe was a gracious employer and accepted Meysenbug’s pedagogical ideas in a way that many other women of her class would not. German governesses were quite popular among the British middle classes as a result of Queen Victoria’s obvious devotion to her Hanoverian governess Baroness Louise Lehzen.76 After hiring German governesses, however, many English mothers clashed with them over pedagogy. While English education taught obedience and memorization, German education taught analysis and thought. Some governesses who tried to use methods from Pestalozzi or Froebel were forbidden to do so by their English employers who wanted them to use traditional methods. Schwabe’s appreciation and support of Meysenbug’s use of the Froebel method made her somewhat of an enlightened exception.77 Unlike many other employers, Schwabe also did not require Meysenbug to join family prayers after she appealed to her as, “a fellow German and liberal thinker.”78  Le Rider, 138.  Le Rider, 139. 76  Susan Bayley, “German Governesses in Victorian Middle-Class Families: A Challenge to Domestic Authority?,” Journal of Family History 44, no. 3 (2019): 254. 77  Bayley, 268–69. 78  Bayley, 272. 74 75

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In 1859, Schwabe asked Meysenbug to again come live with her and the Cobden family in Paris so she could direct the education of the Schwabe and Cobden children and assist in Schwabe’s philanthropic works.79 Meysenbug accepted the position and was given sole care of Schwabe’s eldest daughter Harriet, to whom she became quite emotionally attached.80 Upon their return from Paris, Herzen asked Meysenbug to return to his home and care for his daughter Olga. Revealing her desire to keep Meysenbug as an influence upon her children, Schwabe fought to keep the German radical and suggested as a compromise that Olga Herzen stay in the Schwabe home. This plan worked for a few weeks and Meysenbug took part in Schwabe’s efforts to send letters to Garibaldi’s troops.81 Frustrated and distracted by the constant activity of the Schwabe home, however, Meysenbug eventually left with Olga Herzen. By inviting Herzen’s daughter to stay in her home and asking a radical and feminist with a leaning toward atheism to educate her children, Schwabe revealed how she, like Nathan and Saffi, valued motherhood in a traditional sense, but also imparted progressive and radical values to her children.

Republican Motherhood and the Campaign against State-Regulated Prostitution Sara Nathan and Giorgina Saffi pushed the popular discourses of republican motherhood to their limits to educate their children in radical values and claim a space for themselves to talk about political and sexual matters in the public sphere. While more moderate proponents of female emancipation chose to ignore such issues, believing it was not their place to speak on such sexually explicit topics in a public forum or even to acknowledge their awareness of them, Mazzinian women felt it was their moral duty as women to speak out against state-regulated prostitution. In doing so, they made claims about their rights as women and mothers to not only shape the moral character of individual citizens and future voters (their sons), but to also have a say in state policy and governance itself. They maintained a general moralistic and reproachful tone when addressing this 79  Le Rider, Malwida von Meysenbug, 228, 235. The Schwabes had a long-standing friendship with Richard Cobden, noted proponent of free trade. 80  Michaela Tomaschewsky, Malwida von Meysenbug and the cult of humanism (University of Illinois at Chicago, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1993, 9324307) 263. 81  Le Rider, Malwida von Meysenbug, 246.

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controversial issue, however, which allowed them to talk about the sexual double standard and sympathize with the economic needs of sex workers without losing their claims to greater morality and respectability so necessary for their larger goal of full participation in democracy. Mazzinian Opposition to State-Regulated Prostitution Despite the popularity of the ideals of domesticity and companionate marriage, both the Italian and British states facilitated male infidelity and set up systems of state-regulated prostitution. The legal code of the new Italian state established a double standard for marital fidelity in which women could be convicted for adultery based upon a single extramarital sexual encounter, while men were condemned only if they blatantly kept a concubine.82 Accepting male extramarital sex and prostitution as an inevitable vice but one requiring regulation, Prime Minister Cavour then promulgated a ministerial decree on prostitution on February 15, 1860, which would remain in effect until 1888.83 Venereologist Casimiro Sperino played an influential role in prompting Cavour to issue the regulation through his argument that Italy needed to curtail the spread of venereal disease to protect the strength of their army and ensure the health of the Italian people.84 The law required sex workers to register with the police, undergo biweekly health examinations, and accept treatment in state-run sifilicomi (hospitals for the treatment of venereal disease). Police could arrest any woman suspected of prostitution, a category that included women who were out in public at the wrong time or in the wrong place.85 Inspired by the Belgian and French regulations, the system was similar to many other systems of state-regulated prostitution across Europe, including that set up by England’s Contagious Diseases Acts (CDA). Reformers across Europe nearly immediately condemned the CDA and other systems of state-regulated prostitution. One of the leading figures in  Willson, Women in Twentieth-Century Italy, 7.  The law went immediately into effect in Piedmont and the Italian territories then under Piedmontese control (Lombardy, Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and the Romagna). As Piedmont gained control of other territories, the jurisdiction of the Cavour Regulation spread. 84  Bruno Wanrooij, “‘The Thorns of Love’: Sexuality, Syphilis and Social Control in Modern Italy,” in Sex, Sin, and Suffering: Venereal Disease and European Society since 1870, ed. Roger Davidson and Lesley A. Hall (London ; New York: Routledge, 2001), 137–38. 85  Mary Gibson, Prostitution and the State in Italy, 1860–1915, 2nd ed. (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1999). 82 83

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this international campaign was Josephine Butler, who in 1869 organized the English Ladies’ Association against the Acts to oppose the existence and extension of the CDA. Drawing on the power of discourses of female morality and religiosity, Butler framed her work as a “moral crusade” and frequently invoked Christian arguments against the sins of the flesh and the need for moral decency. Not content with merely fighting against the system of regulated prostitution in England, Butler toured Europe from 1874 to 1875 and created an international reform movement: the British, Continental, and General Federation for the Abolition of Government Regulation of Prostitution, often referred to by the shortened name International Abolitionist Federation. The organization published their own journal, Le Bulletin Continental, starting in January 1876, and held international congresses starting in 1877.86 One nation Butler visited was Italy, which she had connections to through her family. Her father had corresponded with Mazzini, while her sister Harriet Meuricoffre had married into a Swiss-Italian family in Naples and had connections to Garibaldi.87 She found much support in Italy among Mazzinians, who saw the campaign against state-regulated prostitution as a continuation of their social and political reform of society. In 1874, she received a warm welcome at the Nathans’ salon in Rome, which later became the heart of the Italian campaign.88 Sara Nathan’s biography, written by her family, argued that it was her maternal advice that prompted Joseph Nathan, lost after the death of his wife and child, to dedicate himself to Butler’s cause. It claimed that “with such an elevation of mind the Mother had known to direct the raw and barren sadness of the son into a sacred work towards a suffering part of humanity!” The biography added

 Gibson, Prostitution and the State in Italy, 1860–1915, 39.  Anne Summers, “Which Women? What Europe? Josephine Butler and the International Abolitionist Federation,” History Workshop Journal 62 (Autumn 2006): 214–31. Meuricoffre had previously helped take over care of the wounded soldiers in the hospitals after White Mario left Naples. At the organization’s conference in 1877, White Mario acknowledged this connection, writing to Bodichon, “Mrs. Butler is looking very well & very handsome; her sister Mrs. Meuricoffe is here & she took all my wounded off my hands in 1860 at Naples that is a link between us. I have told Mrs. Butler that I will do whatever can help her most.” White Mario to Bodichon, 15 September 1877, MCRR, b.110, N. 50(6). 88  Isastia, Storia di una famiglia del Risorgimento, 86–89. In 1874, Joseph Nathan lost his wife and child while his brother Enrico and his wife Carolina lost three of their children in three days. After this devastation, they were looking for something to believe in. 86 87

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that Joseph Nathan’s actions revealed Nathan’s success in instilling Mazzinian values in her son.89 A noticeable portion of the campaign had worked with Mazzini at one point. In March 1876, Francesco Pallavicini and other Italian leaders founded the Italian Section of the British and Continental Federation for the Abolition of Governmental Regulation of Vice.90 While Pallavicini and another member of the committee, Filippo Linati, were monarchical rather than republican, many other members, including Maurizio Quadrio, Vincenzo Brusco Onnis, Federico Campanella, and Aurelio Saffi, had republican sympathies and Mazzinian affiliations.91 The connections between Mazzinianism and abolitionism were so strong, in fact, that the abolitionist campaign was sometimes viewed as a mere subset of the Mazzinian political agenda. In 1882, an English abolitionist paper, The Shield, published an article arguing against this presumption, claiming that men of all Italian political parties were involved in the cause. In explaining the source of this presumption, however, they did note that “the work of the Federation has hitherto been conducted almost exclusively by Mazzinians; hence the ignorant supposition alluded to.”92 British Mazzinians, including Emilie Ashurst Venturi and her sisters, were also involved within Britain in the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts.93 Mazzinian abolitionists saw the campaign as part of their larger mission. In an 1881 issue of the Lega della democrazia, White Mario explicitly stated that Joseph Nathan’s work fighting state-regulated prostitution was his way of continuing Mazzini’s work.94 In a later article for the paper, she added that Sara Nathan’s involvement, as well as her work in education, were likewise ways to continue Mazzini’s project. White Mario claimed that Nathan had pushed through her grief over the deaths of Quadrio and  Biography of Sara Nathan, MCRR, b.431, N.42.  Francesco Pallavicini was President. Other members included Count Giuseppe Musio, Count Carlo Rusconi, Senator Giorgio Tamajo, Deputy Giorgio Asproni, Professors Leopoldo Viglioni, Felice Scifoni, Vincenzo Rossi, and Sante Venerati, and Joseph Nathan, who was the secretary. They later added in Jessie White Mario, Anna Maria Mozzoni, Sarina Nathan, Giorgina Craufurd Saffi, Michele Amadei, Agostino Bertani, Giovanni Bovio, Benedetto Cairoli, Vincenzo Brusco Onnis, and Aurelio Saffi. Istasia, 89. 91  Bruno P. F. Wanrooij, “Josephine Butler and Regulated Prostitution in Italy,” Women’s History Review 17, no. 2 (June 2008): 156. 92  “Italian Organ of the Federation,” The Shield, Issue 428/219 (February 11, 1882): 17. 93  Falchi, “Democracy and the Rights of Women in the Thinking of Giuseppe Mazzini,” 20. 94  Jessie White Mario, “I Nostri morti,” in Strenna del giornale la Lega della democrazia. Roma: Tipogradia Artero e Comp, 1881, p.241–250. 89 90

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her son Joseph Nathan to work on these projects. She claimed that since Nathan was, sustained by maternal love, she lived and worked to continue the teachings of the dear lost ones. And the Mazzini school and the school for helpless girls in Trastevere and the newspaper il Dovere and the propaganda for the abolition of the shameful laws that obligated woman to slavery and profanation, were proofs of how true sorrow, as true love, knows how to expand itself into action.95

White Mario’s statements reinforce how the Mazzinians believed that the campaign against state-regulated prostitution was not tangential, but as important as their revolutionary or educational work for promoting a better and more egalitarian Italy. Congresses and Conferences One of the major ways in which the British, Continental, and General Federation for the Abolition of Government Regulation of Prostitution operated was through regular congresses. In the fall of 1875, the federation held its first congress in Geneva, and Mazzinians Joseph Nathan, Vincenzo Brusco Onnis, and Agostino Bertani attended.96 White Mario attended a later conference in Geneva in 1877 and stayed with fellow Mazzinians, including the Stansfelds, the Ashursts, and Joseph Nathan. Butler assigned White Mario to the Bureau of Hygiene and she consented to this, though feeling like more of a follower than a leader in this instance. As White Mario described it, “I think it just best to work in their way & I like the feeling of obedience. She told me that she had put me on the bureau d’higiene—whatever that may be.”97 White Mario initially did not take the conference very seriously. One morning, when she was supposed to be taking notes on the proceedings, she instead wrote a letter to Bodichon.98 Ultimately, however, she committed to the project. In a letter three days later she complained, “we have had very hard work our bureau

 White Mario, “Sara Nathan.”  Isastia, Storia di una famiglia del Risorgimento, 89. 97  White Mario to Bodichon, 15 September 1877, MCRR, b.110, N. 50(6). 98  White Mario to Bodichon, 18 September 1877, MCRR, b.110, N.50(9). 95 96

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meeting at 8 am & sometimes the last public meeting lasting until 11 p.m.”99 White Mario’s letters from Geneva reveal her growing appreciation for Josephine Butler and her organization. Though she believed in their cause from the beginning, saying, “you know that I am with them in the principle of the thing,” in another letter she tentatively wrote, “I shall like Mrs Butler I think.”100 By the final days of the conference, however, she was quite enthusiastic about Butler and wrote, Mrs. Butler is a really splendid devoted active & convinced woman. It is false to say that she gets up her enthusiasm al freddo. The subject just absorbs her, she lives in it & for it just as the American women did for the abolition. They may criticize her for being absolute & intolerant & imperious at times. I do not do so. I know that nothing in this world that is against the caprice & interests & vices of the majority can be done without these qualities—that one has neither time for strength nor inclination for coaxing & cajoling people. You can’t be popular if you are in earnest.101

White Mario’s opinion of Butler likely reflects her own position and experience as an active, devoted, and sincere woman who pushed forward with her cause even when it meant she was poorly received or disliked. White Mario was angry that the conference did not emphasize the equal responsibility of men and women in the case of illegitimate children and instead avoided the question. This, she argued, was particularly problematic for countries like Italy where the law forbade paternity searches. In response, she and “a good French woman” drew up a resolution stating that the congress, due to its general founding principles, must admit and affirm the principle of equal responsibility of men and women with regard to illegitimate children. The resolution was signed by James and Caroline Stansfeld, William Shaen, and “all the Italians,” before Josephine Butler then read it at the general assembly, where it received universal approval. White Mario was only active behind the scenes in this venture and explained, “no one knows that it was mine, as mine would have no weight but as Mrs. Butler’s all weight.”102 The debate over paternity searches was  White Mario to Bodichon, 21 September 1877, MCRR, b.110, N.50(11).  White Mario to Bodichon, 15 September 1877, MCRR, b.110, N. 50(6). White Mario to Bodichon, 17 September 1877, MCRR, b.110, N. 50(8). 101  White Mario to Bodichon, 21 September 1877, MCRR, b.110, N.50(11). 102  White Mario to Bodichon, 21 September 1877, MCRR, b.110, N.50(11). 99

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also a major issue for leading Italian feminist Anna Maria Mozzoni, who argued that the prohibition of paternity searches pushed women into prostitution as it denied them financial support from the men who had impregnated them.103 At the 1877 congress, the Mazzinian women publicly displayed themselves as opponents of state-regulated prostitution but were too reserved to speak out about the issue as a consequence of harsh opposition to women’s acknowledgment and open discussion of sexual matters. After Butler gave a speech in Milan in January 1875, for instance, Carlo Ambrosoli, one of the participants at the conference and a physician working at the local venereal hospital, wrote “I was flabbergasted at hearing a noble lady discuss this issue which is related to a sad but necessary social evil, because this is really an issue that should be dealt with only by physicians, hygienists and philosophers.”104 Mozzoni complained about the lack of Italian women’s participation in the movement, stating, “One important ally is missing that we need. Without this ally our victory is uncertain and the entire campaign can be pure folly. We lack the mass support of women.” Historian Bruno Wanrooij has argued that, “many educated women, however, were convinced that discussing issues like sexuality and prostitution was against the rules of decency, and preferred not to risk their reputation.”105 It is understandable, therefore, that even these radical women needed to slowly become comfortable publicly discussing such risqué topics. Though she did not speak herself, White Mario praised Caroline Stansfeld for openly supporting her husband and his work in the cause. She wrote, “Caroline Stansfeld is behaving splendidly. I am so happy. She goes on the platform to shew that she approves of James. It is so brave of her.” In White Mario’s eyes, this show of approval made Caroline Stansfeld “a worthy Mazzinian.” She also expressed support for the British women who sat up front at the last meeting of the Congress, when Bertani gave a speech and wrote, “Caroline Stansfeld & Mrs. Ashurst are in the front seats of the congress. That’s pluck if you like the pluck of British women who do the thing they think right however distasteful.”106 While White Mario wrote a speech, she had a professor (a friend of Bodichon) read it at  Nicolaci, Il “Coraggio del vostro diritto,” 214–17.  Wanrooij, “Josephine Butler and Regulated Prostitution in Italy,” 155–56. 105  Wanrooij, 158–59. 106  White Mario to Bodichon, 21 September 1877, MCRR, b.110, N.50(12). 103 104

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the conference for her. This decision was not universally well received. White Mario revealed that “they were vexed with me for not reading it, but James [Stansfeld] did not care & if he was pleased I don’t mind anyone else.”107 Though White Mario had previously established herself as a public speaker during her lecture tours in support of Italian Unification, she thus apparently felt more comfortable discussing traditional political issues rather than those with sexual content. By the 1880 conference of the federation, held in Genoa, the Mazzinian women felt comfortable enough to give speeches of their own. Elena Casati Sacchi spoke and impressed many with her voice. La Coscienza Pubblica claimed that many who had attended the Congress, would recall her sweet friendly figure, her voice full of emotion, when, overcoming her reluctance to address a public assembly, driven by the sentiment of duty, she registered her protest against white slavery and acted as interpreter of her dear absent friend Jessie White Mario.108

The article praised Casati Sacchi for being one of the first women “to enlist herself in these troops that protested against the compulsory degradation of women as a tool of public incontinence.” It also applauded her decision to teach her sons proper behavior and her recognition of the necessary partnerships that must exist between private and public education.109 In June 1881, Giorgina Saffi then spoke at a conference she organized alongside her husband Aurelio Saffi, Agostino Bertani, and Dr. Matilde Dessalles in the Loggia degli Agricolturi in Bologna.110 Though she chose to speak in public, Saffi acknowledged the difficulty she felt in doing so saying, “although I am conscious of my utter inability to speak in public, I am nevertheless compelled on this occasion to introduce myself to you, imploring your indulgence for a few moments, your benevolent attention to the few words I am about to tell you.” In her speech, Saffi argued that the laws establishing state-regulated prostitution were detrimental to both men and women, as they set up a system that transformed fallen women  White Mario to Bodichon, 21 September 1877, MCRR, b.110, N.50(11).  “Elena Casati Sacchi,” La Coscienza Pubblica, a.1, n.5, May 8, 1882, pg.1 in MCRR, b.426, N.4(7). 109  “Elena Casati Sacchi.” 110  “Le donne cadute, la legge e la polizia,” Associazione Democratica Bolognese, MCRR, b.426, N.6(19). 107 108

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(who had fallen either of their own choice or through unfortunate circumstances) into instruments, “to the basest passions of man.” She added that after being excluded from other work and professions, these women became in some circumstances either accomplices or primary authors in leading young men toward vice. Questioning the sexual double standard, Saffi asked why the stigma fell only upon women and indicated that she wanted shame for extramarital sex to fall equally upon men.111 Her speech exemplifies her inherent moralism and its limitations. Though she would speak of sexual matters in public and defend sex workers, Saffi would do so only to a limited extent and in no way supported casual sex as a choice. The English branch of the Federation supported the Italians’ attempts to include women in their discussions. In 1882, The Shield published an article praising the way in which the Italian abolitionist campaign did not exclude women from its public meetings. It claimed, the Italians are too logical a people to accept the pretext of a spurious delicacy that it is unfit for women of any class to know the wrong perpetrated upon woman; or to believe that in a matter equally concerning the true interest and welfare of both sexes, the balance of moral responsibility and duty can ever be rightly adjusted by one sex only.112

English support and recognition of Italian efforts reveals how these women, by committing themselves to abolishing state-regulated prostitution, participated in a transnational feminist network. Though the height of organized feminism would not come until later in the century, the International Abolitionist Federation certainly played a key role in connecting advocates of female emancipation across Europe. Writing Against Prostitution White Mario, Saffi, and other Mazzinian women also published writings against state-regulated prostitution. In August of 1875, Saffi published her first article on the subject in the leading feminist newspaper La Donna. Her article, aptly entitled, “To Mothers,” argued that the abolitionist campaign represented a fight “in the name of Moral Law against the  “Le donne cadute, la legge e la polizia.”  “Italy: Signor Ernesto Nathan’s Lectures,” The Shield (London, England), Saturday, June 3, 1882; pg. 103; Issue 436/227. 111 112

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abomination” that sanctions the sister of Man to “legal slavery to the brutality of the senses” and called Butler’s campaign a “sacred fight.” Saffi condemned scientists and doctors who supported the regulation on hygienic grounds, arguing that they subordinated the health of the soul to the supposed needs of physical health and encouraged moral depravation.113 By framing her argument in religious and moral terms, she sought a respectable way to address what many would have thought an indelicate subject for women. Saffi’s strong Christian moralism and anti-sex language reflected a larger trend of feminist moralism, itself a response to the grim realities of women’s lives. Contemporary social purity associations in England were inspired not only by the gospel, but also by the ways in which women suffered domestic abuse or sexual assault as a result of alcoholism and unrestrained male sexuality. English feminists similarly saw sex as something dangerous for women: it came with the risk of assault, disease, pregnancy, and loss of control. While individual feminists may have had happy sex lives, they generally promoted celibacy as the safer choice.114 The Italian campaign against state-regulated prostitution was likewise part of a larger social justice movement that sought greater solidarity among women, better working conditions and greater access to education for women, and female suffrage.115 Through their shared belief in the emancipatory and reforming power of women’s Christian moralism, Italian and British women formed a transnational network of feminist solidarity. In 1876, The Shield published a letter from the women of Italy to the women of Great Britain and Ireland, celebrating their reforming sisterhood of faith. The Italian women began their letter by stating, “we feel it necessary to send you a word of love, which shall be as a solemn promise and a bond between us of active and constant communion in faith and in works.” The letter went on to praise Josephine Butler for taking a lead in “the Holy Crusade against the sin, the vice and the immorality which are now sanctioned by the law.” Calling upon women in their roles as mothers, sisters, and wives to fulfill their duty and showing an optimistic view of female potential, it claimed that the system of state-regulated prostitution “will and must come to an end chiefly through woman’s work. God wills it! God will help us!” Though  Giorgina Saffi, “Alle Madri,” La Donna, August 25, 1875, Vol. 8, No. 262.  Levine, Feminist Lives in Victorian England, 87–90. 115  Wanrooij, “‘The Thorns of Love,” 142. 113 114

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they lacked the vote, these women believed in their ability to effect change. Buttressed by this moralistic language, they envisioned redeeming and associating freely with sex workers. They argued, we believe in the regenerating virtue which works through loving counsels, example, and devoted care and encouragement; therefore, we will not turn away in horror from the unfortunate victims, but will endeavor, by every means in our power, to save and comfort them, and, by inspiring them with faith in the possibility of their regeneration, to awaken in them the courage to achieve it.116

While this letter certainly reveals a level of condescension from the middle-­ class abolitionists, it also reflects a true desire to include sex workers in their transnational feminist sisterhood. It is also important to note that the movement’s strong Christian moralism did not earn it the support of the Catholic Church. Like many Britons, Butler held anti-Catholic views and was reluctant to cooperate with the Catholic Church. Similarly, many Catholics viewed Butler as a representative of the Protestant and secular attack on the Church and its authority in Italy. As Wanrooij has argued, “nor had the Catholics much sympathy for the radical abolitionists who represented a challenge to the moral hegemony of the Catholic Church.” Pope Pius IX had denounced state-regulated prostitution in his September 1860 Novos et ante, but mainly as a counterattack against criticisms of Papal rule. In response to the new Italian state’s claims that their occupation of Papal territories was justified by the moral weakness and corruption of the Catholic Church, he claimed the system of state-regulated prostitution reflected the new state’s own moral weakness and hypocrisy. While the Catholic Church certainly opposed prostitution, just as they did any form of premarital or extramarital sex, many Catholics accepted it as a lesser and necessary evil that provided men with a safe outlet for their sexual urges and protected what they considered to be respectable or pure women.117 When Catholics joined the abolitionist campaign later in the century, socially progressive arguments began to drop from the movement’s platform. Rather than 116  “Answer of the Women of Italy to the Women of Great Britain and Ireland, Associated for the Abolition of Government Regulation of Prostitution,” The Shield (London, England), Saturday, April 15, 1876; pg. 121; Issue 256/47. 117  Wanrooij, “Josephine Butler and Regulated Prostitution in Italy,” 163; Gibson, Prostitution and the State in Italy, 1860–1915, 74.

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recognizing the connections between poverty and prostitution and attempting to ameliorate living conditions among the poor, the movement focused solely on fighting immorality.118 In contrast to Saffi’s religious approach, White Mario focused on the socioeconomic causes and effects of prostitution when researching it for her 1877 work La Miseria in Napoli (Poverty in Naples). The book project began when she went to Naples “to collect facts and ideas as to the causes of prostitution, and to assist a well-known philanthropist in his inquiry into the causes of agricultural distress.” Pasquale Villari, author of the 1872 condemnation of southern poverty Lettere meridionali, then approached her to publish the results of her studies in the Neapolitan paper Pungolo. White Mario’s interactions with Villari inspired her to study the city’s poverty in greater depth. She investigated houses of licensed prostitution, along with prisons, charitable institutions, hospitals, and grottoes, and compiled her findings in La Miseria in Napoli.119 She devoted an entire chapter in the volume to prostitution and defended her decision to do so. At the beginning of the chapter she wrote, “arriving at this chapter, it is likely that many of you, and if you are women quite a great many, are closing this book saying that certain subjects should not be treated publicly.”120 This avoidance, she argued, was ineffective and ignored an issue plaguing society. White Mario claimed that seduction and abandonment, poverty, and the instigation of husbands and parents were the three major reasons why women entered prostitution.121 Revealing a notable level of acceptance, she claimed that through her direct interviews with sex workers, she came to believe that “prostitution in the lowest classes is a trade like any other: there is nothing particular about it; it even allows you to be a good mother to a family.”122 White Mario did not refrain entirely from talking about morality, however, and questioned why people were taught to refrain from stealing, lying, excessive drinking, and gambling, but were not taught “to keep the sensual passions under the control of reason.” She added that mothers needed to speak frankly with their sons about sexual matters and to discourage this behavior and that fathers should stop encouraging it. A  Wanrooij, “‘The Thorns of Love,” 142.  Jessie White Mario, “The Housing of the Poor in Naples,” The Nation, February 12, 1891, No. 1337. 120  White Mario, La Miseria in Napoli, 43. 121  White Mario, 43–44. 122  White Mario, 62. 118 119

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modern society, she argued, was no place for such an old vice.123 White Mario thus recognized systemic injustices against women and boldly wrote about them. After Joseph Nathan’s death in 1881, Sara Nathan contributed to the campaign’s press efforts by founding and funding La Coscienza pubblica alongside her son Ernesto. Both Sara Nathan and Giorgina Saffi contributed articles to the paper.124 In one of Saffi’s articles, she repeated much of her earlier moralistic language and called upon Italian mothers. Women could not tranquilly sit by, she claimed, as the injustices of state-regulated prostitution continued and needed to involve themselves in the issue, even if it was not considered a proper arena for respectable women. As she had in her 1881 speech, Saffi expressed deep concern about the sexual double standard regarding prostitution. Arguing that men were just as tainted by the act as women, she added that the double standard gave the young men of Italy the false impression they were immune to the consequences of sin and vice, much to the detriment of their moral character. Moreover, she brutally condemned the men who participated in prostitution as nearly bestial and far more sinful than the women, whom society condemned as irreparably damaged. Finally, she urged Christians to embrace charity and kindness in their interactions with and views of sex workers. She claimed, To those who with sad foolish pride attack straight on the most heinous of the injured, we repeat the words that the holy soul of the Nazarene offered against the Pharisaic accusers of adultery: Let you who is without sin throw the first stone against her!125

Like many of her counterparts, therefore, Saffi used the rhetoric of religion, morality, and motherhood to engage in radical behavior. Her articles  White Mario, 43–44.  La Coscienza pubblica: Periodico mensile del comitato centrale italiano per la tutela della moralità e dell’igiene pubblica (Sezione italiana della federazione britannica continentale e generale), January 1, 1882, Box 426, File 2, No.3, Central Museum of the Risorgimento in Rome. La Coscienza pubblica published its first issue on January 1, 1882. In 1881, Joseph Nathan had died, leaving his mother his legacy with the duty to continue his work defending sex workers and in the school in Trastevere. Taking 50,000 lire from his legacy, Sara Nathan started the paper. Isastia, Storia di una famiglia del Risorgimento, 205. 125  Giorgina Saffi, “La Questione Morale,” La Coscienza pubblica, May 8, 1882, Box 426, File 4, No. 7, Central Museum of the Risorgimento in Rome. 123 124

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form a larger part of the movement’s challenge to male sexual privilege and refusal to accept male scientific authority.

Conclusion As this chapter has shown, the personal was political for nineteenth-­ century British-Italian feminists. Rather than rejecting marriage or motherhood, these women used those practices to find  agency within the confines of the patriarchal legal system. They pushed the discourses of companionate marriage to its limits by finding spouses who truly supported their ambitions and saw marriage as a partnership toward shared goals. From their platform as mothers, moreover, they pushed for change, not only teaching their children egalitarian, republican, and progressive values, but also challenging the sexual double standard. Their lives illustrate the inextricable intertwining of private family life and public political campaigns, even in an era that celebrated the doctrine of separate spheres. Denied the vote and restricted from other forms of more conventional political participation, women found ways to leverage their domesticity into the political realm and impact society.

CHAPTER 7

From Scrapbooks to State Archives: Memorializing the Radical Risorgimento

After the unification of Italy was complete, Sara Nathan, Jessie White Mario, Mary Chambers, Giorgina Saffi, and Julia Salis Schwabe began to shape its collective memory to ensure that future generations would not forget the activities of their friends and colleagues. They sought to counteract the effects of official state narratives, which they felt unjustly glorified the monarchy, by promoting alternative accounts celebrating the contributions and sacrifices the radical left made to unification. By repurposing the traditionally feminine practice of maintaining familial history, they shaped the formation of national memory. The letters and papers they collected, as well as the archives, edited volumes, and biographical works that appeared as a result, made a lasting impact on the course of history and left a record for future historians to follow. This chapter begins with an overview of women’s traditional activities as collectors of memory, popular narratives of the Risorgimento, and the major opportunities available to nineteenth-century female authors. The following two sections then discuss how Chambers, Nathan, Saffi, White Mario, and Schwabe archived the letters and documents of their former colleagues, friends, and loved ones and later translated, edited, and published collected volumes of these documents. The final section examines how White Mario published histories of the Risorgimento, highlighting how she utilized the sources collected by her network of female colleagues to make her writing more accurate. Throughout, the chapter argues that © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Moore, Revolutionary Domesticity in the Italian Risorgimento, Italian and Italian American Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75545-4_7

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these women understood the importance of public and historical narratives and skillfully used the printed word to ensure that their republican, leftist, and anti-Catholic view of Italy was not forgotten.

Women at the Intersection of Familial and National Memory Women have frequently functioned as vital links in the preservation and continuation of family memories. In his study of early modern British women, historian James Daybell claimed, “traditionally women have been identified as repositories of oral knowledge, the custodians of genealogical, family and household memory and tradition bequeathed from one generation to the next.” He added that women also kept physical documents and cited as evidence furniture specifically constructed for the storage of documentation as well as instructions in household manuals on how to preserve paper and prevent its being eaten by mice. These early modern collections, however, were typically private as women “were often marginalized from formal state and other institutional archives.”1 In the Victorian era, women continued this process of privately collecting family memorabilia and records. In her work on the Priestman-Bright circle of Quakers, historian Sandra Stanley Holton noted the preservation of letters, diaries, and memoirs among its female members. Even for the more radical Quakers, this female practice of memory preservation was still “undertaken originally only for an audience comprising near kin.”2 In contrast, the British-Italian women of this study saw their family history as an important component of their nation’s history and made their family letters available to the public for generations to come. By preserving and publicizing the legacy of their friends, family, and colleagues, these women self-consciously challenged hegemonic narratives that downplayed and erased the radical contribution to the Risorgimento. The Italian monarchy strongly influenced the formation of national identity and revealed its antipathy to leftist radicals like Mazzini through a relative lack of memorialization. Historian Michele Finelli has argued that 1  James Daybell, “Gender, Politics and Archives in Early Modern England,” in Gender and Political Culture in Early Modern Europe, 1400–1800, ed. James Daybell and Svante Norrhem, 2017, 32, 34–35, 40. 2  Sandra Stanley Holton, Quaker Women: Personal Life, Memory and Radicalism in the Lives of Women Friends, 1780–1930 (London; New York: Routledge, 2007), 2–3.

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monuments were particularly important in shaping public perceptions of Italy’s national history given the high levels of illiteracy in the peninsula. Between 1861 and 1911, however, governments and private associations funded just ten monuments dedicated to Mazzini in contrast to over one hundred monuments to Victor Emanuel II and Garibaldi.3 Aurelio Saffi’s radicalism likewise hampered his memorialization. While the cities of Ravenna, Forlì, and Genoa renamed major streets after him, the elites of Bologna found Saffi’s connection to the Roman Republic and attacks on the Catholic Church distasteful and refused to accord him a similar honor. Pressured to memorialize him in some way, they chose a street in a new residential area outside of the city center to rename after the former triumvir. These limited official celebrations and memorialization of Italy’s radical patriots also often manipulated their legacy to conform to a monarchist tradition. Though the state sponsored more memorials of Garibaldi than Mazzini or Saffi, for instance, it did so because it was able to cast Garibaldi as an ardent supporter of a centralized monarchy and disregard his republican and anticlerical sentiments. These narratives largely ignored his roles in the Roman Republic of 1848–49 and his disastrous attempts to take Rome in 1862 and 1867. Instead, they focused on the campaign of 1860–61, retelling it as the key moment in Italian Unification when Garibaldi liberated southern Italy for the Piedmontese monarchy. When Mazzini’s status as a founding father of Italy was later increasingly recognized under the political leadership of Francesco Crispi in the late 1880s and 1890s, his radicalism was similarly watered down.4 Unwilling to accept this erasure of the strong political rivalries between Italy’s most important patriots, leftists like White Mario, Nathan, and Saffi fought to ensure that the democratic, republican, and anticlerical tendencies of Risorgimento leaders were not forgotten. Moreover, by preserving and publishing the memories of their loved ones, these women overcame the limited opportunities available for women writers, particularly in the field of historical and nonfiction writing. Female authors in both Victorian Britain and Liberal Italy generally

3  Michele Finelli, “Mazzini in Italian Historical Memory,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 13, no. 4 (2008): 487–88. 4  Axel Körner, Politics of Culture in Liberal Italy: From Unification to Fascism (New York, NY: Routledge, 2009), 211, 219.

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restricted themselves to fiction or pedagogical writing.5 Though it is difficult to definitively determine rates of female authorship due to the journalistic tradition of anonymity, research indicates that relatively few women worked as journalists for mainstream newspapers and those who did mainly wrote poems, serialized novels, or articles about traditionally female topics, including fashion and gossip.6 Given Italy’s relatively weaker print culture in comparison to Britain, Italian female authors had fewer opportunities, whereas a small number of British women, including Frances Power Cobbe, Harriet Martineau, and George Eliot, had careers writing for mainstream newspapers.7 Other women in both Italy and Britain wrote articles for women’s journals. Though many of these women’s journals also focused on traditionally feminine topics, others like the Giornale delle Donne, La Donna, and the English Woman’s Journal contained articles advocating for the social and cultural advancement of women.8 Despite the popularity of biography as a genre, however, very few women were professional biographers in Britain or Italy.9 By working as authors, editors, archivists, and biographers, therefore, these British-­ Italian activists leveraged their connection to famous figures of the period to claim greater roles for themselves than were typical for the time.

5  Katharine Mitchell, Italian Women Writers: Gender and Everyday Life in Fiction and Journalism, 1870–1910 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), 18. 6  Patriarca, “Journalists and Essayists, 1850–1915,” 151–63. 7  As the century wore on, journalism became a more acceptable profession for Victorian women. In 1841, only 15 women listed themselves as an “author, editor, journalist” on the English census but by 1891, 660 women did so. Hamilton, Frances Power Cobbe and Victorian Feminism; Dallas Liddle, The Dynamics of Genre: Journalism and the Practice of Literature in Mid-Victorian Britain (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009), 46, 98; F. Elizabeth Gray, “Introduction,” in Women in Journalism at the Fin de Siècle: Making a Name for Herself (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 4. 8  Gabriella Romani, Postal Culture: Writing and Reading Letters in Post-Unification Italy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 69; Michelle Elizabeth Tusan, Women Making News: Gender and Journalism in Modern Britain, The History of Communication (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005), 19–20. The English Woman’s Journal was founded in 1858 by Bessie Rayner Parkes and Barbara Smith Bodichon, White Mario’s close friend. 9  Juliette Atkinson, Victorian Biography Reconsidered: A Study of Nineteenth-Century “Hidden” Lives (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 19. Atkinson notes that Elizabeth Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857) was the “first significant biography of a woman by another woman.”

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Archiving the Risorgimento: The Preservation of Memory Nathan, Schwabe, White Mario, and their colleagues expanded upon the traditional practice of creating family archives by collecting the letters and writings of their friends and family and placing those documents into national archives for public consumption. Motivated by a belief in the importance of what they and their friends and family had achieved for Italy, they shared their personal memories on a national stage. By preserving key documents for use by twentieth- and twenty-first-century historians, they ensured the legacy of their loved ones in the historical narrative of the Risorgimento. Family Archives on a National Stage Giorgina Saffi, Julie Salis Schwabe, and Mary Chambers each set up small archives documenting the Risorgimento and their personal or familial contribution to it. Julia Salis Schwabe, for instance, kept papers relevant to her activities in 1860–61. In his 1909 Garibaldi and the Thousand, British historian George Macaulay Trevelyan listed Schwabe’s papers as a source. He claimed these papers, which she had left to her daughter Julia Rosetta Lockwood, included Schwabe’s journal from her visit to Caprera in May 1861, an account by her gardener of his visit to the island in November of that year, and a few poems by Garibaldi.10 In Garibaldi and the Making of Italy, published three years later, Trevelyan again cited papers collected by Schwabe including Medici’s list of arms brought by the Queen of England to Messina, De Rohan’s letter re: formation of the British Legion, Madame Mario’s account of hospitals at Caserta, and Garibaldi’s letter to Bixio from Caprera, November 10, 1860.11 By preserving this small collection of documents, Schwabe ensured that future historians like Trevelyan were aware not only of her personal relationship to Garibaldi and her own contribution to the Risorgimento but also of the activities of other radical women like White Mario.

10  George Macaulay Trevelyan, Garibaldi and the Thousand (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1909), ix. 11  George Macaulay Trevelyan, Garibaldi and the Making of Italy (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1912), 352.

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Mary Chambers also self-consciously created an archive that displayed her role in Italian history. Keeping the memory of Garibaldi’s military conquests alive in Britain, she and her husband displayed a sword given to Colonel Chambers by Garibaldi and the flag Garibaldi had in Montevideo in their home of Putney House. By storing and displaying these items and other assorted Garibaldi memorabilia, the family acted as museum curators in their own limited way. After Garibaldi’s death in 1882, Chambers gave the sword and flag to the city of Rome, ensuring its place in Italian legacy and memory.12 More importantly, Chambers also saved documents that showed her own contribution to the Risorgimento. Her collection included letters from Garibaldi and his family, including sons Menotti and Ricciotti and son-in-law Stefano Canzio, as well as those from other men and women who supported unification, such as Scottish radical John McAdam. She also included further letters, diaries, and newspaper clippings documenting the work she had done forming schools in Sardinia in the 1860s and providing aid to the wounded in 1866. On January 15, 1878, Chambers gave the papers to her close friend Mrs. Arthur Arnold, who later entrusted them to Paul Hyde Thompson. Chambers’ papers are particularly noteworthy as she focused on her own efforts and refused to follow the more common self-effacing model of many of her female contemporaries. In contrast to Chambers’ focus on her own involvement, Giorgina Saffi’s efforts centered on the activities of her husband Aurelio Saffi and were a way for her to memorialize him after his death in 1890. Displaying her belief that the entire family should participate in the maintenance of Aurelio Saffi’s legacy, she involved her sons in the search for documents. In March 1899, Saffi wrote to her son Naldino asking him to find some of his father’s writings from Il Popolo d’Italia, a Neapolitan paper founded in 1860. Saffi explained that finding these articles would aid in her mission to “collect as much as possible all the writings of your Father.”13 Later in 1899, she asked Naldino to look in the archive of the Chamber of Deputies for Aurelio Saffi’s letter of resignation and, if possible, to “find someone who has the courage to steal it for me and send me the original!”14 Saffi’s request suggests the ownership she felt over her husband’s writings as well as her commitment to compiling all of the documents in a single location.  “Garibaldi Relics,” The Pall Mall Gazette, June 8, 1882, Issue 5389.  Giorgina Saffi to Naldino Saffi, 21 March 1899, MCRR, b. 1170, f.32. 14  Giorgina Saffi to Naldino Saffi, 7 May 1899, MCRR, b.1170, f.32. 12 13

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Saffi had also retained much of her private family correspondence, though she only intended for a portion of it to be available in the public archive. The letters between her and Aurelio Saffi prior to their marriage, in particular, she considered “an intimate history and sacred for us,” and were to be buried alongside her (though a copy would be kept in the family archives in case her children wanted to know what had happened). In contrast, she determined that the family correspondence from the over three decades of their marriage would be available to and of interest to the public. The Saffi family heirs kept the papers in the ancestral Saffi home of San Varano in Forlì until 1978 when they were transferred to the Library of the Archiginnasio in Bologna.15 Saffi’s archive reveals her Mazzinian belief that the personal was inextricable from the political and that the private lives, sufferings, and ideals of Italy’s patriots had political value. In a letter published in La Donna in June 1890, two months after her husband’s death, Saffi revealed the mixture of grief and political conviction that motivated her activity. After beginning her essay with Mazzini’s quotation, “I do not believe in Death; I believe in Life,” she claimed that she had a sacred duty to visibly pay homage to Mazzini in this moment when his faith comforted her. She added, “No- my Aurelio is not dead- He lives and will live on always in us and above us blessing us with his love.” Connecting her moment of private grief to her larger hopes for Italy, she hoped the day would come when everyone would believe in Mazzini’s religion of Truth and Humanity and would act in a way deserving of the sacrifices of those apostles, like her husband, who had come before.16 To properly fulfill this sacred duty, Italians needed to not only collect and store important documents, writings, and letters, but also publish them and disseminate their ideas to the younger generation. In a letter to Giorgina Saffi written shortly after Aurelio Saffi’s death, White Mario expressed similar sentiments. She acknowledged their shared grief, saying that it had been eight years since her husband Alberto Mario’s death, and “all the old friends, who had made my life still bearable have joined Alberto in the tomb.” White Mario reassured Saffi, however, that Alberto Mario, Aurelio Saffi, and everyone else they had lost would live on through their writings, thoughts, and aspirations. She called upon Saffi and the other remaining, “disheartened survivors,” to work “with all our  Inventario, BAB, Fondo Saffi, p.4.  “Spigolando: Uno scritto di Giorgina Saffi,” La Donna, June 15, 1890, a. 17, n.8.

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might to collect them and pass them [the writings] on to present and future generations.” In the second portion of the letter, White Mario began to criticize the socialist movement in Italy, claiming that it was pushing Italy to become “anti-humanitarian, anti-national, anti-social, reactionary, selfish,” and accusing it of ignoring the sacrifices the middle class made to achieve Italian unification. She suggested that the problems of the socialist movement could be solved by looking back to the Risorgimento and the lives of men like Aurelio Saffi to see the unity that had once existed between the working and middle classes.17 White Mario thus intertwined the personal, the political, and the historical in her letter. While she addressed and shared Saffi’s grief with touching sentiment, she did not retreat to the private sphere. For her, the personal was political and she could not do her duty to the legacy of her lost loved ones without continuing to immerse herself in modern-day issues. Beyond collecting their own familial papers, Mazzinian women also helped form archives for their friends and colleagues. White Mario worked alongside Agostino Bertani and Francesco Crispi to collect many of Carlo Cattaneo’s papers.18 Alberto Mario was one of Cattaneo’s followers and the couple had been friendly with the Federalist thinker. In an article for the Contemporary Review, White Mario noted that Cattaneo had left his papers the “sole legacy to his English wife, who, surviving him but a few months, left them in turn to her heirs.” Revealing the importance of appropriate funds to these archival projects, she added that Bertani then “purchased them, hoping to find a publisher who, in return for the complete works, copied and classified, will pay a sufficient sum to erect a modest monument to the hero of the ‘Five Days’ in his native city of Milan.”19 She further stressed that “the original manuscripts are destined as a gift by the owner to the Brera Library of Milan- when she shall be worthy of them.”20 White Mario’s language suggests the value she saw in Cattaneo’s papers and the reverence in which she believed they should have been held by the city of Milan. Another of White Mario’s major projects involved collecting and ordering the papers of Bertani himself. Over a thirty-year period, Bertani 17  Rinaldo Sperati, MDCCLVII- MDCCCXCI XXX GIUGNO: A Giorgina Saffi. Gli Amici (Bologna: Tip. Zamorani e Albertazzi, 1891), 85–86. 18  Christopher Duggan, Francesco Crispi, 1818–1901: From Nation to Nationalism (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 94–95, 343. 19  Jessie White Mario, “Carlo Cattaneo,” The Contemporary Review 26 (1875): 466. 20  White Mario, 486.

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periodically sent White Mario papers, letters, and documents pertaining to his work with the request that she would order and store them. Soon after Bertani died in 1886, Aurelio Saffi wrote to Jessie White Mario, sympathizing with her grief and expressing his relief that Bertani had left so many of his papers in White Mario’s care. He argued that no one could turn them into a treasure for the history of the Italian Risorgimento better than she could.21 As with Cattaneo’s, White Mario both needed to treat these papers as an invaluable part of Italy’s legacy and place a firm financial value upon them. Since Bertani had died in poverty, White Mario hoped to sell the cataloged documents to benefit his widowed sister. She explained that This I was enabled to do by making a fourfold catalogue of over 17,000 letters, papers, and documents. These, examined by experienced directors of Archives in Milan, were purchased by the unanimous vote of the Municipal Council for the ‘Tempio del Risorgimento’ in that city, and 30,000 francs were paid to Bertani’s widowed sister. The ‘Bertani Archives’ will be accessible to the public as soon as the authorities have organized their ‘Temple.22

Through her activities as an archivist, therefore, White Mario not only ensured that Bertani’s legacy would live on and that his actions could be examined by future historians, but also helped to financially provide for the family her friend had left behind. Almost all of the collected papers of these women are now available to researchers in Italian archives and have been used in numerous works on Italian Unification and women’s history. The Saffi papers can be found in the Library of the Archiginnasio in Bologna while the Cattaneo and Bertani papers that White Mario helped collect are in the Risorgimento archive in Milan. Moreover, other papers collected by White Mario form “one of the richest” collections at the archive of the Central Museum of the Risorgimento in Rome. Her collection comprises 5505 documents, including many letters between the Marios, Bertani, Cattaneo, the Saffis, and the Nathans. Only one letter between Alberto and Jessie, however, survives.23 Chambers’ papers became available after Paul Hyde Thompson’s  Aurelio Saffi to Jessie White Mario, 29 May 1886, MCRR, b.430, f. 29(4).  Jessie White Mario, “Supplement,” in Autobiography of Giuseppe Garibaldi, by Giuseppe Garibaldi, trans. A. Werner (London: Walter, Smith, and Innes, 1889), viii. 23  “Fondo Jessie White Mario,” Software for Historical Archives Description, http:// www.risorgimento.it//shades/htm/iniziale.php. 21 22

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family gave them to the Central State Archives in Rome in 1998.24 In contrast, Schwabe’s papers do not appear to be available to the public and are still likely in a private collection. Collecting Mazzini’s Letters White Mario, Nathan, and Saffi also collaborated with other Mazzinians on the enormous task of collecting of all of Mazzini’s writings and letters. Working together, they discovered who had kept letters, convinced those people to part with them, received the correspondence, and ordered it into a logical format. The process of collecting Mazzini’s letters to his mother illustrates the techniques used more generally throughout the project. Given the close relationship between Mazzini and his mother, these letters were of particular interest. In a letter to White Mario, Giorgina Saffi wrote that she and Aurelio Saffi considered the letters, “a sacred deposit not to be alluded to or made use of- Only when all will be copied they must be published by themselves, and stand as the best and truest monument of his life irradiated by his sacred & lifelong devotion to his Mother.”25 The Saffis, along with White Mario and Nathan, began the process of collecting these letters by approaching Emilie Ashurst Venturi, to whom Mazzini’s mother had initially entrusted the letters written from 1832 to 1850.26 Though they made many attempts to convince Ashurst Venturi to part with the letters, they were unable to do so until August 1885. At that point, Saffi explained to White Mario, she planned to “set about copying them from the beginning & trying, so far as I shall be able to do it, to arrange them in order of dates.” Saffi also expressed interest in adding to the collection, writing, “what you tell us of your having found the letters to the Mother from 50 to 52 has a far more important & deeper interest for us.”27 The Saffis were likely interested in how these letters provided evidence of Mazzini’s reliance upon his mother as he rebuilt his campaign after the fall of the Roman Republic. As Maria Drago Mazzini died in 1852, these were also the last letters between the pair.

 Inventario, Fondo Chambers, ACS.  Giorgina Saffi to White Mario, 24 August 1885, MCRR, b.430, f. 41(11). 26  Gazzetta, Giorgina Saffi: Contributo alla storia del mazzinianesimo femminile, 119. 27  Giorgina Saffi to Jessie White Mario, 24 August 1885, MCRR, b.430, f. 41(11). 24 25

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In February of 1890, White Mario and Saffi were still working together to find, collect, and publish the remaining letters from Mazzini to his mother. Their difficulty in doing so reveals the confusion that existed among the multitude of Mazzini’s acquaintances and supporters involved in the project. White Mario told Saffi that she had previously received copies of the letters from Adriano Lemmi and had written him to ask if he had the original collection, but doubted that he did. She added that while she knew Ashurst Venturi at one point had other letters, she was unsure if Sara Nathan had received the rest or if they had remained with Mazzini’s sister.28 Responding to White Mario in August of 1890, Saffi revealed that she had finally received “the copies of all the letters of Maz. To his Mother /51 & /52,” from Lemmi and would return White Mario’s copies to her when she returned from England.29 Revealing ongoing delays in the publication, White Mario wrote in an 1898 article for The Nation that “the letters were passed on to the committee, one of whose most active members died in the same year. The surviving members promise to issue the long-looked-for volume from year to year, but it is still a hope deferred.”30 White Mario’s mildly despondent tone suggests the difficulty of these collaborative publication efforts, particularly as more and more of the Risorgimento cohort died. Mazzinians also sometimes struggled to collaborate with those beyond their circle. While attempting to collect Mazzini’s letters to British author George Sand, Sara Nathan faced resistance from Sand and her daughter-­ in-­law Lina Sand Calamatta. After assuring Nathan that Sand was collecting the letters and putting them in order, Calamatta specified that they would only be sending over items they felt were suitable for public viewing. She also asked Nathan to send back all of Sand’s letters to Mazzini so that they could edit out any items not fit to print. Pressuring Nathan to comply with her wishes, Calamatta added that as the letters from Mazzini did not contain dates, Sand could only put them in order with the aid of her letters to Mazzini.31 Nathan was unwilling to allow others to determine

28  Postcard from White Mario to Giorgina Saffi, n.d., BAB, Fondo Saffi, Sezione II, b. 15, f. 3. 29  Giorgina Saffi to Jessie White Mario, 30 August 1890, MCRR, b.430, n.28(4). 30  Jessie White Mario, “Mazzini’s Early Letters, 1834–1840,” The Nation, February 24, 1898, No. 1704. 31  Lina Sand Calamatta to Sara Nathan, 10 April 1873, MCRR. b.138, f.75(1).

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what was fit to print and the women debated the issue.32 Despite this tension, both sides of the correspondence were eventually published.33 Though they worked as private citizens, Saffi, White Mario, and their colleagues frequently discussed placing Mazzini’s documents into a museum, library, or other public institution. In 1885, Saffi wrote that the letters were “a sacred deposit intended one day to be handed over by our children (for we shall probably be dead & gone long before) to a National Archive in Rome, when Rome & Italy will be free & worthy of raising such a Temple to His memory.”34 A year later, White Mario and Aurelio Saffi contemplated selling some of Mazzini’s letters to the Victor Emmanuel Library in Rome, but were disappointed to learn from Ernesto Nathan that the library could not afford them.35 They thus faced many of the same difficulties in finding a home for Mazzini’s letters that they had with the smaller collections of figures like Cattaneo. Despite these obstacles, they remained convinced of the value of their project and of preserving the legacy of their patriotic friends, family, and colleagues for future generations.

Publishing Collections of Letters and Writings White Mario, Nathan, Saffi, and Schwabe were also active in the publication of their collected documents. Rather than privately publishing the works for a small audience of family and friends, as some contemporary women did, they arranged for a large-scale publication. Assuming an editorial role, they prepared the works, recopying, translating when necessary, and adding in explanatory footnotes. Acting as agents, they then managed the contracts, copyrights, and finances for these works and negotiated the business side of their academic labor.

32  Lina Sand Calamatta to Sara Nathan, 24 May 1873, MCRR. b.138, f.75(2); Lina Sand Calamatta to Sara Nathan, 29 June 1873, MCRR. b.138, f.75(4). 33  The letters from Mazzini were published in the national edition of his writings, while Sand’s letters to Mazzini were published in an 1882 volume of her letters. George Sand, George Sand: Correspondance, 1812–1876, Vol. III (Paris: Calmann Lévy, Éditeur, 1882.). 34  Giorgina Saffi to White Mario, 24 August 1885, MCRR, b.430, f. 41(11). 35  White Mario to Dear Friends, Lendinara, 7 February 1886, BAB, Fondo Saffi, Sez, II, b. 16, f. 1.

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The Publication of Mazzini’s Letters White Mario, Saffi, and Nathan first needed to make the texts clear and understandable. Because many of his activities were illegal and required secrecy, Mazzini often wrote in code or with intentionally poor handwriting on thin paper. Saffi and the other Mazzinian women transcribed these furtive scribbles into legible writing and decoded other letters. White Mario claimed that for “the most part I was able to decipher” the letters, but added that without a more complete collection of the various ciphers used by Mazzini, she could not decode them all.36 As participants in many of the events written about in the letters and associates of most of the key players, these women and their colleagues were able to clarify details about the letters and provide explanatory footnotes. They were not always able to find clear answers for their queries, however, within the personal memories of their networks, as indicated by White Mario’s unsuccessful attempt to understand a series of letters from 1840 to 1841 mentioning Giorgina Saffi’s uncle and fellow Mazzinian William Craufurd. The letters noted that Craufurd carried a portrait to Italy, but gave no explanation of what subsequently happened to it. White Mario hoped that Saffi knew more about the painting and in 1884 asked for her advice. Saffi replied, I am sorry I can give you but very slight & unsatisfactory accounts about the portrait you allude to. All I can say is that as far as I remember my uncle (Mr. William Craufurd) must have brought it with him in a visit he paid us at Florence about /40 or /41. I was then between 13 and 14 & I remember perfectly well seeing it (that was the first time I ever heard Maz’s name mentioned).37

Though she was unable to answer White Mario’s specific question, this exchange indicates the close connection the Mazzinians felt to these letters and how they represented not only Italian history but also their personal familial record. Sara Nathan leveraged her connection to Mazzini to assume a leading role in negotiating the financial and contractual aspects of the publication process in a way that was atypical for women of the time. Starting in 1863, Mazzini periodically consulted Nathan about the publication of his works, 36  Jessie White Mario, Scritti scelti di Giuseppe Mazzini. Con note e cenni biografici di Jessie White Va. Mario (Firenze: G.C. Sansoni, Editore, 1901), ix. 37  Giorgina Saffi to Jessie White Mario, 9 December 1884, MCRR, Busta 430, N.41(5).

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relying on her for routine supervision and trusting her to understand and negotiate the financial elements of the process.38 She continued this leadership role even in difficult situations, such as the transfer of Mazzini’s works from Gino Daelli, his original editor who had frequently delayed publication, to a new editor Levino Robecchi. Revealing his trust in Nathan’s business acumen, Mazzini wrote to her in December 1864, “friend, I did not understand what you told me about the contract, the banker…Whatever thing you tell me to do, I will do.”39 The transfer successfully went through in 1865 and Robecchi oversaw publication beginning with the eighth volume of the Scritti.40 Nathan also helped arrange the transfer of this eighth volume’s manuscript to Milan and, when negotiating the deal, made sure that Robecchi paid Mazzini the full 1000 francs promised.41 Moreover, when Robecchi also proved difficult, Nathan helped force a prompt publication of the material.42 Mazzini empowered Nathan and Mazzinian lawyer Giuseppe Marcora to force Robecchi to publish his writings or end the contract.43 Throughout this process, Sara Nathan acted as a competent business agent handling the contractual and financial realities necessary to publish Mazzini’s idealistic works. After Mazzini died in 1872, Nathan assumed a higher level of control over the publication of his works. She accumulated his extant printed material and acquired the rights of publication from Antoinetta Mazzini 38  Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 13  November 1863, Letter 7240  in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 76 (1938), 282; Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, September 1864, Letter 7509  in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 79 (1938), 65; Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 20 March 1866, Letter 8062 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 82 (1939), 38–39. 39  Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 22 December 1864, Letter 7631 in Mazzini, Scritti, 1938, 79:296; Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 6  February 1865, Letter 7699 and Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 28  March 1865, Letter 7762  in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 80 (1939), 54, 171. 40  Isastia, Storia di una famiglia del Risorgimento, 140. 41  Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 27 April 1866, Letter 8101 in Mazzini, Scritti, 1939, 82:93; Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 6 March 1867, Letter 8408, 243–44; Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 25 March 1867, Letter 8421; Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, Lugano, 2 April 1867, Letter 8433; Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 18 April 1867, Letter 8446 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 84 (1940), 278, 304, 326. 42  Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 16  May 1867, Letter 8475  in Mazzini, Scritti, 1940, 85:37. 43  Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 13 January 1868, Letter 8652 and Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 1  February 1868, Letter 8658  in Mazzini, 85:323–24, 332; Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 14 April 1868, Letter 8707 and Giuseppe Mazzini to Sara Nathan, 18 June 1868, Letter 8746 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 87 (1940), 44, 113.

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Mazzuccone, his sister and heir, and from Robecchi, who had remained his editor.44 Lingering problems from the initial contract with Daelli plagued the transaction, causing Nathan to lament to White Mario that, “as yet nothing can be determined owing to that infamous contract with Daelli which we are attempting to settle if possible.”45 By the end of March, however, Robecchi had offered to sell the rights for 24,000 francs and, after consulting with White Mario, Lemmi, and Maurizio Quadrio, Nathan bought them along with Lemmi, Giuseppe Castiglioni, and Sabatino and Pellegrino Rosselli.46 In 1878, she then established the Commissione editrice delle opere di Giuseppe Mazzini (Editing Commission of the Works of Giuseppe Mazzini), which was comprised of Aurelio Saffi, Lemmi, the Rossellis, Castiglioni, and Joseph Nathan.47 Nathan’s family dominated this commission, as the Rosselli brothers and Castiglioni were all Sara Nathan’s sons-in-law, married to her daughters Janet, Harriet, and Adah respectively.48 Nathan, White Mario, and the Saffis experienced occasional complications when obtaining full control and publishing rights to Mazzini’s letters. In 1873, Nathan attempted to obtain Mazzini’s correspondence with Franco-German author Marie D’Agoult, more commonly known by her pen name Daniel Stern. While Stern was interested in helping the Mazzinians publish the letters, she had already signed a contract with a publisher and could not give the rights up for another year.49 White Mario later found herself similarly bound by copyright. In an 1886 letter regarding certain letters by Mazzini that the Saffis wanted to publish, White Mario wrote, “it is a great pity that you should not have them all for the Epistolario & I have no right either to use or to give any extract that I have made from them.” She also expressed concern about the purchase of the letters and their price, noting,

 Isastia, Storia di una famiglia del Risorgimento, 137–42.  Sara Nathan to Jessie White Mario, 28 March 1872, MCRR, b.430, f.22(2). 46  G.M. Castiglioni to Jessie White Mario, 1 January 1885, MCRR, b.430, n. 5. 47  Ciani, Da Mazzini al Campidoglio, 72. Ernesto Nathan was an administrator at first and took Joseph Nathan’s place after his untimely death. 48  Isastia, Storia di una famiglia del Risorgimento, 143–44. 49  Madame D’Agoult to Sara Nathan, 19 February 1873, MCRR, b.138, f. 76(2); Madame D’Agoult to Sara Nathan, 11 August 1873, MCRR, b.138, f. 76(3); Madame D’Agoult to Sara Nathan, 12 December 1873, MCRR, b.138, f. 76(4). 44 45

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they are the only set of letters that give us his daily life between 1830 & 1848. If the owners could only be made to believe that no one would ever pay five thousand francs for them, seeing that all his letters to his mother are extant, with those to Fabrizi, to you, to Bertani, to us, ecc [sic]. They might be glad to let them go for a thousand francs or so. You should speak to Carducci also about them.50

Her suggestion to include Giosué Carducci, a patriotic and anticlerical poet and Freemason, reveals the large circles at work in collecting Mazzini’s letters and supporting his radical legacy. More importantly, White Mario had to acknowledge the difference between her emotional claim to the letter, as one of Mazzini’s friends and collaborators, and the legal claim of the current owners. As the Mazzinians had a limited budget, they also had to take care that they were not spending much more money on collecting the letters than they could get for selling the edited volumes. The various members of the editing commission also disagreed over how many and which projects would be allowed to use Mazzini’s materials. Sara Nathan supported a position of exclusivism, arguing that one of Mazzini’s final wishes was that only a few select people should be in charge of his works, and acted with Maurizio Quadrio to prevent others from publishing his letters.51 In contrast, Aurelio Saffi advocated for a freer circulation of Mazzini’s writings. Later, however, Giorgina Saffi discouraged White Mario from publishing portions of Mazzini’s letters separately from a collection organized by her husband. In 1885, she asked White Mario not to “make a separate use of that part which you now possess.” Saffi wrote that while she did not expect White Mario to part with her originals, she entreated her to think of the collective goal and to see the letters as a shared heritage, writing, “we do not consider what we have in our hands as our individual property.”52 Thus, even within the tight Mazzinian community, there were competing plans and projects for the letters and essays. White Mario’s unsuccessful struggle to obtain the rights to translate Mazzini’s works for an English-speaking audience further illustrates the tensions and rivalries within Mazzinian networks as well as the difficulties 50  Jessie Va. Mario to Dear Friends, Lendinara, 7  February 1886, BAB, Fondo Saffi, Sezione II, b. 16, f. 1. 51  Isastia, Storia di una famiglia del Risorgimento, 140. 52  Giorgina Saffi to Jessie White Mario, 24 August 1885, MCRR, b.430, f. 41(11).

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these women faced in the publication process. In August 1861, White Mario approached Mazzini and Daelli with a proposal to translate and publish a selection of Mazzini’s writings in Britain. Assuring her that she had priority claim on the rights, Mazzini replied, “do not fear that anybody will supersede you.” Later that month, he clarified that Emilie Ashurst Venturi would not compete with White Mario for the task, saying, “Emilie does not dream of translating my writings.”53 Mazzini also wrote to Daelli asking for his support for White Mario’s project.54 When Ashurst Venturi then received a contract in 1862 to translate and publish Mazzini’s Doveri dell’uomo (The Duties of Man), White Mario grew concerned, but Mazzini again assured her that she had a priority claim to the remainder of his writings and, if there was a market for the book and a publisher could be found, he would be pleased to have her translate his works.55 By December of 1862, however, Mazzini had carelessly given the rights of translation for the remaining works to Ashurst Venturi, who then entered into a deal with the publishers Smith and Elder.56 White Mario was outraged to hear that Mazzini had ignored her claim and given the rights to Ashurst Venturi. As Mazzini described in a letter to Matilda Ashurst Biggs, the news inspired “rage, fits, horrors. Jessie declares that she means to do so, that she has a written declaration of mine authorizing her, and she will stand by her own right.” He suggested a partnership, with Ashurst Venturi translating the literary sections and White Mario the political, but it failed as Emilie flatly refuses every copartnership. Jessie partially assents, but declaring at the same time, with an irritated Juno countenance, that, if so, she must somehow correspond for her part with the publisher, ‘as she does not wish to have any intercourse with the other translator.’

Explaining his competing loyalties over the issue to Biggs, he wrote, 53  Giuseppe Mazzini to Jessie White Mario, 2  August 1861, Letter 6362 and Giuseppe Mazzini to Jessie White Mario, 27  August 1861, Letter 6382  in Mazzini, Scritti, 1936, 71:329, 362. 54  Giuseppe Mazzini to Gino Daelli, 2 August 1861, Letter 6412 in Mazzini, 71:411. 55  Giuseppe Mazzini to Jessie White Mario, March 1862, Letter 6559 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 72 (1936), 231; Giuseppe Mazzini to Jessie White Mario, 2 August 1862, Letter 6657 and Giuseppe Mazzini to Jessie White Mario, 3 August 1862, Letter 6658 in Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti, Vol. 73 (1936), 35–40. 56  Giuseppe Mazzini to Jessie White Mario, 24 December 1862, Letter 6790 in Mazzini, Scritti, 1936, 73:290–91.

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If I cared anything about being translated, I would prefer Emilie: besides, the very thought of hurting her makes me really unhappy. Still- there is the scroll- there the formal right: anteriority. Jessie has given feelings, time, life, everything to Italy: I am bound in affection and gratefulness to her too. From Scylla to Carybdis [sic].57

White Mario eventually wrote to Ashurst Venturi conceding the right to translate and redirected her attention to writing her own narratives and biographies.58 The struggle between these women thus reveals how each participant needed to find her own space and role within the larger project. Despite their stalwart dedication, Nathan, Saffi, and White Mario ultimately only oversaw the publication of a small portion of Mazzini’s works. Before his death in 1872, Mazzini had directed the publication of eight volumes of his writings and Ernesto Nathan and Aurelio Saffi edited approximately another dozen. The project was too large, however, to complete without state support, which did not come until 1905. The Italian state first revealed its increasing acceptance of Mazzini in 1903, when it sanctioned a version of the Duties of Man (with all anti-­monarchist passages and the dedication to the working class removed) for use in middle schools. Two years later, it announced plans to subsidize the publication of a national edition of Mazzini’s writings in honor of the centenary of his birth.59 Mario Menghini, a follower of Carducci, directed the publication of this national edition. Ernesto Nathan approved of Menghini’s role and transferred over the collected papers he had inherited from his mother. Between 1906 and 1943, Menghini then edited ninety-nine volumes—sixty-four of letters, thirty of political writings, and five of literary criticism.60 Though these volumes were largely published after the death of Nathan, White Mario, and Saffi, they relied on the work these women had completed and would not have been possible without their efforts.

57  Giuseppe Mazzini to Matilda Biggs, 16  January 1863, Letter 6817  in Mazzini, 73:339–40. 58  Giuseppe Mazzini to Caroline Stansfeld, 1 June 1863, Letter 6992 in Mazzini, Scritti, 1937, 74:257. 59  Mack Smith, Mazzini, 230. 60  Mack Smith, 234.

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Schwabe’s Reminiscences of Richard Cobden Like her Mazzinian counterparts, Julia Salis Schwabe recognized the value of an edited volume and in 1879 published a collection of letters and speeches from her friend and famed proponent of Free Trade Richard Cobden (1804–65) to support her school in Naples. Though Schwabe’s work did not specifically seek to reshape the legacy of the Risorgimento, her experience in publishing provides a useful contrast and context to the publishing experience of the Mazzinian women and reveals how other groups of women also leveraged their closeness to famous historical figures to achieve their political and philanthropic agendas and push beyond the confines of the traditional domestic sphere. Because Cobden was such a well-known figure, Schwabe faced strong competition and difficulties in claiming her authority to write about him and, in fact, had to originally publish her work in French rather than in English. In the preface, Schwabe explained that she was not publishing in England as would be expected for a book on Cobden because a Mr. John Morley, who had begun a larger and more complete biography, had asked her to refrain from publishing her work at the same time.61 Though she attempted to negotiate with Morley, suggesting that he donate 1% of the royalties from his volume to her school in exchange for her giving up the right to publish in English, he refused.62 In the face of his intransigence, Schwabe published the book in French. Attempting to reframe the controversy in positive terms, she called their arrangement a fair compromise, claiming that by publishing in “the universal language!” the public would gain the opportunity to learn about Richard Cobden and her institution would benefit, while the important work of Mr. Morley would not suffer as a result.63 She thus addressed the controversy in terms that flattered her volume and reinforced her authority to speak on Cobden. Reviewers of Schwabe’s work noted the competition with one paper claiming that Morley “exhibited jealousy of a brother author.”64 When Morley published 61  Julia Salis Schwabe, Richard Cobden. Notes Sur Ses Voyages, Correspondances, et Souvenirs. Recueillies Par Mme. Salis Schwabe Avec Une Preface de M.G.  Molinari (Paris: Librairie Guillaumin et Cie, 1879), vi. 62  Richard Cobden et al., eds., The Letters of Richard Cobden (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), xxiv–xxv. 63  Schwabe, Richard Cobden, vi. 64   “What ‘They Say,’” The Blackburn Standard: Darwen Observer, and North-East Lancashire Advertiser, October 11, 1879.

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his The Life of Richard Cobden in 1881, he did not similarly mention Schwabe’s volume in his preface but did cite it when describing the Cobdens’ visit to Spain.65 Despite their fraught history, therefore, Morley retained a level of respect for Schwabe’s book and felt a need to openly recognize it in his own biography. As she was publishing mainly to support her school in Naples, Schwabe also emphasized and exaggerated Cobden’s postmortem support for her institution. In the preface, she stated that her Froebel institute was founded on principles, “completely in harmony with those that M.  Cobden had professed all his life” and likewise claimed that the Cobden children had expressed a desire that she publish the letters and direct the proceeds toward her educational institution in Naples.66 In fact, however, the Cobden daughters had favored Morley’s project and refused her the right to publish the letters in English.67 Historian Sarah Richardson claimed that this decision “led to a considerable cooling of the relationship between Schwabe and the Cobdens in spite of the fact that [Schwabe] had given the family financial and emotional support over the past decade and had also comforted them after the news of their son’s death in Germany.”68 Schwabe’s lack of support from the Cobden family somewhat parallels White Mario’s difficulties with obtaining the rights to translate Mazzini’s letters and suggests that while having a close personal relationship to the subject of an edited volume was potentially beneficial, it in no way guaranteed success. Schwabe also navigated changing biographical conventions between the French publication in 1879 and her republication of the volume in English in 1895.69 Following what historian Juliette Atkinson has called the “enduring trend” to “minimize the presence of the biographer within the work” and to let the subject “speak for himself,” Schwabe utilized a fairly minimal editorial approach in both versions.70 While she included  John Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden (London: Chapman & Hall, 1881), Vol. I, 418.  Schwabe, Richard Cobden, v. 67  Cobden et al., The Letters of Richard Cobden, xxiv. 68  Sarah Richardson, “‘You Know Your Father’s Heart’: The Cobden Sisterhood and the Legacy of Richard Cobden,” in Rethinking Nineteenth-Century Liberalism: Richard Cobden Bicentenary Essays, ed. Anthony Howe, Simon Morgan, and Richard Cobden (Aldershot, England ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006), 231. 69  Julia Salis Schwabe, Reminiscences of Richard Cobden: Compiled by Mrs. Salis Schwabe. With a Preface by Lord Farrer (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1895). 70  Atkinson, Victorian Biography Reconsidered, 24. 65 66

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correspondence to and from her and her husband and was clear about her personal connection to Cobden, she maintained a focus on documents rather than her own narrative. British reviews of the 1879 French volume approved of this style, with the Leeds Mercury claiming, “the collection is allowed to speak for itself, without any comments on the part of the editor; so one cannot do better than follow such an example.”71 By the time Schwabe republished the work in English, however, biographical conventions had changed and critics wanted a more intensive editorial presence.72 The Standard criticized Schwabe by saying, “she does not appear to have taken the least trouble over the preparation of the work for the Press.” The review added that she did not explain references to contemporary affairs, add notes or comments, or weave together the events and items into a cohesive whole appealing to readers, “who can have no personal knowledge of the phase of political and economic questions with which they are concerned.”73 These varying reviews suggest that Schwabe successfully claimed a space for herself as a professional biographer and was not shielded from criticism as a result of her sex. Despite their different choice of subjects and the vastly different scales of their projects, Schwabe and the Mazzinians performed similar labor. They published the private letters, public speeches, and select writings of a personal friend who had achieved far greater public acclaim than they had. Throughout the process, they negotiated relationships with other authors, editors, and publishers and shaped the public perception and historical memory of that departed friend. Moreover, both edited volumes allowed the women to pursue their own agendas: while the Mazzinians wanted to continue Mazzini’s radical legacy, Schwabe hoped to gain support for her educational project in Naples.

Writing the Risorgimento: Shaping the Memory of Italy White Mario also wrote numerous biographies and newspaper articles discussing the Risorgimento and famous figures within it. The subjects of her biographical works included Garibaldi, Mazzini, Cattaneo, Bertani, 71  “Souvenirs of Richard Cobden,” The Leeds Mercury, August 28, 1879, Issue 12912; “Our Foreign Correspondence,” The Leeds Mercury, August 30, 1879, Issue 12914. 72  Atkinson, Victorian Biography Reconsidered, 24. 73  “Books of the Day,” The Standard, May 6, 1895, Issue 22103.

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and Giovanni Nicotera.74 She also wrote articles on the Risorgimento, which were published in Italian papers, like Alberto Mario’s La lega della democrazia, English sources like Fraser’s Magazine, and the U.S.-based The Nation. Positioning herself as a historian and educator, she took the letters and documents collected behind the scenes and used them to correct what she viewed as the erasure and mischaracterization of her radical colleagues in popular narratives. As many historians cited her works, she succeeded in creating a lasting impact. Defending the Legacy of Friends and Colleagues Like many nineteenth-century biographers, White Mario knew her subjects and often wrote about deceased collaborators and friends.75 In the prefaces and dedications of her works, she would occasionally reference this personal connection. On the first page of her Della vita di Giuseppe Mazzini, for instance, White Mario wrote, “your sister in faith dedicates these pages to the memory of those extinct friends Sara Nathan, Elena Casati Sacchi, Maurizio Quadrio and Giuseppe Nathan, worthy disciples of a great master.”76 In her biography of Alberto Mario, included in Giosuè Carducci’s Scritti letterari e artistici di Alberto Mario, she similarly explained that while Alberto Mario had wanted his official thoughts printed, “the mind of Alberto is not all of Alberto.” She thus felt a need to include her own biographical narrative so that readers would know his more intimate side, which she had seen as his wife. Though grief made her recollections somewhat painful, she felt a debt to his memory as well as a desire to relive the happy days of the past.77 White Mario further revealed the personal element of her work by writing obituaries and a short biography about her lesser-known female 74  Jessie White Mario, I Garibaldini in Francia (Rome: Tip. Giovanni Polizzi e Co., 1871); Jessie White Mario, Carlo Cattaneo: Cenni di Jessie White Mario (Cremona: Ronzi e Signori, 1877); Jessie White Mario, Garibaldi e i suoi tempi (Milano: Fratelli Treves, 1884); White Mario, Della vita di Giuseppe Mazzini; White Mario, Agostino Bertani e i suoi tempi; Jessie White Mario, Scritti e discorsi di Agostino Bertani scelti e curati da Jessie White Mario (Florence: Tipografia di G. Barbera, 1890); White Mario, In Memoria di Giovanni Nicotera; White Mario, Scritti scelti di Giuseppe Mazzini. Con note e cenni biografici di Jessie White Va. Mario. 75  Atkinson, Victorian Biography Reconsidered, 22. 76  White Mario, Della Vita di Giuseppe Mazzini, vii. 77  White Mario, “Della Vita di Alberto Mario,” clxxvi–clxxvii.

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friends and collaborators like Sara Nathan and Elena Casati Sacchi.78 Nathan’s daughter Janet Nathan Rosselli had originally asked Gualberta Beccari, the editor of La Donna, to write about her mother, but claimed that “no one liked it: I cannot have it printed” and asked White Mario to write the biography instead.79 Even when White Mario’s busy schedule delayed her progress on the project, she retained the support of Nathan’s children. In a letter to her from 1887, Ernesto Nathan wrote that they would accept the delays because, “I don’t believe any one else could write it with the same appreciation and devotion as you.”80 Unfortunately, this biography was never published. By writing obituaries for Casati Sacchi and Nathan, however, White Mario documented their lives in a smaller way that did not require a large reading audience and still ensured there was a written record of their actions. White Mario combined a personal connection to her source material with her strong political conviction in the continuing importance of the principles and causes her subjects espoused. As most of her biographical work was written decades after the unification of Italy, she wanted to ensure that younger Italians did not forget the struggles of those who came before. In her articles for Fraser’s Magazine in 1877, she lamented that there was not enough good history of the Risorgimento, claiming, Unfortunately, we think, for the world, those Italians who have effected most for the liberation of their country rarely speak or write (now that Italy is free and united) of the dreary journey performed, the dangers and hardships encountered, the errors committed, the apparently insurmountable obstacles overcome, from the time when they first willed to be a nation until the goal was reached.81

She then dedicated her Scritti e discorsi di Agostino Bertani to the youth of Italy whom she hoped would remember what men like Bertani, Saffi, Benedetto Cairoli, and Achille Sacchi had sacrificed for them and that Italy was “a fatherland conquered with blood, with sacrifices, with the virtues of your fathers.”82 White Mario viewed the patriotic education she 78  White Mario, “Sara Nathan,” 2; White Mario, “Elena Casati Sacchi,” La lega della democrazia (Roma), a.III, n.120, April 30, 1882, p.2. 79  Janet Nathan to Jessie White Mario, 10 March MCRR, b.430, f.3(2). 80  Ernesto Nathan to Jessie White Mario, 8 December 1887, MCRR, b.434, f.33(6). 81  White Mario, “Experience of Ambulances,” 768, 773. 82  White Mario, Scritti e discorsi di Agostino Bertani scelti e curati da Jessie White Mario, v.

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provided in her works as a necessary corrective to the more conservative lessons most Italians had received. In the introduction to In Memoria di Giovanni Nicotera, she explicitly placed the blame for widespread ignorance of Risorgimento heroes on official state narratives, which prioritized the role of the King, of Cavour, and of Piedmont, arguing, “never do you see in the schools or the colleges portraits of Garibaldi or Mazzini.”83 Maintaining a belief in the usefulness of Mazzini’s principles, she also argued in her 1901 volume of his selected writings that accurate knowledge of Mazzini’s life and work could serve as a guide and inspiration for the new nation.84 Rather than merely preserving Mazzini’s memory in a purely academic sense, therefore, she hoped that younger generations reading about his ideas and actions would be compelled to put his principles into practice. Another one of her goals was to provide a more accurate and sympathetic portrayal of the figures of the left. Her works on Bertani were intended to clear his name from charges of partisan inefficiency and obstructionism.85 The accounts of Garibaldi, moreover, reveal her attempt to make the patriot’s personal life conform to popular bourgeois norms. Twenty-firstcentury Garibaldi biographer Lucy Riall has claimed that Anita Garibaldi was “an eighteen-year-old married woman when he met her, whom he more or less seized from her home and ran off with, and whom he married only in 1842, two years after the birth of their first child.” She added that “gaucho values, together with romantic socialist beliefs” may have led to Garibaldi’s controversial decision.86 In contrast, in a supplement to an English translation of his autobiography published in 1889, White Mario defended his actions and argued that the couple married as soon as it was safe and feasible. She claimed that Garibaldi would have married Anita immediately upon meeting her, “if he could have obtained the consent of her family is certain; but her father, a proud, severe man, accustomed to implicit obedience, had betrothed his daughter to a very wealthy and very old man.” Similarly protecting Anita’s virtue, White Mario wrote, Could Anita have hoped either by open opposition or by persuasion, to regain her freedom, naturally she would have preferred that her lover should  White Mario, In Memoria di Giovanni Nicotera, vi–vii.  White Mario, Scritti scelti di Giuseppe Mazzini. Con note e cenni biografici di Jessie White Va. Mario, v. 85  White Mario, Agostino Bertani e i suoi tempi, Vol. I, xii-xiv. 86  Riall, Garibaldi, 43. 83 84

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have wedded her and taken her from her home to his heart in proper orthodox fashion; but she knew that she would have been compelled to marry the old man whom she had never loved and now abhorred, so she fled with her true love on board the schooner Itaparica, on which, and in the desert wilds, throughout dangerous battles and still more dreadful separations, they lived their true life, and Menotti was born.87

White Mario’s retelling of this patriotic love story emphasized the romance of their love, the strength of their connection, and their commitment to each other. She also carefully noted that each was desirous of following conventional morality, casting them as star-crossed lovers who married as soon as reasonably possible. In her retelling of the Garibaldi’s life in South America, White Mario also defended Anita Garibaldi against claims of bigamy, which would have implied that her marriage to Garibaldi was invalid. White Mario claimed, “no doubt was ever entertained among his Montevidean friends and comrades that Anita was Garibaldi’s lawful wife- such he always calls her in his letters to his friends and to his mother; so Cuneo speaks of her in the biography published in 1850.” Adding further proof, she claimed that in 1881, Antonini y Diez, then Ambassador of Uruguay at Rome, heard of the rumor and “at once procured an authentic copy of the certificate of the marriage and of their children’s birth.” White Mario included this marriage certificate and its English translation, which claimed that the Garibaldis were married in the parish church of San Francesco d’Assisi in Montevideo on March 26, 1842, in her text.88 Through her defense of Anita Garibaldi’s marital and sexual practices, White Mario thereby ensured that Anita Garibaldi’s legacy as a brave and fearless Amazon who fought alongside her husband in his battles for freedom and democracy would not be overshadowed by potential scandal. Her careful discussion of Garibaldi’s illegitimate children provides yet another example of how White Mario addressed and attempted to justify the more questionable aspects of his personal life. Garibaldi had eight recognized children from three different women, at least five of whom were illegitimate at birth. His firstborn, Menotti, was born in 1840, two years before he married Anita Garibaldi. They would go on to have three more children, Rosa, Teresa, and Ricciotti, his only children born within a  White Mario, “Supplement,” 44–45.  White Mario, 46–47.

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marriage. In 1859, a decade after Anita’s death, Garibaldi had a daughter, also named Anita, with his housekeeper Battistina Ravello. Rather than completely avoiding Garibaldi’s relationship with Ravello, she addressed it in veiled terms, claiming, When, however, this and that had been granted, Garibaldi considered himself bound to accept all the responsibility and the consequences. In May, 1859, a peasant woman of Nice bore him a child, which he caused immediately to be legitimatized and was duly registered as Anita Garibaldi.

White Mario added that Garibaldi was willing to marry Ravello, but his friends opposed it and then in January 1860 he married Giuseppina Raimondi.89 Garibaldi’s marriage to Raimondi was an immediate failure and did not result in any children. It did, however, keep him from marrying Francesca Armosino, originally his daughter Teresa’s wet-nurse and mother of his last three children.90 Displaying a similar desire to explain and protect Garibaldi’s legacy in her discussion of his failed marriage to Raimondi and delayed marriage to Armosino, White Mario claimed that the Raimondi marriage was immediately disavowed “for reasons best left between her and himself.” Again stressing Garibaldi’s desire to conform to societal mores, she added that Garibaldi left the marriage alone until he decided to marry Armosino and legitimize their children, which he did less than two weeks after the Raimondi marriage was annulled.91 White Mario’s deep friendship with and loyalty to both Mazzini and Garibaldi occasionally made her task difficult, as the relationship between the two men was characterized as much by conflict as by cooperation. In her biographical works, White Mario had to document these disagreements without condemning either man unjustly. Her supplement to the English translation of Garibaldi’s autobiography makes this struggle apparent. In the supplement, White Mario directly contradicted the claim Garibaldi made that the Mazzinians were to blame for the failures of Mentana. She added that she had evidence to prove this was not true, for when Garibaldi had first unjustly blamed the failure of Mentana on Mazzinians, she immediately set out to correct the misapprehension by  White Mario, 450.  Garibaldi’s children with Armosino were Clelia (born 1867), Rosa (born 1869), and Manlio (born 1873). 91  White Mario, “Supplement,” 450. 89 90

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collecting written testimony “from the chiefs of the campaign.”92 Revealing her anxiety over how to deal with their disagreement, she wrote to Aurelio Saffi in 1889 asking “have you received the 3 vols. in English of Garibaldi’s Autobiography & my supplement? In the latter I wish you to see how I have treated the question Garibaldi-Mazzini.”93 As someone else who was familiar with the events and who had written about Mazzini, Aurelio Saffi could provide emotional and intellectual support during White Mario’s writing process and understood the difficulties she faced in writing about a personal friend while maintaining one’s own clear political agenda. The Business of Female Authorship Like Sara Nathan, White Mario understood the business of publishing, representing herself in contract negotiations and navigating a sometimes-­ hostile market for academic works on leftist radicals. Though she was overall a successful and fairly prolific author, she occasionally struggled to find a publisher for her smaller projects. In the 1870s, she had found an English market for a short piece on Cattaneo, but could not find a publisher for his collected writings.94 In her 1875 article on him in the Contemporary Review, she complained about the limited publishing opportunities available not only to her as a biographer but also to other political and philosophical thinkers like Cattaneo. She claimed, it is next to impossible to find a publisher for a new book; at best, he will offer the author a few copies in exchange for the copyright. Hence it is scarcely surprising that even as Carlo Cattaneo was unable, during his lifetime, to publish his numerous literary, political, economical, and philosophical writings in a complete edition, so, as he died in poverty, they still remain scattered in the newspapers and reviews in which they were printed, and that heaps of precious manuscripts are still sealed letters for the public.95

92  White Mario, 391. White Mario added that many Garibaldians knew Garibaldi was in error with his belief, but they did not correct him and claimed, “This reluctance ever to contradict Garibaldi when he made an erroneous statement, or to ‘stand up for the absent,’ was a common weakness among many Garibaldians, and is much to be deplored.” 93  White Mario to Aurelio Saffi, Lendinara 19 June 1889, BAB, Fondo Saffi, Sezione II, b. 16, f. 1. 94  White Mario, “Carlo Cattaneo,” 1875; White Mario, Carlo Cattaneo: Cenni di Jessie White Mario. 95  White Mario, “Carlo Cattaneo,” 1875, 466.

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Noting that Cattaneo, near the end of his life, had plans to retire from public life and focus on writing a philosophical treatise, she lamented, But, alas! the struggle for daily bread marred this, his last desire. His letters would make one weep but that he shared the common lot of all the heroic pioneers of Italy’s redemption- Mazzini, Manin, Tommaseo, Acerbi, Dal’Ongaro, and the nameless myriads who gave all to their country- their own and their children’s all- nor took from her sufficient to pay for a span of earth in which to rest at last.

She added, “we cannot but lament the necessity which has deprived posterity of so many noble works which would have been completed and perfected but for the brain-scorching process of living from hand to mouth.”96 While White Mario focused her criticisms in this piece on the economic hardships faced by male writers, her own experiences and struggles as an author certainly impacted her perspective. In an article for The Nation, celebrating the eventual publication of Cattaneo’s writings, White Mario also blamed political opposition for their difficulties in finding a publisher. She argued, never a publisher could be found to risk an edition of the political writings and the letters. The Milanese Consoteria- I use the word in preference to that of ‘Moderates,’ of whom there have been and are many honest, intelligent, patriotic, spread all over Italy- had created such a sorry legend around his name that it had become a synonym for disunion, a return to the communes and little republics of the Middle Ages, the extermination of Piedmont, etc. No inducement- the offer of the manuscripts gratis, put in order, copied, and ready for the press- could persuade a single publisher to risk the mere expenses of printing a single volume.

In the face of this lack of support, some of Cattaneo’s friends, including Enrico Cernuschi, Gabriele Rosa, and Niccola Mameli, paid the expenses themselves.97 Conscious of her status as a British woman writing about Italian heroes, White Mario consistently defended her right to tell these stories. When the Italian translation of her work on Cattaneo appeared in 1877, she included a preface acknowledging that some people might have found it  White Mario, 482.  Jessie White Mario, “Carlo Cattaneo,” The Nation, July 18, 1901, No. 1881.

96 97

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an unjustifiable presumption, “on the part of a foreigner to make known to Italians one of the greatest thinkers to have honored Italy in this century,” and clarifying that this was merely a translation of an earlier piece intended for a British public.98 Similarly, in her introduction to Agostino Bertani e i suoi tempi, White Mario noted that while some may have considered it arrogant for someone, “who was not born in Italy to narrate the lives, facts, and things of Italy,” her writings on Cattaneo were translated from English, her biographies of Garibaldi and Mazzini were written at the invitation of Italian editors, and this life of Bertani stemmed from the urging of his friends and his sister Luigia.99 In doing so, she emphasized her personal connection and contribution to the Risorgimento and right to compose these works. White Mario also had to overcome the prejudices she faced as a female scholar. Few women had careers as historians in the nineteenth century and the new professional historians of the era, who considered history a social science that should be based in an academic institution and doubted non-affiliated academics, heavily criticized their work. White Mario was susceptible to these criticisms and self-consciously emphasized her awareness of the need for good sources. In her articles for Fraser’s Magazine, she admitted that the history of the volunteer ambulances was difficult to write because of a lack of sources, explaining, “one has to trust to memory, to personal observation, to notes dotted down between one battle and another, and to scant answers given to direct questions put between one campaign and another to the various chiefs.” She added that she had looked over a list of 139 books on ambulances and hospitals published during the last twenty years (1857–77) and only one pamphlet talks about “an ambulance episode during one of our campaigns.” She thought this was an intolerable gap, as “it might be assumed that Italian volunteers were either never wounded or that they were never tended.”100 Through this discussion of the existing scholarship, White Mario thereby revealed her mastery of the subject and argued for the significance of her own research. To overcome these occasional gaps in official documentation and provide accuracy to her narratives, White Mario utilized Mazzinian networks and their personal archives. While composing her Life of Mazzini  White Mario, Carlo Cattaneo: Cenni di Jessie White Mario, iii.  White Mario, Agostino Bertani e i suoi tempi, Vol. I, xii-xiv. 100  White Mario, “Experience of Ambulances,” 768, 773. 98 99

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in October 1885, for example, she wrote the Saffis asking about extracts of letters from Mazzini to his mother. She believed the contents of these letters were essential to her argument, claiming, these extracts of letters to his mother, which become weekly towards the end, are the sole indexes of this work between the hour of his triumph [in] 49 to the break up of the republican pact [in] 53. Why should I deprive the very numerous readers of this link?101

Giorgina Saffi responded in December 1885, writing that she had looked over certain of the letters from 1849 and had copied out “such extracts as I thought might suit your purpose- relating to facts etc.”102 Saffi thus acted behind the scenes to help support White Mario’s public efforts at memory formation. White Mario’s personal connection to the Risorgimento and its leaders as well as her access to archival documentation ultimately gave her biographical writings credibility. The Treves brothers chose White Mario to write the Garibaldi biography, in part, because she was well-versed in the ideology of the radical Risorgimento, and because she had many documents and knew where to find others.103 Reviews of her work similarly noted its scholarly value. The Nation’s review of White Mario’s In memoria di Giovanni Nicotera claimed that the volume “is, though a loving tribute from an intimate friend and correspondent, not a mere eulogy,” and provided necessary information about Italian history.104 Many late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historians also recognized the value of her works. In his multi-volume series L’Italia degli Italiani, Carlo Tivaroni frequently cited White Mario’s volumes on Mazzini, Garibaldi, and Bertani as did historian Primo Levi (1853–1917), who referred to her volume on Bertani as “her miraculous book.”105 Even British historian George Macaulay Trevelyan praised White Mario for her use of archives,  White Mario to Aurelio and Giorgina Saffi, 15 October 15, 1885, MCRR, b.430, n. 33.  Giorgina Saffi to Jessie White Mario, 8 December 1885, MCRR, b.430, f.41(12). 103  Certini, Jessie White Mario, 80. 104  William Roscoe Thayer, “Jessie W.  Mario’s In Memoria Di Giovanni Nicotera,” The Nation, August 22, 1895, No. 1573. 105  Carlo Tivaroni, L’Italia degli Italiani. Vol.I, 1849–1859 (Torino: Roux Frassati & Co., 1895); Carlo Tivaroni, L’Italia degli Italiani. Vol.II, 1859–1866 (Torino: Roux Frassati & Co., 1896); Carlo Tivaroni, L’Italia degli Italiani. Vol.III, 1866–1870 (Torino: Roux Frassati & Co., 1897); Primo Levi, Luigi Orlando e i suoi fratelli per la Patria e per l’industria italiana (Roma: Tipografia del Senato, 1898). 101 102

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calling her Agostino Bertani e i suoi tempi, “the best book written by the authoress. Especially important for Bertani’s correspondence with Garibaldi and other chief actors in 1860, copiously selected from the Archivio Bertani, Milan.”106 The widespread citation of White Mario’s work reveals that she was able to achieve her original goal of maintaining the memory of the radical left’s contribution to the Risorgimento while simultaneously establishing a name for herself as a respected author and historian.

Conclusion Overall, this chapter has shown how Jessie White Mario, Sara Nathan, Giorgina Saffi, Julia Salis Schwabe, and Mary Chambers repurposed the traditionally feminine practice of family memory preservation to create archives and shape the historical narrative of the Risorgimento. Unlike many women of their time, who maintained records for domestic consumption, these women believed the lives and actions of their family, close friends, and collaborators were of historical significance and made their collections, letters, and writings part of the public record. Through these acts of memory preservation, they ensured that the actions of their colleagues would not be forgotten or skewed by later unscrupulous or antagonistic archivists. Finally, they were active in the field of nonfiction writing at a time when few women did so, adopting positions of responsibility and authority in negotiations with publishers, revealing a knowledge of copyright law and book markets, and even authoring their own volumes.

 Trevelyan, Garibaldi and the Making of Italy, 352.

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CHAPTER 8

Conclusion: Continuing the Legacy After 1890

Roughly thirty years after its creation, the Italian state had finally developed a sufficient structure and bureaucracy to assume greater control of private agencies. Though a triumph and sign of growth for the state itself, this shift greatly limited the possibilities for non-state actors, particularly women, to play a leading role in those organizations. Chambers, Schwabe, and Nathan had each exerted their influence on Italian society through the charitable sphere. In this private realm, their wealth and personal connections outweighed their status as women, and they were able to fully participate in the running and managing of these institutions. With the passage of the Crispi Law of July 17, 1890 (n.6972), however, the state assumed control of these private charitable organizations, or opere pie, and thereby limited the power of women to act within them.1 The rise of male-­ dominated governance effectively excluded from power these middle-class women, once able to use their status and wealth to act in local and personal networks. Middle-class British women who led voluntary societies had previously suffered a similar fate when state agencies began to administer the majority of poor relief work in the 1850s.2 Their displacement is indicative of a larger pattern in which elite women lost their relative power with increasing male suffrage and the welfare state. 1 2

 Quine, 49.  Morris, “Voluntary Societies and British Urban Elites,” 95–118.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Moore, Revolutionary Domesticity in the Italian Risorgimento, Italian and Italian American Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75545-4_8

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White Mario, Saffi, and Schwabe also struggled to adapt to the rise of mass politics and large political parties, including socialist and feminist organizations.3 The 1890s witnessed the rise of Italy’s first organized women’s movement, led by the Lega promotrice degli interessi femminili (League for the Promotion of Women’s Interests), which overshadowed the smaller and less explicitly feminist activities of earlier supporters of female emancipation like Saffi or White Mario.4 Though they had individually pushed forward the cause of women’s rights and had been involved in feminist networks through their work against state-regulated prostitution, they were not actively involved in the later work of the organized Italian feminist movement and did not draw support from these efforts. The rising popularity of Marxist socialism, with its focus on class conflict and complete disavowal of religion, also proved particularly problematic for these British-Italian reforming women. The formation of the Italian Socialist Party in 1892 signaled a clear departure from the more spiritual version of socialism grounded in class cooperation favored by Schwabe, White Mario, and Saffi. A distaste for scientific socialism put these British-Italian reformers at odds with younger feminist women, such as leading Italian socialist Anna Kuliscioff (1854–1925). Despite their apparent differences, Kuliscioff had much in common with Saffi, White Mario, and Schwabe. A fellow cosmopolitan, she was born in Russia and spent many years in Switzerland before moving to Italy. Like White Mario had unsuccessfully tried in the 1850s, Kuliscioff pursued advanced education in medicine and graduated from the University of Naples in 1886. Her romantic and professional partnership with Filippo Turati, moreover, paralleled the transnational companionate marriages of White Mario and Saffi. In contrast to her Risorgimento-era predecessors, however, Kuliscioff could not envision achieving the advancement of women and the betterment of society without a complete socialist reordering.5 Kuliscioff’s rejection of both more moderate and Mazzinian principles illustrates the youth defection to 3  As it deals with the period after 1890, this conclusion will only focus on the work of White Mario, Saffi, and Schwabe. The particular struggles of this period were not an issue for either Chambers, who died in 1881, or Nathan, who died the following year. 4  The organization was founded in 1881 by Anna Maria Mozzoni, but made less of an impact in its earlier years. Nicolaci, Il “Coraggio del vostro diritto,” 73. 5  Rosalia Colombo Ascari, “Feminism and Socialism in Anna Kuliscioff’s Writings,” in Mothers of Invention: Women, Italian Fascism, and Culture, ed. Robin Pickering-Iazzi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), 4–6.

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socialism, and later communism and anarchism. Mazzinian reformers found themselves pushed away into a corner, deemed too radical by the right and too conservative for the left. Finally, the liberal and Mazzinian vision of cosmopolitan nationalism gave way to an increasingly competitive ethnic nationalism that co-­opted the language of patriotism for its aggressive expansionist ends. While Italy began its imperial project within the first decade of its creation, purchasing the Bay of Assab on the Red Sea through the Rubattino Shipping Company in 1869, it did not formally declare Assab a colony until 1882.6 Throughout the 1880s, it slowly expanded its possessions along the coast from Assab to Massawa, though interest in colonialism remained limited. Italy’s overseas empire then received a stunning victory in 1889 when Italy signed the Treaty of Uccialli with the new Ethiopian Emperor Menelik. The treaty recognized Italy’s right to large areas of territory inland from Massawa and Article 17 seemed to promise a protectorate over Ethiopia. In return, Italy guaranteed Menelik assistance in bringing his empire fully under control. Establishing a hold on the newly acquired territory, a Royal Decree announced the formation of a new Italian colony of Eritrea on January 1, 1890. Excitement over the treaty and the new colony brought out the jingoism of the Italian people and those on the right and left expressed support for expansion in Africa as a solution to Italy’s poverty and emigration problems.7 Italians thus began to favor expansion and colonization as an alternative to the internal reforms and civilizing mission promoted by women like White Mario. Though Chambers and Nathan died in 1881 and 1882, respectively, Schwabe, Saffi, and White Mario kept working after 1890, despite struggles to adapt to the changing Italian society. Schwabe was personally involved in the running of her Frobel Institute in Naples and, as she grew older, she had the school incorporated into an ente morale (corporate body) to ensure that it would continue after her death. On March 13, 1887, a Royal Decree declared the institution an ente morale named the Victor Emmanuel II International Froebel Institute. It received the Ex-Collegio Medico in perpetuity, with an annual subsidy of 12,400 lire from the Ministry of Public Instruction. Schwabe also endowed the

6  Mark I.  Choate, Emigrant Nation: The Making of Italy Abroad (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2008), 30. 7  Duggan, Francesco Crispi, 1818–1901, 336.

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institution with 50,000 francs.8 The interest from these funds along with increased revenue from fees made the institute self-supporting by 1890.9 The incorporation caused problems for Adele von Portugall, however, who found her authority as the institute’s directress in jeopardy. Portugall lamented that the incorporation led to an increase in bureaucracy and lack of efficiency and criticized the president for being overly dictatorial and introducing favoritism. She also accused the new president of attempting to eliminate foreign elements from the institute, including Portugall herself, and substituting its particular Froebelian curriculum for a more standard one found in most Italian schools. She attempted to resign twice, but stayed when Schwabe, to whom she felt a great loyalty, refused to accept her departure.10 After Schwabe’s death in 1896, however, the Institute became unbearable for Portugall and she finally completed her resignation.11 Her difficulties under the male-dominated governance of the ente morale reveal how state-control of these private institutions led to the exclusion of women from positions of power. The fate of Schwabe’s school likewise shows how her individual vision could not survive in an era of a more controlling state that enforced gender hierarchies and more traditional values. Despite the legal steps she took to preserve her institution and its legacy, Schwabe’s school changed in character and alienated one of its most devoted employees. Jessie White Mario and Giorgina Saffi both lived into the twentieth century, until 1906 and 1911 respectively. Though they curtailed their activities slightly as they aged, they continued to carry on the legacy of the Risorgimento for their deceased loved ones. Taking advantage of her position as one of the few remaining Mazzinians, Saffi published multiple volumes of Mazzini and Aurelio Saffi’s writings and letters. Some of these projects were fairly small. In 1892, she translated into Italian an introduction Mazzini had written for an English translation of George Sand’s Letters from a Traveler.12 Others, however, were quite extensive. Working with Giuseppe Mazzatinti, the director of the library in Forlì, and fellow Mazzinian Luigi Minuti, she organized the publication of the fourteen  Portugall, “Work and Workers,” 518.  Froebel, Froebel’s Letters on the Kindergarten, 198. 10  Portugall, “Forty Years a Kindergartener,” 345–46. 11  Portugall, 347. 12  Giuseppe Mazzini, Prefazione alle lettere di un viaggiatore di George Sand, trans. Giorgina Saffi (Firenze: Tipografia commerciale, 1892), 3–4. 8 9

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volumes of the Ricordi e Scritti di Aurelio Saffi from 1892 to 1905.13 Assuming a greater authorial presence, she wrote a preface for a reissued version of Aurelio Saffi’s Vita di Mazzini in 1904 in which she explained that she had the work reprinted so the children of Italy could learn about their national heroes.14 Though these smaller works would pale in comparison to the massive national edition of Mazzini’s works that Mario Menghini began in 1905, they allowed Saffi to share what she viewed as Mazzini’s and her family’s contribution to Italy. White Mario also worked on her Risorgimento histories up until her death in 1906. Her final work was The Birth of Modern Italy, a history of the Italian state from 1830 to 1864. Though White Mario had died before finishing the work, publisher T.  Fisher Unwin believed the volume was worth completing due to her unique perspective and found Duke Litta-­ Visconti-­Arese to edit the work along with help from Mrs. E.F. Richards, a close friend of Emilie Ashurst Venturi.15 She also left a volume on the “Life of Sir James Stansfeld, and Mazzini and the Friends of Italy in England” three-quarters finished. Her sustained commitment to publishing, despite numerous illnesses and a simultaneous career teaching English literature at the Normal School in Florence to support herself, reveals her deep-set conviction that her writing served a greater purpose in society. The volume on Britain, moreover, shows her continued transnationality and connection to her homeland. Writing about the Stansfeld-Mazzini volume in her final letter to The Nation, White Mario claimed it was designed to celebrate “the pioneers who rendered possible the Liberal triumph of to-day” and hoped that by telling the stories of Liberal predecessors she could argue against current policies like protectionism.16 She thus maintained her steadfast promotion of political reform through historical remembrance. 13  Bugani, 23–24; Mazzatinti, Lettere di Giuseppe Mazzini ad Aurelio Saffi e alla Famiglia Craufurd (1850–1872). Saffi also worked to help collect the letters necessary for the publication of Mazzatinti’s 1905 volume of her family’s letters, oversaw the publication of Mazzini’s 1847 work Byron e Goethe and the Lettere inedite di Giuseppe Mazzini e M.me X, and translated articles Mazzini had published in English during his exile into Italian for national edition of his writings. 14  Aurelio Saffi, Giuseppe Mazzini. Compendio biografico, Novamente pubblicato da Giorgina Saffi (Firenze: G. Barbèra, 1904). 15  Jessie White Mario, The Birth of Modern Italy, vi. 16  William P.  Garrison, “Jessie White Mario,” The Nation, March 15, 1906, Vol. 82, No. 2124.

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Revolutionary Domesticity Not only Italian men but also non-Catholic and non-Italian women participated in the creation and development of the Italian state. By embracing their identities as unexpected revolutionaries rather than rejecting their femininity, maternity, and transnational status, Chambers, Nathan, Saffi, Schwabe, and White Mario were able to make a unique and significant contribution to the Risorgimento. They took what would be counted as weaknesses, including their consumerism, emotions, children, and seemingly apolitical status, and made them strengths. They used the tools of philanthropy, including bazaars, public subscriptions, and private networks, to actively participate in foreign politics and pushed the boundaries of domesticity and language of humanitarian charity to its limits by supporting violent republican revolution in Italy. Embracing the private sphere as an arena for change, they sought to reform rather than eliminate the practices that were so often used to confine and oppress women. They also utilized the traditionally feminine practice of familial memory preservation to create archives and ensure that their republican, leftist, and anti-­Catholic view of Italy was not forgotten. The activities of these British-Italian reformers reveal how Victorian feminists used domestic, missionary, and imperial rhetoric to transgress established gender norms and achieve their most radical goals. As transnational subjects, they were able to emphasize their British identity to overcome some of the lingering disadvantages of being female in the public sphere. Similarly, while they were denied the vote in both Britain and Italy and could not directly impact legislation in either country, they utilized their individual wealth and connections to form independent educational institutions and shape Italian educational policy. From their platform as mothers, moreover, they pushed for change, not only teaching their children egalitarian, republican, and progressive values, but also challenging the sexual double standard. They likewise utilized their Protestant identities and the assumption that women were the more moral and religious gender to their advantage and participated in nineteenth-century Europe’s culture wars. Using their transnational identities and understanding of British antiCatholicism, they skillfully repackaged the Risorgimento for British audiences and played a pivotal role in the Risorgimento’s propaganda campaign. Though other Italian patriots also used anti-Catholic language to appeal to Protestants abroad, Jessie White Mario, Mary Chambers,

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Giorgina Saffi, and the other British-Italian women were better at appealing to British Protestants because of their shared heritage. As transnational agents, moreover, they made connections between the needs of Italian patriots and the desires of British Protestants. Jessie White Mario, Giorgina Saffi, Sara Nathan, Julia Salis Schwabe, and Mary Chambers advanced the cause of female emancipation by embracing their femininity and maternity and repurposing traditionally domestic behaviors for revolutionary ends. Denied the vote and restricted from other more conventional forms of political participation, women found ways to leverage their domesticity into the political realm and make an impact in society.

Bibliography

Archives Consulted Bologna- Biblioteca Comnunale dell’Archiginnasio Milan- Archivio Museo Risorgimento di Milano Rome- Museo Centrale Risorgimento di Roma Rome-Archivio Centrale dello Stato

Newspapers, Journals, and Other Periodical Sources Italian Papers La Civiltà Cattolica, Cornelia: rivista letteraria educativa dedicata principalmente agli interessi morali e materiali delle donne italiane La Coscienza pubblica La donna: periodico morale e istruttivo Il Dovere La Lega della democrazia La rassegna femminile La Voce delle donne: giornale politico, scientific, letterario

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Index1

A Abolitionism (slavery), 207 Abolitionism (state-regulated prostitution) The British, Continental, and General Federation for the Abolition of Government Regulation of Prostitution, 200, 202 congresses & conferences, 202–206 the English Ladies’ Association against the Acts, 200 La Coscienza Pubblica, 185, 205, 210, 210n124 The Shield, 201, 206, 207 Albisetti, James, 152 Alternative families, 35–44 Ambrosoli, Carlo, 204 Anderson, Bonnie, 14, 126 Anglicanism, 102, 122, 161, 197

Anti-Catholicism anticlericalism, 122 British women, 9 Conservative branch of, 102 culture wars, 137, 166 education, 166, 170 lectures, 112 liberal branch of, 9, 102 literature, 118, 122 orientalization of Catholicism, 101–102 propaganda, 8, 103 Risorgimento, 8, 99, 102, 117, 118, 137, 165, 250 Roman question, 131 Aporti, Ferrante, 142 Archive creation, 217, 243, 250 Armosino, Francesca, 16, 41, 238, 238n90 Arquati, Giuditta Tavani, 147, 147n34

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 D. Moore, Revolutionary Domesticity in the Italian Risorgimento, Italian and Italian American Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75545-4

269

270 

INDEX

Arrivabene, Carlo, 120 Ashurst, William, 73 Atkinson, Juliette, 216n9, 232 Austria and Austrian Empire Austro-Prussian War (1866), 5 Italian antipathy, 120 Trieste, 136–137 B Banking, 18, 56, 60, 83 Banti, Alberto Mario, 36 Bassi, Ugo, 111, 112 Basso, Giovanni, 123 Bazley, Mary, 76 Beccari, Gualberta Adelaide, 33, 235 Bellazzi, Federico, 35n17, 136 Benedettini, Carlotta, 47 Bertani, Agostino, 39, 95, 96, 98, 108, 133, 201n90, 202, 204, 205, 220, 221, 228, 233, 235, 236, 241–243 anti-Catholicism, 133 Carlo Cattaneo papers, 220 head of sanitary services (1866), 95 La lega della democrazia, 234 personal archive, 220 services as family doctor, 39 state-regulated prostitution, 205 Bertani, Luigia, 241 Bibles, 89, 162 Biggs, Joseph, 38 Biggs, Matilda Ashurst, 34n13, 38, 84, 229 Biography, 2, 20, 27, 73, 107, 108, 118, 183, 189n39, 200, 216, 216n9, 230–235, 237, 241, 242 Blackwell, Emily, 196 Bodichon, Barbara Smith, 13, 40, 191, 200n87, 202, 204, 216n8 Bolt, Christine, 14 Borghi, Antoinetta, 154, 154n60, 154n61, 155

Borutta, Manuel, 101 Bourbons, 4, 50n71, 51, 72, 125 Britain anti-Catholicism, 7, 8, 89, 102, 111, 112, 123, 125, 130, 133, 165, 250 citizenship and subjecthood, 44, 46, 103, 104, 178 Contagious Diseases Acts (CDA), 199–201 exiles, 32, 172, 196n72 Mediterranean empire, 8, 139 religious instruction, 161 support for the Risorgimento, 10, 71, 117, 137 British and Foreign School Society, 161 Brown, Yeats, 52, 53n82 Brusco Onnis, Lina, 39 Brusco Onnis, Vincenzo, 39, 56, 118, 201, 202 Butler, Josephine, 80, 127, 200, 200n87, 202–204, 207, 208 C Cairoli, Benedetto, 201n90, 235 Campanella, Federico, 201 Canepa, Andrew, 109 Canti, Gustavo, 147 Canzio, Stefano, 218 Carducci, Giosué, 228, 230, 234 Carlyle, Jane Welsh, 15 Carlyle, Thomas, 129 Carter, Nick, 7, 8 Casati Law (1859), 140, 141, 160 Casati, Luisa Riva, 47 Castiglioni, Giuseppe, 227 Catholicism anticlericalism, 11, 101 education, 141, 160, 161, 166, 167 institution of, 167 opposition to nationalism, 4

 INDEX 

orientalization, 101 prostitution, 208 Cattaneo, Carlo, 57, 116, 187, 220, 221, 224, 233, 239–241 Cavour, Camillo de, 3n5, 4, 5, 10, 46, 52, 53n82, 125, 126, 130, 199, 236 Cernuschi, Enrico, 240 Certini, Rossella, 20 Chambers, Edward, 190 Chambers, Evelyn, 190 Chambers, John Hickenbotham, 23, 40, 41, 45, 90, 98, 123, 154, 154n61, 184, 184n21, 218 educational work, 154 fundraising, 23 Garibaldi and Italian Unity, 23, 184, 184n21 marriage, 23, 154n61 Chambers, Lydia, 190 Chambers, Mary, 2, 16, 20, 23–27, 23n64, 23n65, 25n67, 33, 40–42, 45, 85–90, 93, 95–98, 97n113, 103, 107, 109, 113, 114, 116, 117, 123, 124, 132, 133, 140, 142, 144–145, 148, 150–159, 154n60, 154n61, 161, 162, 165, 166, 168–170, 172–174, 180, 180n9, 184, 189n38, 190–192, 213, 217, 218, 221, 243, 245, 246n3, 247, 250, 251 anti-Catholicism, 87, 103, 117, 133, 165, 170 archive creation, 218, 243 birth and background, 23n64 educational work in England, 23 educational work in Italy, 25, 144 fundraising, 2, 23, 98, 145 marriage, 23 motherhood, 190, 192 nursing, 96 propaganda work, 88, 132 publishing, 23, 96, 98, 123, 168

271

Charity, see Fundraising Ciceroacchio (Angelo Brunetti), 111 Citizenship and subjecthood derivative nationality, 103 privileges of British nationality, 27, 44, 45, 63 Civilizing mission anti-Catholicism, 8–11, 101–102, 140, 168–169 intervention in Italy, 2, 8–11 Protestant women, 2, 11 Risorgimento, 10, 139 Clarendon, Earl of, 53 Clark, Christopher, 8, 101 Cobbe, Frances Power, 13, 216 Cobden, Richard, 23, 76, 198, 231–233 Colley, Linda, 17, 109 Colonialism British Empire, 9 internal colonialism, 10 Italian colonialism, 10, 247 Consumerism, 30–35, 250 Contracts, 18, 148, 154, 154n61, 169, 224, 226, 227, 229, 239 Coppino Law (1877), 141, 161 Copyright, 224, 227, 239, 243 Corn Laws, 13 Correale, Francesco, 160 Correnti, Cesare, 155 Cosmopolitan(ism), 7, 11, 17, 104, 137, 140, 246, 247 Coverture, 18 Cowen, Joseph, 73, 126 Craufurd, George, 22 Craufurd, Kate, 44, 68, 84, 105, 112, 117, 181 Craufurd, Sir John, 21, 22, 181, 182 Craufurd, Sophia, 68, 82, 84 Craufurd, William, 225 Crimean War, The, 77, 78, 94

272 

INDEX

Crispi, Francesco, 215, 220 Crispi Law of 1890, 25, 245 Culture wars, 101, 110, 137, 138, 165–168, 250 D Daelli, Gino, 226, 227, 229 Dal Lago, Enrico, 10 D’Amelia, Marina, 37 Daniels, Elizabeth, 20 Dante Alighieri, 182 Daybell, James, 214 Della Torre, Maria, 16 Dessalles, Matilde, 205 Di Lorenzo, Enrichetta, 179 Dissenters, 102, 161 Domesticity, 12, 15, 17, 34, 35, 65, 77, 190, 199, 211, 250–251 Doni, Elena, 5 Durant, Flora, 80, 98 E Education adult education, 146 asili infantili, 142 governesses, 197 industrial schools, 23, 144–145, 151, 158, 173 kindergarten, 11, 24, 142–144, 148–150, 157, 158n77, 167, 173 religious education, 159–168 sala Mazzini, 146 scuola Mazzini, 146 secular education, 141, 162, 163, 166, 168 teacher training schools, 143 Victor Emmanuel II International Froebel Institute, 143, 247 Education Act of 1870, 161 Eliot, George, 216

Ellis, William, 151 Emancipation, 109 Emotions emotional support networks, 2, 33, 35–44 emotions and political engagement, 2, 6, 29, 36–44, 54–55, 57–58, 62 See also Grief and mourning Eritrea, 247 Ethiopia, 247 Evangelical Continental Society, 133 Evangelicalism, 67, 133, 190 Exile experience emotional bonds, 2, 29, 35–40, 42–44, 47, 57–58 political philosophy, 6–7 poverty, 32, 34, 43 F Falchi, Federica, 37 Fazio, Maddalena Giunti, 82 Female emancipation, see Feminism Feminism, 2, 14, 129, 150, 195, 198, 206, 246, 251 complementarity of the sexes, 14, 15, 18 education, 13, 148–150 legal oppression of women, 15–18, 103–104, 154n61, 178–179, 190, 199 maiden name retention, 188 parenting, 15, 27, 177–178, 189, 193–196, 198, 206–208, 210–211 state-regulated prostitution, 206, 246 See also Women Finances investment, 68 newspapers & publishing, 117

 INDEX 

revolutionary conspiracy, 19, 55–56, 59–60, 68–70, 72–77, 82–86, 90 Finelli, Michele, 214 Foldi, Angelina, 85 Folliero De Luna, Aurelia Cimino, 150, 171 Forlì, 107, 215, 219, 248 Forster, Edward William, 161 France antipathy among the Italian Left, 125 role in Italian unification, 22 Roman Republic of 1849, 4, 22, 48, 111, 125, 147n34, 215, 222 Franco-Prussian War, 5 Freemasonry, 165, 195, 228 Friends of Italy, 107 Froebel, Friedrich, 142, 144, 149, 151, 167, 173, 197 Fuller, Margaret, 36 Fundraising, 11, 17, 24, 31, 65, 67–69, 75, 83, 93, 94, 152, 158, 159, 171, 173, 184, 210, 250 bazaars, 2, 65–99 concerts, 152 donor relations, 69 Garibaldi Yacht Fund, 88, 89 Italian Ladies’ National Philanthropic Association, 170 Ladies’ Association for the Relief of the Sick and Wounded and the Widows and Orphans of Garibaldi’s Followers, and the Sufferers at Palermo and Other Places, 74 potential illegality, 73 sanitary fairs, 94 subscriptions, 2 10,000 Rifles Campaign, 68, 69, 75 Fusinato, Erminia Fuà, 171

273

G Gain, Jane, 40 Garibaldi, Anita (child), 236, 238 Garibaldi, Anita (wife), 4, 41, 111, 236–238 Garibaldi, Clelia, 238n90 Garibaldi Fund, 72, 73 Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 1–7, 3n5, 4n6, 9, 16, 22–24, 26, 32, 33, 35–37, 39–42, 48, 59n102, 61, 65, 70–78, 80–83, 87–95, 97, 98, 108, 111–114, 116, 118–124, 126, 127, 130, 132–136, 144, 145, 147n34, 153, 155, 162, 170–172, 187, 198, 200, 215, 217, 218, 233, 236–238, 238n90, 239n92, 241–243 anti-clericalism, 195 Aspromonte (1862), 172 bigamy, 237 Caprera, 1, 23, 32, 33, 80, 90–92, 132, 217 Clelia, 122 educational work, 136 feminism, 2, 16 Franco-Prussian War, 5 illegitimate children, 237 legacy, 218, 238 Mentana (1867), 238 publishing career, 112 Third War of Italian Independence (1866), 66 The Thousand (1861), 4, 48, 72, 78 visit to England (1864), 40, 88, 132 yacht, 86–91, 117, 151, 184 Garibaldi Italian Unity Committee, 72, 126 Garibaldi, Manlio, 41, 238n90 Garibaldi, Menotti, 41, 162, 218, 237 Garibaldi, Ricciotti, 39–42, 218, 238 Garibaldi, Rosa, 238, 238n90 Garibaldi, Teresa, 238 Gaskell, Elizabeth, 76

274 

INDEX

Gasparina, Caterina, 47 Gavazzi, Alessandro, 112 Genoa, 11, 38, 45–52, 54, 70, 72, 115, 127, 182, 205, 215 Germany emigrants, 22, 55, 103–104, 106, 110, 143, 196–197 German confederation, 137 kindergarten, 152 Kulturkampf, 110 Giannelli, Andrea, 84 Gift-giving as acts of homage, 32–33, 86–92 as acts of political patronage, 30 social networks, 29–34 Gleadle, Kathryn, 13, 110 Goldschmidt, Johanna, 196 Goldsmid, Louisa Sophia, 76 Grant Duff, Anna, 76 Grief and mourning legacies, 220 loss of a child, 192 widowhood, 149, 189, 219–220, 234 Guidi, Laura, 5–6 Gusmaroli, Luigi, 145 H Hawkes, Sidney, 38 Hennessy, John Pope, 73, 74 Herzen, Alexander, 133, 143, 196n72 Herzen, Olga, 196n72, 198 Hoge, Jane, 95 Holyoake, George Jacob, 68, 73, 124, 132 Hudson, Sir James, 52, 53, 53n82 I Identity British identity, 27, 60, 63, 99, 106, 109, 250

Italian identity, 27, 99 Jewish identity, 109 maternal identity, 42 Protestant identity, 20, 250 transnational identity, 20, 102–111, 137, 250 Industrial schools, 23, 144–145, 151, 158, 173 Isabella, Maurizio, 6 Isastia, Anna Maria, 20, 118 Italian Ladies’ Philanthropic Association, 24, 170 Italy citizenship, 18, 104, 178 colonialism, 10, 17, 247 educational policy, 25, 139, 148, 175, 250 Liberal Italy, 139, 160, 215 southern question, 10 state-regulated prostitution, 19, 22, 27, 105, 127, 177–211, 246 tense relationship with Papacy, 5, 19, 69, 131, 133 unification (see Risorgimento) weakness of state, 25, 27, 139 J Jewsbury, Geraldine, 183 Judaism anti-Semitism, 109 Jewish emancipation, 109 Jewish identities, 109 K Kaiser, Wolfram, 8, 101 Kindergarten, 11, 24, 142–144, 148–150, 152, 157, 158n77, 167, 173 Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, 4, 72 Kuliscioff, Anna, 26, 246 Kulturkampf, 110

 INDEX 

L Lang, Gideon S., 76 Lega promotrice degli interessi femminili, 26, 246 Lemmi, Adriano, 223, 227 Letters archiving, 194 collection, 27, 192, 218, 224–233, 243 secrecy, 225 Levi, Primo, 242 Levine, Philippa, 13, 19, 180n8, 191, 226 Liberalism, 10, 197 Linati, Filippo, 201 Lind Goldschmidt, Jenny, 152 Lioy, Paolo, 160 Livermore, Mary, 95 Liverpool, 86, 88, 89, 131, 135 London, 21, 22, 40, 42, 45, 55, 57, 82, 84, 89, 93, 106, 107, 149, 151, 152, 173, 181, 196, 196n72 Lowe, Robert, 161 Lugano, 39, 45, 56–58, 60–62, 78, 83 M Mameli, Niccola, 240 Manchester, 1, 23, 76, 106, 110, 134, 134n138, 135, 143, 149, 173, 184 Mantegazza, Laura Solera, 82 Marcora, Giuseppe, 226 Marcus, Sharon, 178 Mario, Alberto, 22, 36, 38–40, 49, 50, 54, 55, 78, 103, 105, 108, 179, 180, 180n9, 182, 183, 185–188, 191, 196, 219–221, 234 death, 54, 55, 186, 219 La lega della democrazia, 105, 196, 234 marriage, 49, 103, 180n9, 182, 185, 186, 191

275

pisacane conspiracy, 54, 55, 182 The Red Shirt, 182, 185 Marriage civil marriage, 178 companionate marriage, 177–211, 246 legal inequality of, 178 Married Women’s Property Act of 1870, 13, 18, 178 Married Women’s Property Act of 1882, 18, 178 Marsh, Caroline Crane, 94 Marsh, George Perkins, 94 Martineau, Harriet, 216 Mattei, Tito, 152 Mauss, Marcel, 31 Mayo, Isabella Fyvie, 41, 132 Mazzini, Giuseppe, 2, 3, 16, 21, 22, 33, 37, 43, 44, 57, 90, 163, 193, 229, 230, 233, 249n13 Duties of Man, 163, 193, 229, 230 education, 146, 233 exile, 2, 3, 22, 33, 43, 44, 57, 90, 249n13 female friendships, 37 feminism, 2, 16, 37 fundraising, 83 gift-giving, 33 language of duties, 163–164, 193–195 memory of, 233, 234 newspapers, 59, 126, 233 relationship with the Nathan children, 42–44, 59 religion, 111, 164, 219 revolutionary conspiracy, 120 Scritti, 226 state-regulated prostitution, 201 Mazzini, Maria Drago, 15, 37, 222, 223 McAdam, John, 90, 113, 114, 218 McCarthy, Kathleen, 94 Medical education, 22

276 

INDEX

Medici, Giacomo, 78, 217 Mediterranean, 8, 9, 108, 139 Memory collection and preservation, 2 memorials, 83, 86–90, 92, 99, 185, 193, 195, 215 memory collection and preservation, 214, 217–224, 243, 250 museum creation, The, 218–222, 224 national memory, 213–216 obituaries, 57–58, 107–108, 164, 185, 234–235 Menelik, Emperor, 247 Menghini, Mario, 230, 249 Meridionalism, see Southern Question Meuricoffre, Harriet, 80, 200, 200n87 Meysenbug, Malwida, 143, 196–198, 196n72 Mignogna, Nicola, 45 Milner-Gibson, Arethusa, 15 Minuti, Luigi, 248 Monsell, William, 74 Morley, John, 231, 232 Mosto, Antonio, 84 Motherhood, 14, 17, 35, 140, 148, 177–211 Mozzoni, Anna Maria, 26n70, 33, 204, 246n4 N Naples, 4, 5, 11, 24, 49, 72, 78–80, 107, 110, 130, 143–145, 149, 150, 152, 155, 156, 162, 163, 167, 169–172, 200, 200n87, 209, 231–233, 247 Napoleon, Louis (Emperor Napoleon III), 3n5, 4, 59, 59n102, 85, 93, 125, 126, 130, 131 antipathy among radicals, 125 assassination attempt, 59

role in Italian Unification, 4, 93, 125–126, 130 Roman question, 131 Roman Republic, 4, 125 Nathan, Adah (Adah Nathan Castiglioni), 146, 147, 165, 190, 227 Nathan, Adolfo, 56, 83, 190 Nathan, Alfred, 190 Nathan, Benjamin, 190 Nathan, David, 45, 56, 60, 60n105, 83, 165, 190, 195 arrest, 60 banking connections, 60, 83 Nathan, Ernesto, 44, 57, 104, 106, 147, 165, 190, 195, 210, 224, 227n47, 230, 235 anti-clericalism, 195 Mazzinian press, 147 revolutionary conspiracy, 57 state-regulated prostitution, 105, 210 Nathan, Harriet (Harriet Nathan Rosselli), 34, 190, 227 Nathan, Henry, 190 Nathan, Janet (Janet Nathan Rosselli), 34, 183, 190, 194, 227, 235 Nathan, Joseph, 35, 42, 43, 58, 60–62, 190, 192, 200–202, 200n88, 210, 210n124, 227, 227n47 arrest, 43, 60 closeness to Mazzini, 58 Giuseppe Nathan, 234 revolutionary conspiracy, 62, 192 state-regulated prostitution, 192, 200, 201, 210 Nathan, Moses Meyer, 21, 32, 42, 44, 55, 104, 106, 108, 183, 184, 189, 189n39, 189n40 death, 21, 34, 42 financial aid to revolutionaries, 55

 INDEX 

gift-giving, 32 marriage, 21, 106, 183 naturalization, 108 Nathan, Philip, 190 Nathan, Sara Levi, 2, 19–22, 25n67, 30, 32–35, 38, 39, 42–45, 55–62, 66, 68, 70, 82–84, 103, 104, 106–108, 117, 140, 142, 146–148, 150, 163, 165, 174, 177, 180, 180n7, 183, 184, 189, 189n39, 190, 192–195, 198, 200, 201, 210, 210n124, 213, 223, 225–228, 234, 235, 239, 243, 251 anti-Catholicism, 69 birth and background, 106, 190 conspiracies, 55, 57, 59 educational work in Italy, 201 fundraising, 2, 66, 68, 69, 82, 83 Jewish identity, 109 marriage, 21, 104, 106, 180, 180n7, 183, 189, 227 motherhood, 35, 140, 148, 194, 198 newspapers, 202 publishing, 228, 239 slander against, 58 state-regulated prostitution, 105, 178, 198, 210 Nathan, Walter, 43, 190 National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church, 161 Newspapers & magazines British Publications; The Contemporary Review, 220, 239; The Daily News, 46, 70, 74, 76, 79, 96, 112, 113, 115, 116, 120, 130, 145; The English Woman’s Journal, 216; The Englishwoman’s Review,

277

165, 168; Fraser’s Magazine, 234, 235, 241; The Liverpool Mercury, 70, 86, 87, 123, 127; The Morning Post, 75, 80; Punch, 129; The Standard, 96, 97, 114, 168, 172, 233; Victoria Magazine, 166 Italian Publications; Cornelia, 150, 159, 171; Il Dovere, 115, 118, 202; Il Popolo d’Italia, 80, 112, 218; Italia del Popolo, 53n82, 112, 117; Italia e Popolo, 49, 113; La Civiltà Cattolica, 47, 58, 109, 118, 157, 187; La Coscienza Pubblica, 185, 205, 210; La Donna, 107, 110, 147, 150, 164, 206, 216, 219, 235; La lega della democrazia, 57, 105, 107, 108, 196, 201, 234; L’Emancipazione, 118, 164; L’Unità Italiana, 85, 112, 117, 118; Pensiero ed Azione, 112, 113, 115, 117; Roma del Popolo, 147 U.S. Publications; The Nation, 95, 115, 187, 223, 234, 240, 242, 249 Nicotera, Gaetana Poerio, 82 Nicotera, Giovanni, 234 Nightingale, Florence, 77, 78 Nursing Crimean War, 77, 78, 94 importance of supplies, 72, 78, 95, 96 war nursing, 77, 78 O O’Connor, Maura, 9, 168 Offen, Karen, 14 Orientalism, 16, 168–170 Orsini, Felice, 48, 118–120, 127

278 

INDEX

P Pacifism, 13, 67 Pallavicini, Francesco, 201 Pallavicino Trivulzio, Anna, 171 Pantaleo, Giovanni, 116 Papal States, the, 4 Parés, Giuseppe Antonio, 170 Park, Charles, 50 Party of Action, 58 Passports, 29–63 Paternity searches, 203, 204 Patriarca, Silvana, 6 Patronage, 30, 75, 84, 116, 122 Pesman, Ros, 104, 181, 188 Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich, 141, 142, 197 Phipson, Thomas Lamb, 152 Piedmont, Kingdom of, 3n5, 4, 10, 45, 72, 81, 115, 125, 135, 140, 199n83, 236, 240 Pierantoni, Augusto, 172 Pisacane, Carlo, 46–55, 115, 127, 179, 182, 190n44 Pisacane uprising, 22, 38 Pisanelli Code, 18, 178, 190 Pius IX, Pope, 4, 108n25, 208 alliance with Austria, 4, 111, 119 alliance with France, 4–5, 131, 133 opposition to Italian nationalism, 4–5, 25, 85, 131, 133, 149, 208 Roman Question, 4–5, 85, 108n25, 131, 133, 149 Roman Republic of 1849, 4 state-regulated prostitution, 208 Portelli, Sergio, 121 Portugall, Adele von, 149, 150, 167, 169, 171, 248 Prandina, G. B., 97 Prisons and imprisonment

Alberto Mario (1857), 22, 54, 180n9, 182 Austrian Dungeons, 118, 120, 127 David Nathan (1866), 60 Felice Orsini (1854), 118 Giuseppe Garibaldi (1867), 81, 113, 121, 215 Jessie White Mario (1857), 22, 46, 51, 60, 115, 182 Joseph Nathan (1869), 43, 60–62 Watt and Park (1857), 50 Propaganda lectures, 85 memoirs, 118 newspapers, 111–118, 202 Prostitution, 19, 22, 27, 105, 127, 158n74, 177–211, 246 Protestant Electoral Union, 116 Publishing contracts, 226, 227, 229, 239 editing, 123, 213, 226, 227, 230, 231, 233, 240, 249n13 propaganda, 103, 114 translation, 51, 103, 111–114, 138, 185, 213, 229, 236, 249n13 Q Quadrio, Maurizio, 38, 43, 47, 56–58, 62, 118, 163, 164, 193, 201, 227, 228, 234 Quarati, Giuseppe, 172 R Radice, Benedetto, 163 Raimondi, Giuseppina, 41, 238 Raponi, Danilo, 7, 8

 INDEX 

Rappoport, Jill, 31 Rattazzi, Urbano, 52 Ravello, Battistina, 16, 238 Realpolitik, 5, 93–98 Reeve, Emily, 24n66, 143, 150 Reill, Dominique, 137 Republican motherhood, 14, 148, 177–211 Revolution encoded messages, 51 finances, 55, 59, 117, 159 fundraising, 27, 63, 65–99, 159 Pisacane uprising, 22, 38 secret meetings, 3, 48 surveillance, 44, 46, 58 trust and emotional bonds, 2, 29, 37, 44, 48, 55–57, 62 Reynolds, K. D., 75, 131, 132 Riall, Lucy, 8–9, 16, 36n19, 38n25, 73, 111, 236 Ricciardi, Giuseppe, 144n13, 171, 172 Richards, E. F., 249 Richardson, John, 87, 89 Richardson, Sarah, 13, 87, 89, 90, 232 Ripari, Pietro, 79 Risorgimento British support for, 7, 36 elitism, 139 female fighters, 4, 6, 111, 147, 237 memory of, 189, 218, 233–243 as Piedmontese conquest, 10 propaganda, 8, 22, 27, 103, 111, 124, 137, 250 radical wing, 111 Second War of Italian Independence (1859), 72 Third War of Italian Independence (1866), 66

See also Exile experience; Fundraising; Revolution; Rome; Venice Robecchi, Levino, 226, 227 Roberts, Emma, 16, 22, 33n9, 39 Roggero, Luigi, 47, 54 Rome conquest of, 5, 81, 82, 84, 85n67, 133 fundraising for, 82, 83 Roman Republic of 1849, 215 Trastevere, 146, 147, 210n124 Rosa, Gabriele, 238, 238n90, 240 Rosselli family, 163 Rosselli, Nello, 21, 38, 48, 59 Rosselli, Pellegrino, 227 Rosselli, Sabatino, 227 Rubattino Shipping Company, 247 Ruffini, Jacopo, 49 Russel Gurney, Emelia, 76 Russell, John, 74 S Sacchi, Achille, 55, 179, 235 Sacchi, Ada, 191, 196 Sacchi, Beatrice, 196 Sacchi, Elena Casati, 39, 82, 185, 191–193, 195, 196, 205, 234, 235 anticlericalism, 195 birth and background, 47 fundraising, 82 legacy, 195 marriage, 179, 185, 191 motherhood, 194 Pisacane conspiracy, 54, 55 state-regulated prostitution, 185 Sacchi, Maria, 196 Sacchi, Michelangelo, 191 Saffi, Attilio, 190

279

280 

INDEX

Saffi, Aurelio, 4, 22, 38, 47, 69, 103, 112, 113, 117, 118, 125, 179–181, 184, 185, 188, 193–195, 201, 205–207, 209, 215, 218–225, 227, 228, 230, 239, 242, 248, 249 Fatherhood, 184–185, 193–195 lectures, 69, 117, 125 legacy, 22, 194, 218, 220, 221, 248 marriage, 38, 103, 179–181, 184, 185, 219 publications, 223, 224, 230, 248 Roman Republic, 4, 22, 181, 215, 222 state-regulated prostitution, 22, 205, 206 Saffi, Carlo (Balilla), 190 Saffi, Emilio, 190, 192, 192n52 Saffi, Giorgina, 2, 13, 15, 19, 20, 22, 24, 26, 30, 34, 37, 39, 45, 66, 68, 73, 82–84, 103–105, 107, 109, 112, 113, 117, 177–181, 184, 185, 188–194, 190n44, 198, 205, 210, 213, 217–219, 222, 225, 228, 242, 243, 246–248, 251 anti-Catholicism, 250 archive creation, 213, 217–219, 243 birth and background, 190 fundraising, 66, 68, 82 marriage, 22, 38, 103, 104, 177, 180, 184, 185, 189, 246 motherhood, 178, 198 publishing, 22, 228 state-regulated prostitution, 19, 22, 105, 178, 205, 210 translation, 248 Saffi, Rinaldo, 190 Sand Calamatta, Lina, 223 Sand, George, 223, 248 Schneider, Jane, 10, 10n27 Schrader-Breymann, Henriette, 149 Schwabe Catherine, 190

Schwabe, Arthur, 190 Schwabe, Edmund, 190 Schwabe, Frederick, 190 Schwabe, George, 190 Schwabe, Harriet, 190 Schwabe, Julia Rosetta, 190 Schwabe, Julia Salis, 1, 2, 11, 16, 20, 23–27, 24n66, 30, 32, 35, 35n17, 36, 42, 76, 91, 92, 96, 103, 104, 106, 107, 109, 110, 114, 132, 134–137, 134n138, 140, 142–145, 148–152, 154n61, 155–159, 161–163, 165–174, 177, 180, 180n7, 183, 184, 189–192, 196–198, 213, 217, 222, 224, 231–233, 243, 245–248, 246n3, 250, 251 birth and background, 106, 107, 136, 190 death, 248 educational work in England, 106 educational work in Italy, 202 emigration, 247 fundraising, 151, 152, 159 gift-giving, 1–2, 30, 32, 35, 91–92 Jewish heritage, 136 marriage, 20, 103, 106, 110, 144, 154n61, 173, 180, 183, 184, 189, 197, 246 motherhood, 140, 177, 178, 198 patron relations, 32, 143 philanthropic work, 134, 198 political advice, 20, 25n67, 30, 32, 42, 76, 91, 131, 134–136, 167, 168, 174, 183, 189, 231, 233, 246 publishing, 224, 231, 232 Unitarianism, 20, 23, 109, 110 Schwegman, Marjan, 36 Scialoja, Antonio, 155 Seeley, Charles, 132 Seely, Mary, 132, 133, 133n131 Serafini, Maria Alimonda, 47, 47n62

 INDEX 

Serao, Matilde, 105 Sexual double standard, 199, 206, 210, 211, 250 Shaen, William, 73, 203 Shaftesbury, Countess of (Emily Ashley-Cooper), 75, 76, 84, 96, 136 Shanley, Mary, 18 Siemens, Karl William, 152 Socialism, 156–159, 196n72, 246, 247 Italian Socialist Party, 26, 246 Social purity movements, 207 South America, 4, 237 Southern Question, 10 Sperino, Casimiro, 157, 199 Squier, Rev. W. C., 128 Stanley Holton, Sandra, 214 Stansfeld, Caroline Ashurst, 35, 62, 85, 125, 203, 204 Stansfeld, James, 33, 38, 46, 48, 53, 73, 205, 249 State-regulated prostitution Cavour Regulation, 199n83 Contagious Diseases Acts, 199–201 Stern, Daniel (Marie D’Agoult), 227 Stradivari, Cesare, 79 Stuart, Montgomery, 76 Stuart, Peter, 131 Suffrage, female, 13, 207 Summers, Anne, 9, 77 Sutcliffe, Marcella Pellegrino, 7 Switzerland exiles, 47, 57 kindergarten, 149 T Taylor, Clementia, 60, 85, 110 Taylor, Peter A., 60, 73, 84, 132 Thayer, William Roscoe, 54 Thompson, Paul Hyde, 218, 221 Tivaroni, Carlo, 242

281

Translation cultural translation, 101–138 memoirs, 118–124, 138 newspaper articles, 26, 138 novels, 121, 138 Trevelyan, Arthur, 73 Trevelyan, George Macaulay, 217, 242 Turati, Filippo, 26, 246 U Unitarianism, 20, 23, 109, 110 United States Civil War, 93, 94 Universal Republican Alliance, 60 Uruguay, 237 V Venice conquest of, 81, 82, 84, 85n67, 93, 136 fundraising for, 82 Venturi, Emilie Ashurst Hawkes, 82, 115, 201, 222, 223, 229, 230, 249 Vickery, Amanda, 13, 19, 31 Victor Emmanuel, King, 126, 172 Villari, Linda White, 32 Villari, Pasquale, 32, 143, 158, 209 Voluntary societies, 25, 66, 71, 78, 80, 245 Volunteerism, 65 Von Bülow, Bertha Marenholtz, 142, 149 Von Schwartz, Esperanza, 16, 33n9, 59n102, 121–123 W Wanrooij, Bruno, 204, 208 Watt, Henry, 50 Weir, William, 115 Whalley, Anne Wakeford, 87

282 

INDEX

Whalley, George Hammond, 87–89, 117 White Mario, Jessie, 2, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25n67, 26, 27, 33, 34, 36, 37, 39–42, 44, 46–55, 58, 60, 63, 66, 68–72, 69n13, 78–81, 84, 85, 95–98, 97n113, 103–109, 112–131, 135, 136, 146, 163, 164, 167, 178–180, 180n9, 182, 183, 185–189, 191–193, 195, 196, 200n87, 201–206, 201n90, 209, 210, 213, 215, 217, 219–225, 227–230, 232–243, 239n92, 246–251, 246n3 anti-Catholicism, 122, 123, 250 archive creation, 243, 250 biography, 20, 27, 107, 230, 233–235, 237, 241, 242 birth and background, 107, 192, 237 fundraising, 2, 63, 66, 69, 98 journalism, 105, 114, 115 La Miseria in Napoli, 163, 209 lectures, 19, 46, 46n55, 69, 69n13, 85, 117, 124–131, 187, 205 marriage, 20, 104, 180, 180n9, 185–187, 237, 238, 246 nursing, 16, 22, 71, 95 Pisacane conspiracy, 46–55, 115, 182

propaganda work, 22 publishing, 19, 26, 27, 58, 79–81, 95, 105, 107, 185, 206, 209, 213, 223, 224, 227–230, 236, 239 sexualization, 237 state-regulated prostitution, 19, 105, 178, 192, 201, 202, 206, 246 translation, 118–122, 236, 237 writing about Italy as an Englishwoman, 121, 239, 249 Whitehead, Thomas Byron, 87 Widowhood, 56, 189 Women attacks on intelligence, 14 authors, 36, 206, 213, 215, 216 education, 13, 14, 17, 39, 139, 140, 148, 166, 171, 207 leadership positions, 155 legal oppression, 15 sexualization, 52 speaking in public, 126, 127 use of religious language, 26, 67, 101 Wreford, Henry, 80 Wright, O. J., 9, 10 Y Young Italy, 3, 171