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"This book examines how a group of transnational British-Italian women affiliated with the exiled patriots of the Italian Left repurposed traditionally feminine activities, such as fundraising, gift-giving, maternity, and memory collection, to make a substantial contribution to Italian Unification and state-building. Through their actions, Mary Chambers, Sara Nathan, Giorgina Saffi, Julia Salis Schwabe, and Jessie White Mario transcended the boundaries of acceptable behavior for middle-class women and participated in the broader female emancipation movement. By drawing attention to their activities, this book reveals how nineteenth-century female activists achieved their most revolutionary goals by using conservative, domestic, or anti-Catholic language. Adding to the growing understanding of the Italian Risorgimento as a transnational phenomenon, it also shows how non-Catholic and non-Italian women participated in the creation and development of the Italian state. Finally, the bookargues for the continuing importance of religion in both politics and philanthropy throughout the nineteenth century."
List of contents
Chapter 1 Introduction: British Women in the Italian Risorgimento.- Chapter 2 Presents & Passports: Friendship and the Formation of Revolutionary Networks.- Chapter 3 Bazaars for Bullets: Fundraising for the Revolution.- Chapter 4 Reforming Revolution: Cultural Translation in the Propaganda Campaign.- Chapter 5 Emancipating Education: Primary Education in the New Italian State.- Chapter 6 The Personal is Political: Companionate Marriage, Republican Motherhood & the Campaign against State-Regulated Prostitution.- Chapter 7 From Scrapbooks to State Archives: Memorializing the Radical Risorgimento.- Conclusion.
About the author
Diana Moore is Adjunct Assistant Professor of History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, USA.
Report
"Revolutionary Domesticity is a ground-breaking work that makes important contributions to Victorian studies. ... it should inspire future comparative histories that expand our understanding of how and why people struggled to change the social and political order in Britain, Italy, and beyond. By defining the terms of 'revolutionary domesticity' so clearly." (Allison Scardino Belzer, Victorian Studies, Vol. 65 (4), 2023)
