Living the Revolution: Recovering the Lost Histories of Italian Immigrant Women's Anarchist Feminism in the United States

Jennifer Guglielmo (Associate Professor of History, Smith College), will discuss her recovery of the histories of activism of working-class Italian immigrant women anarchists in the United States as a window into the world of early twentieth-century transnational feminism. Emerging from a diasporic, multi-ethnic network of labor radicals, the women in this movement did not seek inclusion within the modern nation-state; nor did they rely on established trade unions or cross-class alliances. Instead, they created autonomous spaces for working-class and poor women to articulate their particular struggles and embody l'emancipazione della donna (women’s emancipation). Together, they asked a question that formed the heart of their politics: “Why does the pleasure of some have to create misery for many?”