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Graziella Sonnino

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Graziella Sonnino
Born
Graziella Sonnino Carpi

(1884-11-11)November 11, 1884
Italy
Died
Milan, Italy
NationalityItalian
Other namesGraziell Sonnino
Years active1916-1938
Known forpeace, women's right activist, anti-fascist

Graziella Sonnino Carpi (born 11 November 1884; also known as Graziell Sonnino)[1] was an Italian feminist and peace activist in the interwar period. She was a member of the Italian Unione Femminile Nazionale (eng. National Women's Union) and a delegate to the 1919 Women's Conference.

Activism

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Inter-Allied Women's Conference 1919

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In 1919, Sonnino was an Italian delegate to the Inter-Allied Women's Conference in Paris. Women representatives of women's suffrage organizations sought to introduce women's issues and to the peace discussions at end of the First World War.[2][3] The Women's Conference was a parallel conference to the Paris Peace Conference.

There was an international rise in anti-war feeling in Europe in 1919 and a widespread demand for the vote for women.[4][5][6]

National women's union (anti fascist) work in Italy 1919-1938

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Sonnino served in the Women's Union (UNF) together with Nina Sullam Rignano[7][8] and Ada Treves Segre. They worked on creating a school for retraining women who had been dismissed from the factories where they had replaced men during the First World War. The men had now returned from the front and the women lost the factory work.[8][3]

The Women's Union had the aim of improving conditions for women by protection in the workplace for women workers, the right to divorce, the right to vote,[5][6] the right to search for paternity of children.[3][9][10]

The feminist movement was set back in 1922 when Benito Mussolini came to power.[11][10] Mussolini said that women's primary role to be mothers while men were warriors. To increase birthrates, the Italian Fascist government gave financial incentives to women who raised large families[10] and reduced the number of women employed.[12] However, Mussolini's policies created many women's organizations, and this encouraged women to participate in politics and civic life.[12][10]

Later life

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In July 1938, Sonnino left the Unione femminile for family reasons.[1] By the following December, the Unione had replaced all its Jewish members with Aryans.[13] Records indicate that, as a Jew, she moved from Italy to Switzerland until the end of the war.[1]

UFN donne italiane
Unione femminile nazionale ( UFN) National Women's Union founding document calling on Italian women to join.

Sonnino, in an account of an interview in 1956, related how the Jews had suffered under the Fascists, indicating that she had returned to Milan from Switzerland after the end of World War II.[9][14]

See also

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Books

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  • Graziella Gaballo, Il nostro dovere. L'Unione femminile tra impegno sociale, guerra e fascismo (1899-1939), Our duty.The Women's National Union: social commitment, war and fascism (1899-1939) Joker edizioni, 2015[3] A history of the National Women's Union.
  • Diventare cittadine : il voto delle donne in Italia. 1996 Rossi-Doria [6] A history of the right to vote for women in Italy.

References

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  1. ^ a b c "18402. SONNINO, Graziella". Holocaust Memorial Museum. Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database. Retrieved 9 October 2019.
  2. ^ Siegel, Mona L. (6 January 2019). "In the Drawing Rooms of Paris: The Inter-Allied Women's Conference of 1919". 133rd Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association 3–6 January 2019. Chicago, Illinois. excerpted from Siegel, Mona L. (2019). Peace on Our Terms The Global Battle for Women's Rights After the First World War. New York City, New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-19510-2.
  3. ^ a b c d Gaballo, Graziella (2015). Il nostro dovere : l'Unione femminile tra impegno sociale, guerra e fascismo (1899-1939) (I edizione ed.). Novi Ligure (AL). ISBN 9788875363703. OCLC 951911460.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ^ Hume, Leslie Parker (2016-04-06). The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, 1897-1914. Oxon. ISBN 9781317213277. OCLC 946157912.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^ a b Il voto alla donna? Inchiesta e notizie, pubblicazioni della rivista «Unione femminile», Milano, 1905 Votes for women? Reports and news: the journal «Women's Union»
  6. ^ a b c Rossi-Doria, Anna. (1996). Diventare cittadine : il voto delle donne in Italia. Firenze: Giunti. ISBN 8809209087. OCLC 35631653.
  7. ^ Biographical records (4 December 2017). "Costanza (Nina) Sullam Rignano". unione femminile nazionale. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
  8. ^ a b Cirant, Eleonora. "Costanza, detta Nina Sullam Rignano" (in Italian). MilanoAttraverso. Archived from the original on 10 October 2019. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
  9. ^ a b Marchetti, Ada Gigli (2007). Il Giorno: cinquant'anni di un quotidiano anticonformista. FrancoAngeli. pp. 191–. ISBN 978-88-464-8378-2.
  10. ^ a b c d De Grazia, Victoria. (1993). How fascism ruled women : Italy, 1922-1945 (1st pbk. print ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520911383. OCLC 44965448.
  11. ^ De Grand, Alexander (1976). "Women under Italian Fascism". The Historical Journal. 19 (4): 947–968. doi:10.1017/S0018246X76000011. ISSN 0018-246X. JSTOR 2638244. S2CID 159893717.
  12. ^ a b Monti, Jennifer Linda (Spring 2011). "The Contrasting Image of Italian Women Under Fascism in the 1930s". Syracuse University Honors Capstone. 714.
  13. ^ Brigadeci, Concetta. "Forme di resistenza al fascismo: l'Unione Femminile Nazionale" (PDF) (in Italian). Unione Femminile Nazionale. Retrieved 9 October 2019.
  14. ^ Cambria, Adele (2010). Nove dimissioni e mezzo: le guerre quotidiane di una giornalista ribelle. Donzelli Editore. pp. 11–. ISBN 978-88-6036-483-8.