Jessie White Mario (1832-1906), C
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Attributed to Margaret Foley (American, c. 1827-1877) Jessie White Mario (1832-1906), c. 1867-1870 Ben Elwes Fine Art Attributed to Margaret Foley (American, c. 1827-1877) Jessie White Mario (1832-1906), c. 1867-1870 Carrara marble 72 x 48 cm (28.3 x 19 in.) Provenance Possibly the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar, Gosport, UK Mrs Victoria Johnson, The Tartars, Sherston, Malmesbury, UK By descent, 2019 Kingsettle Antiques, Shaftesbury, UK I M Chaney Antique Furniture, Bristol, UK Fig. 1. Jessie White Mario (1832-1906) 2 ‘An honor to her sex and to Britain’s great name’ 1 Fig. 2. Jessie White Mario (1832-1906) was a British writer, revolutionary and philanthropist who dedicated her life to Italian unification. She challenged the limits placed on women’s political participation and subverted 19th-century misogynistic stereotypes, provoking great admiration from both male and female contemporaries. The Italian press knew her as Hurricane Jessie, a testament to her unwavering commitment to the Risorgimento, the Italian movement for unification and independence from foreign rule, and her fierce passion for social and economic equality. 1 W. P. Garrison in The Nation, 1906, as cited E. Adams Daniels, Jessie White Mario: Risorgimento Revolutionary (Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University Press, 1972), p. 116. 3 Born in Gosport, Hampshire, Jessie was the daughter of a successful shipbuilder. From an early age she had a strong desire to help those less fortunate than her, secretly giving food from her family’s pantry to the hungry.2 Her middle-class upbringing was traditionally religious yet educationally non-conformist, allowing her an excellent education at schools in Reading, Birmingham and London. In 1854, Jessie’s thirst for knowledge took her to study philosophy at the Sorbonne, where she was particularly drawn to the work of thinkers such as J. S. Mill.3 During her time in Paris, she brushed shoulders with radical republicans and exiled Italian nationalists, prompting her life- long engagement with the Risorgimento. Subsequently, Jessie accompanied her friend Emma Roberts to Nice in order meet the Italian general and revolutionary, Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882), an encounter that she described as ‘the realization of a life- dream’.4 Jessie openly challenged Victorian ideals of female domesticity. On her return to England, she applied to medical school in order to fulfil her promise to Garibaldi, to treat the wounded on the front lines. However, she was rejected by fourteen schools in London on the grounds of her sex (Fig. 3). She wrote, ‘in no single case did I receive either a sensible or logical reply to my question, “Why may not a woman study medicine?”’.5 Whilst she was unsuccessful, her efforts arguably laid the groundwork for a shift in attitude as, ten years later, nine women sat for the University of London’s medical examinations for the first time.6 2 D. Taylor, Jessie White - An Englishwoman at the Court of Garibaldi (2003) <http://www.naplesldm.com/white.php> 3 F. Falchi, 'Beyond National Borders; ‘Italian’ Patriots United in the Name of Giuseppe Mazzini: Emilie Ashurst, Margaret Fuller and Jessie White Mario', Women's History Review, 24.1 (2014), pp. 23-36 (p. 27) in Taylor & Francis <https://doi.org/10.1080/09612025.2014.920672> 4 Adams Daniels, Jessie White Mario, p. 8. 5 Adams Daniels, Jessie White Mario, p. 42. 6 University of London, Women’s education pioneers: following in the footsteps of ‘Hurricane Jessie’ (2018) <https://london.ac.uk/news-and-opinion/leading-women/womens-education-pioneers-following-footsteps-hurricane- jessie> 4 Fig. 3. Letter from the Registrar seeking a legal opinion on Miss Jessie White’s Meriton application to be a candidate for the University of London Examinations, 3 July 1856, University of London Archive, RC/19/1 In London, as in Paris, Jessie moved in liberal social circles. Through the Ashurst family, she was introduced to Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872), an Italian politician and revolutionary. Impressed by her passion and dedication, he asked her to embark on a nationwide propaganda tour to encourage popular sympathy among Britons for the 5 Italian Cause. Mazzini did not doubt Jessie’s abilities as a public speaker stating, ‘I dare say she will succeed more than 20 men who would put their strength together’.7 Between 1856 and 1862, her lecture tours took her around the country and across the Atlantic Ocean. A distinguished orator, she captivated her audiences and successfully raised considerable funds, simultaneously undermining sexist notions that women had no place in politics. A journalist from the New York Herald reported that ‘when she spoke of the wrongs of Italy… her brilliant eyes flashed like fire, and the glow of sympathy mounted to her cheek’.8 Whilst lecturing in America, she also spoke out against slavery, re-affirming her position as an advocate for all oppressed peoples. Confronting senators of slave-owning states, she said, ‘I would not dare to ask support in this great country for the oppressed Italians without strong faith in the right of every nation, of every race, of every man to his liberty… For whites and blacks, for everyone together’.9 Fig. 4. Detail of sculpture, attributed to Margaret Foley (American, c. 1827-1877), Jessie White Mario (1832-1906), c. 1867-1870 7 Adams Daniels, Jessie White Mario, p. 51. 8 Adams Daniels, Jessie White Mario, p. 75. 9 D. Moore, 'Transnational Nationalists: Cosmopolitan Women, Philanthropy, and Italian State-Building, 1850- 1890', City University of New York (2018), pp. 106 <https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2490> 6 Meanwhile, Jessie was developing an illustrious career as a writer, translator and journalist. In 1857 The Daily News, a paper founded by Charles Dickens a decade earlier, asked Jessie to be their foreign correspondent in Italy, funding a trip to Genoa. Renowned as the first female war correspondent in Italy, historian David Lowenthal described Jessie as a ‘crusading journalist’.10 She was outspoken and flamboyant, often wearing a tricoloured ribbon in her flame-red hair. Whilst her eccentricity and radicalism captivated the hearts of the Italians, it also gained the Austrians’ attention and she was jailed in Genoa for four months. During this period, she met her future husband, Alberto Mario (1825-1883), a radical Italian patriot. They were married in London a few months later. Fig. 5. Detail of sculpture, attributed to Margaret Foley (American, c. 1827-1877), Jessie White Mario (1832-1906), c. 1867-1870 10 T. Kington, ' Englishwoman is hailed as a heroine of Italy's unification struggle', The Guardian, 22 May 2011 <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/22/jessie-white-italy-unification-anniversary> D. Lowenthal, George Perkins Marsh: Prophet of Conversation (University of Washington Press, 2000), p. 332. 7 In 1860, when the fighting began in the south of Italy, Jessie went to Garibaldi’s aid, treating the wounded on the front line as a self-taught nurse. As Professor of History Sarah Richardson affirms, ‘Jessie was a woman of action; she wasn’t just a writer’. She was in charge of two field hospitals and would often spend days on the battlefield with the troops. She also assisted in the operating theatre, the only woman in the hospital unit, including at the amputation of the arm of a twelve-year-old boy (…‘I held him on my lap; he told me afterwards that I cried more than he did, which was quite true’11). Jessie and Garibaldi had an intimate relationship built on mutual admiration and respect and, as such, when he asked her to accompany him in the Franco-Prussian war ten years later, she did not hesitate. Once again, she was a field nurse and a war correspondent, writing for both The Scotsman and The Tribune. Returning to Italy, Jessie and Alberto spent time in Rome and Florence before settling in Lendinara, a small northern town. She became an archivist, historian and biographer. She produced biographies for both Mazzini and Garibaldi and created a posthumous edition of Alberto’s writings. Whilst Italy celebrated its unification, Jessie caused controversy by exposing the bleak realities of post-Bourbon Neapolitan life in La Miseria di Napoli of 1871, an extensive social study of the city’s residents. She descended into the hellish landscape of the Southern sulphur mines, outrageously peopled by an army of slave children and indentured workers: ‘Nothing can compare in any least degree with the human system of child torture openly and consistently practised in all the sulphur mines of the island (of Sicily).’12 As a member of the radical left, Jessie had pushed for genuine reform in order to achieve emancipation for all Italian citizens. The lack of social progress in post-unification Italy disappointed her and she continued to advocate on behalf of those in poverty. Towards the end of her life, Jessie taught English in a school in Florence. She continued to write extensively, submitting her last of 143 articles to the American publication, The Nation, in the week before she died in 1906.13 Thousands attended her funeral procession. Her casket was followed by Garibaldian red shirts, schoolgirls, professors 11 Alberto Mario, Garibaldi’s Invisible Bridge, Cornhill Magazine, 9 May 1864, p. 549. 12 Jessie White Mario, article, The Nation, 4 January 1892 13 Orlando Project, Jessie White Mario (2021) <http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=marije> 8 and members of the public before being buried next to Alberto in Lendinara. The Italian Government wanted to give Jessie a state funeral. She refused, arguing that the money would be better spent on relieving poverty. An atypical Victorian woman, Jessie has been written out of Britain’s historical narrative. However, her memory lives on in Italy where she is commemorated by plaques in the streets of Florence and Lendinara, with a school named after her in Genoa.