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Elena Laurenzi and Manuela Mosca

Harriet Lathrop Dunham – Etta de Viti de Marco (1864-1939) An American activist in liberal

Introduction Much has been written about the thought of the Italian economist and parliamentarian Antonio de Viti de Marco, from both the economic and the political points of view1. Nothing is known however about his wife, the American Harriet Lathrop Dunham, or Etta de Viti de Marco as she was called in Italy. This article reconstructs her thought and works in the context of the political battles that marked in Italy the so-called liberal era2.

1. From America to Italy Harriet Lathrop Dunham was born on the first of April 1864 in New York. Her parents were James Harvey Dunham3 and Harriet Winslow Lathrop4. Her mother died when she was 15. Her father, the owner of the Manhattan corporation James H. Dunham & Co.5, was on the board of directors of the Central National Bank of the City of New York6. On his death, she received a large inheritance, the management of which she often discussed in letters to her four sisters, all younger than her. They were Episcopalians7, well educated8, studied pianoforte with maestro Paderewski9, and had their portraits painted by the American artist Singer Sargent10. Active in social life and in philanthropy, they loved Europe, especially England, where they went to stay for long periods. We know little else of Etta’s life prior to her arrival in Italy; her future sister-in-law Carolina, Antonio’s sister, wrote that when her brother met her in , she was in Italy “for pleasure – and not for the first time”11.

1 The secondary literature on Antonio de Viti de Marco is very wide, for an exhaustive description of his activity see M. Mosca, Antonio de Viti de Marco. A Story Worth Remembering, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. 2 Liberal era refers to the period prior to the rise of fascism in the early 1920s. 3 New York 1832-1901 4 1834-1879 5 Broadway 340-342-344. His home was at 37 East Thirty-sixth Street. 6 Obituary notice in NYT. 7 Etta’s wedding was celebrated by an Episcopalian pastor. The same religion was attributed to her sister Grace (Eilish Ryan, Rosemary Haughton: Witness to Hope, pp. 29-30). 8 In the letter to Umberto Zanotti Bianco of 6 September 1933 she says that Lucile’s mother, Lucy Lee, was her schoolmate. 9 Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860-1941) was a Polish pianist, composer, politician and diplomat (Wikipedia). He was obviously very young when he taught James H. Dunham’s daughters. 10 John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) is considered one of the greatest portrait artists of the 1800s. 11 Annales. Unless stated otherwise, the translations of quotations are our own. 1

During their courtship, marquis Antonio, already with a considerable inheritance, went to visit her in Florence12, which is where they were married on 4 June 1895. The wedding was reported also in the New York Times. She was 31 and he 37 years of age. As their “party favor” they published the book by the economist Ugo Mazzola L’imposta progressiva in economia pura e sociale (Progressive tax in pure and social economics), for private circulation in a limited number of copies: not exactly a romantic idea!13 Between the end of the 1890s and the first world war the couple enjoyed an intense social life between Rome, Salento14 and the Tuscan Apennines where they owned marvelous houses with dozens of tastefully furnished rooms. They spent long periods in New York, where their presence was recorded in both the local press in the column “Return from Abroad of Many Well- Known Persons”, and in the city’s Social register15, which confirms that Etta’s family was prominent in New York high society, not less than Antonio’s in Italy. Between 1896 and 1900 their three children were born, one every two years: James, Etta, and Lucia. English was spoken at home16.

2. Culture and patronage Etta had hundreds of books and the remains of her library today would deserve a separate study17. Her correspondence often contained knowledgeable critical references to her reading. Many were history books linked to the places she was in (from the history of Europe18 to that of the Apulian castles19). Etta followed Italian politics closely, for example in 1914 she asked Gugliemo Ferrero20 for his articles published in Il Secolo, especially one in which he compared official diplomatic documents (White Books, Orange Books etc.)21. She was also interested in political news from the Anglo-Saxon world: we know she collected articles from the Times and the Manchester Guardian22. Her cultural interests are also revealed by the people she frequented, the events she organized and her patronage of the arts. Her salon was judged “le plus intéressant de Rome” by the French writer and winner of the Nobel prize for literature Romain Rolland23. The personalities she welcomed included for example the American poetess and activist Julia Ward Howe24 and the dramatist and

12 Letter from Pantaleoni to Colajanni “he is in Florence staying with his fiancée”. 13 We thank Massimo Paradiso for pointing this out. 14 The Salento peninsula is in the southernmost part of Italy's heel, in Apulia. 15 “de Viti Mq & Mchss de Marco (Etta Lathrop Dunham) care J.H. Dunham” (p. 103) 16 Their son James recalls this in his memoir, and the letters between brothers and sisters also are in English. 17 At the “Fondazione Le Costantine di Casamassella” they are only just starting to open the boxes of books from the house at Boscolungo Pistoiese, in Tuscany. 18 1897 Inspired letter to Angelica from Courmayeur (August) about Creighton’s History of the Papacy during the Reformation. 19 Letter to Umberto Zanotti Bianco, 10 December 1932. 20 Guglielmo Ferrero (1871-1942) was a sociologist, historian and writer, and worked closely with the radical newspaper Il Secolo. 21 Letter to Ferrero in December 1914. 22 Letter to Luigi Einaudi in 1918. 23Rolland 1962, letter in 1907. Romain Rolland (1866-1944) was a French writer and dramatist, winner of the 1915 Nobel Prize for Literature. 24 Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910), known mainly for writing the American patriotic anthem The Battle Hymn of the Republic, fought for the abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage. 2

librettist Modest Tchaikovsky25, brother of the famous composer. Two figures in particular are worth remembering among Etta’s countless social contacts. One was Maria Montessori (1870-1952), for whom she acted as interpreter when meeting Americans26; in 1913 she hosted the first of the three lessons in the course held by the pedagogist27 in the presence of “the Ambassadors of the United States and Great Britain, as well as the Italian Ministers of Public Instruction and of the Colonies”28. The other figure to remember was the “divine” actress Eleonora Duse (1858-1924), who was Etta’s guest repeatedly: it was a deep and lasting friendship which appears to have started before her marriage to Antonio29. From her correspondence, on which she spent many, many hours each day30, we also learn about her social relations with artists and literary figures: we find the English poetess Violet Fane31 and the American writer Hamlin Garland32. Letters from the theologian Paul Sabatier33 attest to the family’s affinity with the Modernist movement. Etta was also in contact with the Webbs, both in Rome and London34. Her correspondents included figures connected to her husband such as his economist colleagues and the editors of the journals to which he contributed, which we deal with later, and with whom she interacted both on her own account and on his behalf.

3. A modern concept of welfare services To her companion, the socialist leader Filippo Turati35, Anna Kuliscioff36 described Etta thus: an intelligent lady, very cultured, active and with some inclination towards socialism. She is very involved in the female industries and was the organizer of the exhibition of Abruzzese37 lacework recently held in London. In other words, she is one of the most serious and modern feminists in Rome, perhaps precisely because she is not Roman or even Italian38.

25Modest Ilic Tchaikovsky (1850-1916) devoted his life to pedagogy, music and literature. 26 Kramer, 1988. 27 General review of the Montessori method as introducing a new experimental science 28 Feez, 2013, pp. 10-13. 29 In 1917 Duse wrote to her daughter “Je la connais depuis quelque 28 ou 30 ans”. 30 At the end of a very long letter to Duse, Etta implied that she spent an exaggerated amount of time on her correspondence, saying “Etta and Lucia have come to send me to bed”. 31 Pseudonym of Lady Mary Montgomerie Currie (1843-1905), poetess, writer and ambassador (wife of the diplomat Barone Philip Currie), linked to Aestheticism and Medievalism. 32 Hannibal Hamlin Garland (1860-1940), known for his descriptions of the harsh working conditions on farms in the Midwest. Between 1909 and 1919 there were many letters to Hellen Buchanan, who lived with Etta’s daughter in Rome, but we don’t know who she was. 33 Charles Paul Marie Sabatier (1858-1928) was the French historian who started modern Franciscan historiography; a Calvinist pastor, he was part of Christian theological modernism. 34 Letter to Ferrero on 26 March 1909. 35 Filippo Turati (1857-1932) was an Italian politician, journalist and political expert, the leader of the reformist group of the Italian Socialist Party, which he helped to found in 1892 with Anna Kuliscioff. 36 Anna Kuliscioff (1957-1925) was a Russian revolutionary, physician and journalist, naturalized Italian, one of the founders and main exponents of the Italian Socialist Party. 37 Abruzzo is a region of central Italy. 38 Quoted in Cardini, p. 178. 3

An article in the newspaper Messaggero linked her to “a group of idealistic women gathered around Miss Meysenbug”39, the German writer who was a friend of Mazzini and of Nietzsche40. In the first decade of the 1900s, we find her actively involved in the female emancipation movement. Not only was she a firm supporter of the right to vote, and among the first 26 signatories of the Petition presented to Parliament in 1906, but she also took on positions of responsibility in the National Council of Italian Women. In this important organization, which was a branch of the International Council of Women and which included the associations working at a national level to promote women’s political rights and social condition, Etta became the director of the City Life chapter and, with «virile energy»41 implemented a plan to reorganize charity work in Rome. To carry out this task, she had discussions with the president of the Women’s City Club of New York and was inspired by the most advanced models in Europe and the United States, especially the Charity Organization Society operating in London and New York. In 1904 she set up the Charity Information and Guidance Office, which she saw as a sort of modern “help desk”, that is, as «the center for provision of support and the fulcrum firstly for orientation and then for coordination of all the various forms of charity»42. The aims of the Office were stated precisely: the benefactors were to inform and orient, suggesting the most suitable support method, and if necessary offer mediation for a more effective and secure allocation of donations; for the beneficiaries, as well as distributing the sums and goods collected, the Office was to direct the needy towards the appropriate institutions, implementing the processes necessary to satisfy appeals and requests for financial support, work, etc.43 To complete the task, Etta saw to the compiling of a Guida romana della beneficienza, assistenza, istruzione, previdenza, mutualità (Guide to charity, support, instruction, social services and mutuality in Rome) which was published in the Bulletin of the National Council of Italian Women as «a first, firm step towards the rational coordination of the thousand charity works proliferating in our city »44. Once the early skepticism was overcome, her initiative found wholehearted support and even an international resonance, with the New York Times of 24 July 1910 devoting an article to it, highlighting the activity that today we call microcredit45; it was also reported in the Oakland Tribune (in California) and Le Figaro in 1912. In March 1906 Etta was a board member of the Anti-Begging Society, and in 1908 she became head of the Support and Welfare Commission, set up by the National Council of Italian Women prior to

39 Geraldini Il Messaggero. 40 Baronessa Malwida von Meysenbug (1816-1903). Emma Mezzomonti, Meysenbug, Malwida, Baronessa von, Enciclopedia Italiana (1934), Treccani. 41 A quality recognized in the bulletin of the National Council of Italian Women, Vita Femminile Italiana anno I fasc. 3, March 1907, p. 291. The use of the term “virile”, very fashionable at the time, sounds paradoxical in this feminist context. 42 Ibidem. 43 Ivi, p. 280. 44 Ivi, p. 293. 45Aid for Rome’s poor, New York Times, 24 July 1910. 4

its First Conference, held in Rome from 23 to 30 April 190846. The program she drew up and presented to the conference was impressive and provoked lively sessions where the participants voted to approve the need to require women’s participation on the boards of Charity congregations and of Welfare houses for the disadvantaged, the coordination of charity organizations or the urgency of solving the unemployment problem. This last issue had been the subject of interesting correspondence between Etta and Gina Lombroso47, in which the two activists discussed whether a female association should deal also with male unemployment. They agreed that this should be done but Etta added: the danger I fear most in these discussions by women with a philanthropic spirit but inadequate scientific knowledge, is the failure to recognize the natural forces that, in this field too, frustrate the best intentions, and cause unexpected side effects48.

As is clear from the rest of the letter, she was talking about the “natural” laws of the economy, to which we will return. But let’s get back to the Conference. The crucial issue in the Support and Welfare section was mutuality 49 . In the opening talk that Etta delivered as president 50 she distinguished the «real poor» who are unable to earn to improve their situation, from the category of the needy for whom the problem is temporary. As regards the first group, she argued that it was best not to shut down private initiative in favor of operations exclusively by the state, because individual efforts supported by feeling «are the real condition to prevent the state welfare services from becoming fossilized in the formalities of an indifferent bureaucracy».51 On the other hand she clearly understands the perversion of the welfare system when it is not supported by an awareness of what is in the public interests, both in terms of contributors who try to recoup what they paid by exploiting other groups, and in terms of the beneficiaries, since «it will be difficult to find a method by which helping the poor does not somehow lead to preserving poverty». She then proceeds to analyze each of the different categories of the needy: the unemployed, minors, pregnant women and the elderly. As far as the first group are concerned, that is, the «idle», she states that the natural remedies are migration and education, which have little to do with charity. Etta interprets the

46The National Council of Italian Women has appointed a Commission composed of marchesa Etta De Viti De Marco, president - donna Sofia Cammarota - contessa Lisa Danieli - signora Alda Orlando - contessa Maria Pasolini - signorina Maria Roesler Franz - signora Elisa Vannutelli - signora Alina Wollemborg, with the task of organizing the Social support and Welfare Section of the first Women’s Conference to be held in Rome from 23 to 30 April 1908. La nuova antologia, March-April 1908. 47 Gina Lombroso (1872-1944), wife of Guglielmo Ferrero, writer, political militant and scholar of the female condition. 48 Letter of 25 January 1907. 49 Frattini, 2008.

50 CNDI, 1912.

51 De Viti de Marco, 1908 5

phenomenon of unemployment in relation to the rapid transformations in the economic system and in industrial technology, she stresses the need for interventions that promote autonomy and re- employment, and calls for more schools of arts and crafts to give «a general preparation of manual skills and intellectual knowledge that [...] make it easier to move from one trade to another similar one». For minors and the aged, she rejects institutionalization, because it involves a «grievous limitation of freedom», and recommends social services because unlike welfare payments, they enable the elderly to retain their «individuality» and «personal independence». Espousing one of the crusading issues of the National Council of Italian Women, the establishment of a Welfare Fund for Motherhood, Etta underlines its political value and the fact that it was of general interest, not confined to the “female question”, arguing that: «the industrial needs of the moment must not undermine the interests of future generations for a healthy physical constitution». As we can see, here Etta deals with the important question of the dividing line between private initiative and state action, recording the widespread tendency to expect too much from the latter. On the whole, her work seeks to facilitate the shift from charity to welfare which was widely debated in post- unification Italy52, and was starting to bear fruit in the liberal age. Feminism made a significant contribution to this development, and in the emancipationists’ philanthropic initiatives of the early 1900s there were already the basic outlines of the welfare state53. This was largely due to the presence in the movement of American or English women «connected through marriage to the Italian upper class» – like Alice Hallgarten Franchetti, Cora Slocomb di Brazzà or Harriet Lathrop Dunham-De Viti de Marco – who brought the Anglo-Saxon and central European welfare culture into the political debate54. Etta de Viti de Marco, in particular, did much to promote, also on a theoretical level, political reflection that differed from traditional Christian charity and female piety, and instead drew inspiration from self-help culture. She did this by participating in meetings of circles close to Modernism, where dialog was encouraged between the ideas of political economy and the social, moral and spiritual demands of religious reformism55.

4. The promotion of women through work Among the political actions undertaken by Etta, mention must certainly be made of her contribution to the creation and running of the Industrie Femminili Italiane (IFI, Italian Women’s Industries),

52 The took place in 1860. 53 Buttafuoco (1997) argues that the IFI and the welfare work of early 20th century feminism made a fundamental contribution to the shift from charity to welfare. See also. Gori, 2010. 54 Fossati, 1997. 55 Fossati, 1997; 2010. Maria Pasolini, a good friend of Etta, created a reading and discussion group that she called a debating club for this purpose. A letter to her sister-in-law Pasolini Dall’Onda informs us that Antonio De Viti de Marco was present at the meetings, and it is reasonable to think that Harriet Lathrop Dunham was too, considering her friendship with countess Pasolini. Maria Ponti Pasolini, Lettera a Angelica Pasolini Dall’Onda, s.d., 1901, Fondo Angelica Pasolini Dall’Onda, ACGV. 6

which was one of the liveliest and most emblematic experiences of feminism in the liberal age56. The IFI was a cooperative society emerging from the “Work” section of the National Council of Italian Women, and was established in an independent form in May 1903, following the surprisingly rapid growth of its activities. The woman elected President was Countess Cora Slocomb di Brazzà, an American of great cosmopolitan culture, who in 1887 had married Conte Detalmo di Brazzà and in Italy had launched various successful entrepreneurial activities, including the Brazzà Cooperative Lace School. The countess had opened the way for the export of Italian lace to the United States, successfully presenting the Friulian lacework made at her school at the 1893 International Exposition in Chicago and obtaining, by means of a well-judged diplomatic operation, a reduction in customs duties. Etta de Viti De Marco was on the board of directors of the IFI, along with Lavinia Taverna, Liliah Nathan (daughter of Ernesto Nathan, a future mayor of Rome), Bice Tittoni (aristocratic philanthropist, married to the parliamentarian Tommaso Tittoni), Giuseppina Bakalowicz-Aloisi (wife of the Polish painter Stefan Bakałowicz), Maria Antonia Costa, and the jurist Lorenzo Ponti. The cooperative brought together over four hundred schools, workshops and textile factories spread all over Italy, entirely set up and run by women, for which the organization not only acted as a showcase and means of promoting products nationally and internationally, but provided also support and advice for the study of design and techniques. The extremely rapid success in terms of both image and earnings57 made Amelia Rosselli, who for a time was the secretary, call the IFI «one of the greatest triumphs of feminism»58. In a very short time a showroom had been opened in Rome, and the cooperative exhibited its artifacts at the Universal Expositions in Rome, Milan, Paris, Brussels and Berlin. The work of the IFI combined the cultural goal of giving artistic dignity to women’s textile handicraft, the economic goal of granting it the solidity of industrial production, and the social aim of freeing female workers in cottage industries from brutal forms of exploitation. The workers shared 65% of the profits and, by giving the cooperative the first ten lire of their earnings, they became full shareholders. The Board had the power to grant an advance on sales and provide the raw materials free of charge to the lace-makers who could not afford them. The artistic direction was entrusted to regional committees presided over by a member with recognized competence, who had to study the traditional lace stitches, reconstructing the history and working out the techniques. At the same time, they guided the local lace-makers’ taste according to the new standards, thus

56 The rapid commercial development led to the decision to assume an independent legal status. Cfr. Melegari, 1907. For the story of this important experience of associationism of the early 1900s, see: Bisi Albini, 1905; Le industrie femminili italiane, 1906; Pasolini Ponti, 1922. 57 The Board of Directors’ report after the first year of activity show sales for L. 55,475, for a net profit of L. 1,809, which enabled 4% interest to be paid to share-holders, and a total of L. 1,034 to be divided among the workers and staff. Source Rosselli, 1905. 58 Rosselli, 1905. Amelia Pincherle Rosselli was an Italian writer and anti-fascist, mother of Carlo and , two well-known scholars both executed by Mussolini’s regime. 7

enabling them to produce artifacts that combined tradition and innovation and satisfied fashion trends. The action of the feminist philanthropists promoting the initiative, who mainly belonged to aristocratic or upper-class families, was motivated by the desire to enable the female masses to emerge from their state of exclusion and to give them a means of becoming autonomous. It was seen also as a craft and a specialization, not as an idle past-time. In both senses, this «political philanthropy»59 was presented as an alternative to philanthropy in the strict sense, which in contrast kept the women involved – either as beneficiaries or as benefactors – in a subordinate and marginal position. It is no coincidence that the initiative, though criticized and ridiculed by some militants for its elite nature60, was praised by a shrewd observer like Sibilla Aleramo, who referred to these philanthropists as «the most important figures of female intellectual power»61. Social support work reflected a change in strategy on the part of the early 20th century feminists. With the coming of the new century, the movement weighed up the results achieved and the challenges still standing and saw that the actions undertaken during the 1800s centering on claims for equal rights conducted mainly through propaganda and street protests, had not only failed to reach the expected goals but also had difficulty taking root among women themselves. The new generation therefore intended to work proactively, starting from the affirmation of the value of difference. Winning rights certainly remained a central goal, but the achievement of emancipation in the broader sense now relied on a set of initiatives ranging from education to information in the press through to support work, presenting a two-pronged strategy: on the one hand, they served to attract the masses of women indifferent or reluctant to fight for the vote, and on the other, to show the authorities and society in general that women were capable of successfully tackling the running or rather the control of vital sectors of national life, such as health care, vocational training and employment promotion. The historic feminist Franca Pieroni Bortolotti, in her ground-breaking study Alle origini del movimento femminile in Italia 62 (The origins of the female movement in Italy), maintains that this conversion of goals and strategies pointed to a step backwards compared to the battles of the previous century. However feminist historiography of the 1990s viewed the actions of «practical feminism » (as it was called in an article that was to become famous by Amelia Rosselli63) in a different light, arguing that it was a vast movement of political and social action designed to redefine the concept of citizenship and to construct social welfare64.

59 Buttafuoco, 1988. 60 Gori, 2010. 61 Aleramo, 1978. 62 Bortolotti, 1975. 63 Rosselli, 1907. 64 Gori, 2010. 8

Since work was the central driving force in the political action of the IFI, their strategy envisaged the valorization, promotion and development of women’s work also in its traditional forms. In the first two decades of the century, up to the Great War, one of the aspects it hinged on was the production and marketing of lace, the demand for which had spread like wild fire all over Europe and the United States in the second half of the 1800s. In the space of a few years, thanks partly to the spread of the Arts and Crafts philosophy, lacework developed enormously: manufacturers had organized themselves and expanded, expositions played an important role as international showcases and catalogs provided the artistic and economic evaluation of the pieces; historical research and collecting had become a fully-fledged part of the sector. The production and marketing of lace involved various female positions: producers, factory workers, teachers, researchers, buyers, collectors, philanthropists, activists. As Laura Guidi has pointed out, this was one of the few sectors in manufacturing where women were not just cheap labor, but also achieved positions of prestige.65 That is why needlework was a sector of great interest to practical feminism, both in economic-occupational terms, and in a political-cultural sense: it was in fact seen as an alternative to ”machine industry”66 as regards the product and also the production relations. At the product level, it exemplified the value and refinement of the hand-made artifact as opposed to the bad taste of mass produced industrial goods, in keeping with the aesthetic sense propounded by William Morris and John Ruskin; at the level of quality of work, it was considered a means of salvation from the alienation of the assembly line, since it liberated the woman from the «slavery to the machine» and set her «free to infuse her work with her own individual feeling»67; lastly, at the level of social-economic relations, it was an independent means of survival which ideally enabled the workers to escape from the exploitation of large scale industry where women appeared doubly penalized. According to the analysis made by Ines Oddone in those years, in fact, women are caught in the intersection between the power axes of class and gender so in addition to the greed of the owners’ class there is also the effect of the «corporatist defense of the male», who appropriates the best paid sectors, «with the cruel indifference that comes to him [...] from the tradition of dominance»68.

5. A pioneering enterprise Etta was an expert lace collector and worked with the IFI at various levels: in research, training and marketing. With another American, Minnie Luck, she studied the lace produced since the 15th century at Pescocostanzo, in Abruzzo, and re-launched it as an industry; her «inspiring

65 Guidi, 1992. 66 Pasolini Ponti, 1930. 67 Rosselli, 1905. 68 Oddone, 1902.

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industriousness» was praised in an article by Romualdo Patini published in Emporium, one of the sector’s most important journals69. Etta herself wrote about it, in the Giornale d’Italia, with a tone that reveals the Ruskinian influence on her philosophy:

Within the walls of those houses where the long cold winter gives life the sense of a sort of seclusion, a characteristic it does not lose even during the brief summer, there are still humble hard-working women who, rarely leaving the house, live in a world apart, made entirely of work and technical challenges. They study to try out new stitches, they work out how to use the scraps of paper kept in some chest to recreate the designs made by long-dead hands, where often the idea is barely sketched out and to visualize it they need the affinity of artistic feeling with the one who first dreamed those motifs. For those souls locked in a medieval silence the lace pillow offers almost the only outlet for fantasy and religious sentiment. How many dreams are remembered in this lace! Here they study the true and the beautiful, and in the work destined for the church they portray the beloved symbols with a devout heart, they contemplate them, they enter into them filling them with mystical fervor70.

Etta collaborated actively also with the school opened by the Italian educator and philanthropist Carolina Amari in New York, where lace-making was taught to young Italian migrants71 as a means of economic emancipation. However, even before the founding of the IFI, in 1901 with her sister-in-law Carolina de Viti De Marco, Etta created a pioneering enterprise in their palace in Salento (Casamassella), a school teaching lace-making techniques using “the old stitches”. The initiative arose from the volunteer work that Carolina was already doing with the village girls, helping them to make fabrics and lace for their hope chest, but took a sharp turn towards “industrial” production, changing from a purely traditional domestic activity, unpaid and tending to be repetitive, into an artistic experiment of social transformation. In Apulia, needlework for commercial purposes was already widely practiced both in homes for poor girls (mainly run by nuns) and in farm laborers’ homes, where women contributed to the household’s meager income by sewing at home. Following the growth of the market for lace, the weaving and sewing traditionally serving to make garments for the family and the hope chest was expanded by work on commission. But as Lena Mauro Airoldi, a member of IFI, denounced in 1906, needlework had never been «organized as an industry», since the girls, having left school, waited individually for private orders, for which the payment was relatively low. «No cooperative society,

69 Pantini, 1905. “The lace industry is traditional in Abruzzo. There was a time, again that blessed 15th century, when the lace of L’Aquila competed with that of Venice and Genoa. Now it has come back to world notice due to the inspirational industriousness of Marquesa Etta De Viti De Marco and the encouragement of our queens has sanctioned its success”. 70 Quoted in Pantini, 1905. The author also annotates: “The Marquesa De Viti was told by a peasant woman in her rough dialect that a piece of lace or weaving is useless without the love that went into making it. Those who vaguely remember Ruskin’s healthy ideas on the beauty of manual labor, can’t help feeling surprised at the admirable similarity of thought at such a distance apart”. 71 Cfr. the letter from Amari to Lina Bianconcini Cavazza of 3 November 1903, quoted in Palomba, 2011.

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no association so far, to protect the interests of a class and to give a valid boost to clever, diligent and precise work»72.

The School of Casamassella, participated in IFI initiatives at least until 1910, and was outstandingly successful: each year it trained on average 500 girls and became well-known internationally, with its products being exhibited all over Europe and winning the gold medal at the Universal Exposition in 1906 in Milan and in 1910 in Brussels. In the IFI catalog for the Milan Exposition, there was a whole page devoted to the Casamasella School, most likely written by the sisters-in- law, Etta and Carolina de Viti de Marco. The most interesting note was about the interclass nature of the student group, deliberately highlighted by the authors:

The School makes no distinction in social class or origin. [...] It welcomes pupils from families of land-owners, workers, peasants and also from a fourth class of people, namely those who while remembering a happier past, are now overcome by the crisis of unemployment and need, and often suffer the pangs of hunger without complaining. [...] The school pays for all the work carried out, providing thread, fabric and all materials. All expenses are borne by the organizers. 73

The school’s official headquarters was in Rome, in the Orsini Palace, home to Etta and Antonio de Viti de Marco. In her Annals, kept in the family archives, Carolina recounts her frequent trips to Rome, where her sister-in-law Etta accompanied her in the activities necessary for the running of the business: they did research in museums and private collections, bought samples from antique dealers, and with other experts exchanged lace-making techniques; they created a sample book and vouchers printed with the School’s heading. In a note, Carolina lists also the many friendships they made with the most brilliant IFI activists who frequented the De Viti house: Elisa Ricci, refined collector and promoter of lacework; Carolina Amari, founder of the Trespiano School and of the school in New York mentioned above; Lina Bianconcini Cavazza, president of Aemilia Ars art and lace in Bologna, a leader in terms of the quality and experimental nature of the artifacts; Maria Ponti Pasolini, founder of the School in Coccolia (Ravenna) and author of materials for the study of history, designed specifically for women. In March 1909 Palazzo Orsini saw the arrival of the well-known English pacifist Emily Hobhouse, a leading campaigner against the Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902. Inspired by the works of the Casamasella school that she had seen exhibited in London, Hobhouse came to Rome in search of a teacher, intending to transfer the IFI experience to South Africa in order to help the economy of Boer families devastated by the British army, which had ravaged farms and villages. With the approval

72Lena Mauro Airoldi, 1906. The author is referring here to a use of the term “industry” to indicate organization and commercial planning of the activity, as opposed to «machine industry» referring to factory work. Cfr. Ponti Pasolini, 1930. 73 Le industrie femminili italiane, 1906. 11

and encouragement of Etta and Antonio de Viti de Marco, the mission was entrusted to Carolina’s eldest daughter, Lucia Starace, who at just eighteen years of age left for South Africa and the village of Koppies in the Orange Free State, where she set up a lace-making school which continued to operate until 193874. Following the success of the Casamassella school, Carolina de Viti de Marco was asked to direct, with Etta, the girls section of the School for industrial applied arts: a school founded by Egidio Lanoce in 1881 in the town of Maglie, which was the only vocational training existing at that time in Salento75. It was an important acknowledgment attesting to the fact that Etta and Carolina were precursors in their vision, especially if one considers that technical and vocational training was still very rare in Italy76, and that it was totally lacking in Apulia77. In actual fact, at the start of the new century, the few girls-schools were mostly concentrated in the big industrial cities of Milan, Turin and Genoa. In the rest of the Italian peninsula there were almost none, as stated in a report for the Ministry by Ernestina Dal Co Viganò, head of a teacher training school and activist in the National Council of Italian Women78. Besides being due to the industrial underdevelopment of many regions, especially those in the South of Italy, this lack was also caused by a backward, misogynistic mentality. In fact, as Simonetta Soldani remarks, it was taken for granted that female work did not require any advanced skills, and that at the most it needed «an early careful training of the hand to learn movements that would be endlessly repeated»79. The female section created by Etta and Carolina de Viti de Marco at the industrial school in Maglie was instead in line with the modern professional model promoted by the founder: the course lasted five years and as well as practical laboratory activities, pupils learnt geometric and ornamental design. From 1907 to 1914, it was attended by an average of forty girls and in the archives there are documents showing that it was praised by local and ministerial authorities80. The outcome of the Casamassella venture shows instead the numerous negative implications existing between public history, private history, political history, economic history and social history. Carolina de Viti de Marco was disliked by the landowning aristocracy of Maglie, who were political opponents of her brother Antonio, a radical parliamentarian, and also of her husband,

74 Brits, 2016; Savage, 2013; Carman, 2014. 75 Panarese, 1974, 1995; Alessandri, 1974. The female section had already been set up in 1901, Ghiosso and Sani, 2013. 76An article of 1907 published in the journal Vita Femminile Italiana by Clelia Fano gives the annual figures of the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Trade for 1903-1904 and lists only 23 schools receiving contributions from the state and no more than 75 financed by other bodies over which the state had no control. The author denounces the fact that many provinces had no female vocational training and underlines the striking difference in public investment in male education, where there were 249 schools funded by the Ministry for an investment of Lire 378,610 compared to Lire 4,328 spent on female training. Fano, 1907. 77 Mauro Airoldi, 1906. 78 Quoted in Franchini and Puzzuoli, 2005. 79 Soldani, 1989. 80 Laurenzi, 2018. 12

Francesco Paolo Starace. The latter was a doctor and businessman, politically active in the anti- governement group of the parliamentarian Antonio Vallone 81 , which was also the alliance of Antonio de Viti de Marco 82 . They all belonged to an enlightened political elite involved in developing the entrepreneurial side of the grape and tobacco growing sectors, against the monopoly of cereal cultivation imposed by the landowners. Carolina and Etta de Viti de Marco’s initiative, inspired by the same ideals of development and modernization, was strongly opposed by the ladies of high-ranking families. This hostility was not only due to political allegiance but also because competition from the school undermined a well-established market system based on the exploitation and ignorance of the workers, which saw the orders managed by the aristocratic and upper-class ladies who were well acquainted with the channels for marketing such artifacts. This then gave rise to a campaign of defamation against Carolina de Viti de Marco, in which she was firstly reported to the tax authorities for evasion, then by insinuation accused of exploiting the needle-workers to her own financial advantage. Some of the letters from Carolina to Etta, dated March-April 1911, describe the «fierce unfair war» against her, and the atmosphere of slander and actual intimidation. The matter soon moved beyond the local scene and had repercussions in the national political sphere: rumors about the supposed exploitation of the Maglie workers reached Anna Kuliscioff, who, encouraged by Maffeo Pantaleoni83, a defender of the work of De Viti de Marco, offered to lead an enquiry to shed light on the matter. There is no evidence that the enquiry actually took place, nor is the outcome of matter known in detail; in any case, within a few years the Great War was to bring the lace market to an abrupt halt. However, Etta and Carolina’s venture would have unforeseen developments in the work of their respective daughters, Lucia de Viti de Marco and Giulia Starace, who in the ’50s and ’60s created an avant-garde experience of community and care inspired by Montessorian ideas, Modernist spirituality and Steinerian philosophy.

6. The mobilization of the liberals In 1930 Antonio wrote in his own hand on the title page of his newly published book Un Trentennio di lotte politiche (Thirty years of Political Battles): “To Etta to remember shared ideas and ideals”, but unlike the unemotional coldness of the Marquis, his wife had an “impatient” temperament84. The year 1898 was one of great mobilization for the group of Italian liberals: in the midst of economic crisis and the protests of workers and peasants they decided to carry out a program of talks and articles to be disseminated abroad to denounce the wrongdoings of the Italian government. Etta

81 See Romano, 2003. 82 Cfr. Antonio De Viti de Marco, «Una personalità salentina: Antonio Vallone», 1926. 83 Maffeo Pantaleoni was a well know economist of the time, very close to De Viti de Marco. 84A word she used to describe herself, complaining about the moderation of men: “with my impatient temperament I do not trust their actions, for they are too measured, moderate and reflective, while I would like them to jump in”. Letter to Ferrero of 26 February 1905. 13

played an active part: she wrote a memo illustrating the program but Vilfredo Pareto, though judging the contents right, advised against making it public so as not to reveal their plan to the government85. In those decades the press was the only way of conveying ideas and stirring up public opinion 86 ; it is known that the liberal group was deeply involved in founding journals and supporting newspapers, and Etta was just as keen. In 1901, having come into the inheritance from her father, she decided to invest part of it in a paper in support of the liberal group87. And again in 1915 a series of letters from her to Prezzolini88 reveal that she intended to contribute her own money to cover the losses of the paper La Voce - edizione politica, of which for a short while her husband had been the editor89. Then, in 1916, she was trying “to scrape together a bit of money” to reopen a paper like the old LaVoce or L’Unità90, which she hoped would be “run by Salvemini, Giretti, De Viti de Marco, Zanotti Bianco and ….?”91. Political battles can be tough, and Etta was often on the warpath supporting and defending Antonio’s friends and radical colleagues, as in the case of the serious and unfounded accusations against Maffeo Pantaleoni in 190292, or in that of the attacks on the International Agrarian Institute which was “in the hands of Antonio, Maffeo, Montemartini”93, or again when she insisted on Pantaleoni writing the preface to the reprint of “Cronache” by Francesco Papafava 94 for the anniversary of his death in March 191395. Antonio’s political career, twenty years of which as a member of Parliament, found solid backing in his wife’s activity: in 1913 she wrote to their great friend Gaetano Salvemini, hoping that the results of the elections – the first to be held with almost universal male suffrage – would be favorable for him, as well as obviously for her husband. But this was not to be. Salvemini was not elected96, and nor was Antonio, in parliament since 1901 but defeated in 191397, fortunately for only a short time:

85 Letter from Pareto to Pantaleoni of 7 November 1898, in V. Pareto, Lettere a Pantaleoni, a cura di De Rosa, vol. II, p. 248. 86 V. Castronovo et al., La stampa italiana nell’età liberale, Bari, Laterza, 1979. 87 Letter from Edoardo Giretti to Luigi Einaudi, 15 November 1901, Archivio Einaudi, Corrispondenza, fascicolo Edoardo Giretti. 88 Giuseppe Prezzolini (1882-1982) was a journalist, writer and publisher and in 1908 founded La Voce as editor. 89 De Viti replaced Prezzolini as editor of La Voce because the latter was leaving for the war, but the experience was short- lived due to contrasts between the old editor and the new one. Etta’s intervention however enabled the last issue of the year to be brought out, containing articles that were ready for printing. 90 L’Unità closed in May 1915 both for the departure of Salvemini for the front, and for an excess of optimism on the moralizing power of the war. It resumed its publications in December 1916; Salvemini and De Viti shared its direction for the next two years. 91 Original punctuation. Etta’s letters to Zanotti Bianco of 10 March 1916 and 8 April 1916, Archivio dell’Associazione Nazionale per gli Interessi del Mezzogiorno d’Italia (ANIMI), Roma, Fondo Archivistico Umberto Zanotti Bianco. Edoardo Giretti, silk producer and radical politician, was very close to De Viti in his anti-protectionist battle. Umberto Zanotti Bianco was a good friend of the De Viti family. 92 Letter to Ferrero in 1902. 93 Letter to Ferrero in 1904. 94 Francesco Papafava (1864-1912) was the author of “Chronicles” in Giornale degli Economisti, from 1899 to 1909. See in particolar the letter of 1902 reported by Cardini on pp. 122-123. 95 1913 letter from Pantaleoni to J. Régis, January. 96 Letter to Ferrero in 1913. Salvemini had stood for election in 1913 in the constituency of di Molfetta, Bitonto and Terlizzi, but was defeated. 97 Defeated by the socialist rival Senape De Pace. 14

he was returned to the Chamber in the 1915 by-election for six more years. Still thinking of Antonio’s political career, in 1915 Etta asked Salvemini to do something to get her husband called into the government, underlining “that he was the first and the clearest supporter of the war, among the radicals”98. But we will return to the question of the war shortly. Another issue on which their “shared ideas and ideals” was manifested was that of the South of Italy, which was the focus of Antonio’s electoral campaign, and which would continue to be crucial throughout his political activity. In the first year he stood for election in the college of Gallipoli, Etta had asked their good friend Guglielmo Ferrero for the support of Il Secolo to help her husband give national exposure to the issue of the moral and material conditions of the South. She was in love with the South99, and – partly through the pioneering venture we have described – took part in the battles for “the progressive economic and moral improvement of the whole country, and especially for the revival and renewal of the South”100, as she wrote to her friend Salvemini. Her letters to Papafava and to the editor of L’Unità deal with the South’s economic problems, showing a detailed, in-depth knowledge of the economic and political issues related to the situation of Southern Italy101, and embracing her husband’s free-trade line, in opposition to the interventionist alternative proposed by other economists and politicians. As well as the battle for the South, Etta openly supported the fight against customs barriers, which her husband – the Italian leader of the anti-protectionist movement – saw as connected to the former in his vision of an Italian path to economic development, convinced that free trade also offered the antidote to the pressure exerted by industrial groups to obtain privileges from the state. Etta accompanied Antonio during his talks in favor of free trade, and she did her best to ensure that more of these talks were held all over Italy. In 1914 he told Salvemini of the great response to her husband’s rally in Bari, where he was finally able to explain his position against duties on grain, which had previously been distorted and obscured; she said she wanted to push Antonio to get his ideas across to the population and therefore asked Salvemini to reprint and circulate her husband’s old articles against grain duties published in L’Unità; she enclosed also 100 lire, and suggested giving some of the readers free subscriptions to the paper. Again, for the anti-protectionist cause, in 1915 on behalf of her husband she asked Luigi Einaudi to make some pamphlets to be distributed in Italy and England through a contact from the Cobden Club. She added that she had been asked by the Commercial Supplement of the Times for figures on trade between Italy and England. Another issue concerning free trade that was important to Etta was the conditions of Italian migrants in America:

98 On the close relationship between Salvemini and De Viti de Marco see A. Cardini, Gaetano Salvemini e Antonio De Viti de Marco, in G. Cingari (ed.), Gaetano Salvemini tra politica e storia, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1986, pp. 248-276. 99 Her letters from Salento were full of a rapturous sense of the beauty of the countryside, and of proactive concern for the conditions of the local population. 100 Letter to Salvemini of 9 November 1913. 101 Letter of 1913. 15

between 1902 and 1907 she wrote to Luigi Bodio102 about this matter, putting him in contact both with Archbishop Corrigan103 and, on behalf of the U.S. Ambassador Griscom, with the members of an American commission for immigration then visiting Europe104. The question of the war burst into the letters from Etta, who shared the ideas of the group of democratic interventionists gathered around L’Unità 105 , embracing their anti-nationalist, pro- Entente position. In 1914 she was mainly campaigning for the Italo-British League, founded that year by her husband in an initiative by “those who propounded the need for us to intervene alongside the Entente and saw and declared from that moment the ideal democratic nature of our war”106. Etta, an Anglo-Saxon, threw herself into involving as many well-known people as possible; among others, she asked Leone Caetani107 to contact also Guglielmo Marconi108. With her husband, she was extremely busy in taking care of the League’s Rassegna Mensile and its distribution, also in England. Italy’s declaration of neutrality, which the couple attributed to an agreement between “socialists and clerics”, was a disappointment for the interventionists: in March 1915 she repeatedly asked Salvemini to go to Salento to be with her husband, who at that moment thought he had chosen the wrong direction in life and was not cut out for politics. The letter contained a bitter accusation against Germany, and against those in whose interests it was to “sell Italy to the German sword”, with a paean to democracy and the masses. With surprising foresight, in August 1915 Etta wrote to Salvemini, about to leave for the front, saying that victory would not be happy because the good would leave and their place would be taken by the speculators. This is what actually happened, disproving the democratic interventionists’ initial belief that the war would have a moralizing effect on the Italian population. In letters to Umberto Zanotti Bianco in 1915 she lavished praise on the young, full of will power and moral energy, and on the heroic Italian soldiers. Among the officers in 1916 there was also her son James, who really was heroic, being awarded a silver medal.

7. Democracy, free trade and civil progress

102 Luigi Bodio (1840-1920) was an Italian economist and statistician, firstly general secretary and then president of the International Insitute of Statistics. 103 Michael AugustineCorrigan (1839-1902) was Catholic archbishop of New York. 104 Lloyd C. Griscom was ambassador to Rome from 1907 to 1909. “In the summer of 1907 Commissioners Dillingham (chairman), Latimer, Howell, Bennet, Brunnett, and Wheeler visited Europe for the purpose of making a general survey of emigration and conditions in countries which are the chief sources of the present immigration in the United States” Reports of the immigration commission. 105 1915 Giustino Fortunato to Zanotti Bianco in a letter of 11 September 1923: “And, by the way, who told us about England’s benevolence towards Italy? Ricordo Salvemini and De Viti De Marco, in 1915: and marchesa De Viti De Marco; what comical wild discourses in the joyful month of May that year!”. 106A. de Viti de Marco, Per la costituzione di una Lega Italo-Britannica, in La guerra europea. Scritti e discorsi, Roma, L’Unità, 1918. The footnote cited was added in 1918. 107 Leone Caetani, duca di Sermoneta e principe di Teano (1869-1935) was a historian, islamist and orientalist. 108 Apparently, she succeeded, as Marconi is among the members of the Economic Committee of the Leauges’ Rassegna mensile. 16

Eleonora Duse described Etta thus: “she works and writes, never resting, from morning to night”109. Apart from taking care of her correspondence, she published articles on various topics. We have already discussed her essay Assistenza e Previdenza (Welfare and social services) in the previous sections. As a feminist, she contributed in 1915 to La Voce - edizione politica with an article signed E.L.D. and entitled Giustizia militare … o giustizia tedesca? Il caso di Edith Cavell (Military justice … or German justice? The case of Edith Cavell)110. Edith Cavell was an English nurse in Belgium, who, when the country was invaded by Germany, took care of both Germans and Belgians, as well as sheltering British soldiers and helping them to escape. For this she was tried and put to death. The article condemned the brutal methods of German military courts, which still used force instead of law, ignoring the moral considerations of civilly advanced peoples. In her articles Etta typically reports and comments on the news from Anglo-Saxon countries, informing Italians with official information or figures on current affairs. In 1898, for instance, she wrote a short article on telephones in England for the Giornale degli Economisti111, signed E.d.V., commenting on the report of a parliamentary enquiry into the telephone service just conducted in England. It should be pointed out that the contributors to this prestigious journal – of which her husband was editor for a long while – included only two women, Etta and Maria Pasolini. After a very thorough analysis, Etta reported the commission’s conclusion that if the use of the telephone was to be extended to all social classes, then post offices and local authorities would have to compete with the private firm that at the time had a monopoly on the telephone industry. Then, in 1915 she wrote a letter to the Resto del Carlino112 in response to an article by Giovanni Papini, of the La Voce group, which seems to have rekindled her memories of childhood and youth. The article, entitled America e civiltà (America and civilization) was about the American pioneers and their ideals. With reference to the War of Independence and the Civil War, he described America as “the refuge of the oppressed, the realm of a free people … the same justice for all. Self-government”. For Etta these principles represented “the continuation on the new continent of the battle already fought in England [for] constitutional government”, and for the “democratic principles at the base of the American Constitution”. Then there were her articles of real political analysis, like the one in 1898 about Rivalità Internazionale in Cina (International rivalry in China), published in the Giornale degli Economisti113. Starting from the fact that the extraordinary development of the means of communication makes the “unity of the world become a political and economic fact” (p. 547), the article analyzes the attitude of the great

109 Letter from Eleonora Duse to her daughter, 31 July 1915 (in Ma Pupa, Henriette, edited by Maria Ida Biggi, Marsilio, 2010, p. 62). 110 Giustizia militare o giustizia tedesca? Il caso Edith Cavell, La Voce edizione politica, anno VII, 7 novembre 1915, n. 13, pp. 673-677. 111La questione dei telefoni in Inghilterra, fasc. Ottobre, p. 351, 1898. 112America e Civiltà, Il Resto del Carlino, 6 settembre 1915. 113 Anno IX, vol. XVII, pp. 547-562. 17

powers towards China, whose economic development is, according to Etta, “of worldwide relevance” (p. 548). From a non-Eurocentric perspective, she demolishes some of the clichés about the Chinese114 seeing them not only as “capable of becoming civilized”, but also able to generate a democracy and open to “modern industrial development” (p. 550), while she accuses the Chinese leaders of being immobile and isolationist. She lists China’s productive resources and, by examining the countries interested in its development, distinguishes those that are in favor of free trade (England, Germany, the United States and Japan) from those that instead want to occupy the territory because they have more military power than economic strength (like Russia and France). She makes a clear presentation of the theory of free trade (of which the basic argument is that it is to everyone’s benefit not to exclude portions of territory from international trade), and explains the reasons why the open- door policy “coincides with the interests of world trade and of civilization in general” (p. 558). Critical of the ambivalent position of the United States on protectionism and free trade, she explains that in democratic countries “the general direction of politics must in the long run depend on the tendencies of public opinion” (p. 559), and that the population is perfectly able to understand the importance of commercial interests. She also analyzes Italy, which she considers weak both in military and trading terms, but at least having the advantage of being able to export its goods to China. Her conclusion is that the real choice is either the occupation of the territory or an open-door policy, and that the latter is better for China in order to safeguard the entirety of its empire. In 1903-04 a long article entitled Imperialismo, protezionismo e liberismo in Inghilterra (Imperialism, protectionism and free trade in England)115 signed D. appeared in different issues of the Giornale degli Economisti. We cannot be sure that the article was written by Etta. It could be by her husband or more probably by both of them, because it has characteristics that can be linked to either of them: the style is that of the Chronicles in Giornale degli Economisti that Antonio had written every month from 1897 to 1899, and at the same time it recalls the typical pieces written by Etta commenting on documents and figures from the Anglo-Saxon world116. The article intends to give a “first hand” account of the positions taken by protectionists and free-traders in the English debate and to analyze their arguments. The first part (September 1903) reports a speech Chamberlain delivered to the Constitutional Club on 27 June 1903 in which, in order to promote a protectionist policy, the Minister for the Colonies poses eleven questions to free-traders. According to his supporters, customs tariffs have three targets: the unity of the British empire, the tariff league with the colonies, and the fiscal goal of

114 Though using many others about other nations. 115 1903-04 D, Imperialismo, protezionismo e liberismo in Inghilterra, in “GdE”, s.II, vol.XXVII, settembre 1903, pp. 249 ss; novembre 1903, pp. 470 ss; ivi, vol. XXVIII, gennaio 1904, pp. 48 ss; febbraio 1904, pp. 155 ss. 116In its index by year, Giornale degli Economisti attributes it to her husband. Cardini attributes it to her (pp. 126-127). De Viti de Marco usually signs V. This is the only article signed by D. If our hypothesis of co-authorship is right, it may refer to both their surnames (De Viti de Marco and Dunham). 18

increasing state revenues. The article challenges all three and talks about the extraordinary revival of the free trade battle sparked by that speech, through the reborn Cobden Club, the new Free Trade Union, the newspaper The Free Trader, the thousands of letters published in the press, and the millions of pamphlets and leaflets distributed to the public. More specifically, it gives the Italian translation of a very interesting letter signed by 14 economists, including Bastable, Cannan, Edgeworth, Marshall, Pigou, etc. and reports the protests it caused among protectionists. The article hastens to clarify that after these reactions “there immediately appeared figures that categorically disprove” the protectionists’ arguments (p. 259). It then quotes these figures, and concludes with a parliamentary document from the Board of Trade on the improved economic conditions in England from 1801 to 1901. The second part (November 1903) highlights a glorious new aspect compared to Cobden’s time, that is, the fact that organized, informed and responsible workers and consumers were now participating in the free trade debate. The account of a journey by a Daily Mail correspondent among the workers of various industries reveals a widespread anti-protectionist attitude, and the same result emerges from the opinions of trade unions and cooperatives. The article reproduces long passages from the original documents referred to, and concludes by stating that the struggle underway in England is not at all a clash between scientific truths, but between interests, and the outcome depends on the political strength of the two sides. At this point the article explains that, after the release of the Blue Book containing the Board of Trade’s statistical studies, on 9 September 1903 Chamberlain suddenly resigned as Minister for the Colonies. Due to this, the prime minister, Balfour, adopted a singular version of free trade, which in the article is accused of serious inaccuracies and of “a metaphysical- literary style” (p. 476). This is then rebutted with the correct historical reconstruction of the acts leading to free trade and, in the end, it is revealed that Balfour’s apparent free-trade stance concealed his request to Parliament for a customs tariff justified by the desire “to impose free trade on other countries” (p. 480). The article then returns to the questions in Chamberlain’s list, in the belief that he had resigned expecting to return to power after whipping up public support. His eleven questions are followed by the answers given by the Free Trade Union. According to the article, it was these answers that, having spread all over the country, made Chamberlain fail with his new program clearly aimed at protectionism. The third part (January 1904) explains that in Italy there is the tendency to exaggerate Chamberlain’s support, while the country’s best economists and top politicians are opposed to him. The article therefore asks: where does Chamberlain’s strength come from? Is he perhaps “the political exponent of a coalition of interests?” (p. 49). Documents are printed and commented on, showing how Chamberlain changed his mind, distorted historical facts and falsified statistics. The replies to his speeches from representatives of the Trades Union Congress bring to light the very important fact that the workers believe that free trade facilitates a redistribution of wealth in their favor (p. 57). The

19

data then given on wages and prices show how much better off a worker is in Britain compared to Europe and the world. The fourth and last part (February 1904) explains that Chamberlain finds support in the widespread fear that England may lose its industrial supremacy due to the threat of competition from countries like the United States and Germany, and underlines that in reality the threat only applies to a few inefficient industries. The article examines in depth the composition and activities of a committee set up by Chamberlain “to draw up a complete system of protectionist tariffs” (p. 156). The question of American protectionism is then dealt with in passing, regarded as a different situation since the United States has no internal barriers and a very short history. After a long examination supported by statistics on the English industrial sectors that have benefited from free trade (cotton, machinery, tin sheeting), the article concludes that Chamberlain’s success “has sufficient explanation in the political strength of protectionist industrial interests” (p. 165) and that the data provided to support his case have been falsified. In the last part of the article this falsification is exposed and the argument that protectionism is necessary to protect against American trusts is confuted; the best way is to respond with similar kinds of industrial organizations. In conclusion, the article expresses satisfaction about a recent vote in the House of Commons on a pro-free trade amendment which enabled the free trade forces in the British parliament to be clearly distinguished from the protectionists (p. 171), which is precisely what her husband had always hoped would happen in Italian politics. Knowing Antonio de Viti de Marco’s thought, and his democratic, liberal, free-trading beliefs, we can certainly conclude that on all these questions, Etta sang the same tune as her husband. Some witnesses reported a rather submissive attitude on Etta’s part117. However, she actually exerted a strong influence over him: it was certainly thanks to her that in parliament Antonio took a position in favor of divorce and the vote for women118. And it was thanks to the direct contact with Anglo- Saxon culture that his democratic political orientation was reinforced, inspired by the English liberals, and later by Wilson’s vision119.

8. After the Great War The hopeful enthusiasm of the years we have so far described was now replaced by disillusionment. Etta followed Antonio’s last electoral campaign120, but there was no longer any sign of personal activism: in 1920 the Chamber passed a bill to grant women the vote, but in this new battle she

117 E. Chirilli, Ricordi, in M. Mosca, Una storia degna di memoria, Bruno Mondadori, Milano, p. 27. 118 The proposal for a bill in favor of divorce was approved in the Chamber in 1903, but then it was withdrawn. A similar story happened with the female suffrage in 1920. 119 See F. Martelloni e M. Mosca, De Viti de Marco, the “European war” and President Wilson, “Journal of Economic Thought”, 40 (2) 2018, pp. 179-199. 120 Letter to Eleonora Duse from the South of Italy, 14 January 1920, Archivio Eleonora Duse, Istituto per il Teatro e il Melodramma, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venezia. 20

seemed to be absent. As we know, before the bill went to be examined by the Senate, Parliament was dissolved and nothing more was heard of female suffrage in Italy until 1945. Her husband gave up his political activity and withdrew from public life in the early Twenties, but she had actually done so years earlier: we have already seen the conclusion of her entrepreneurial activity in the 1910s. However, she continued to cultivate their social life, as attested by Zanotti Bianco:

In the years of ‘retirement’, she often tried – by inviting to lunch or dinner their closest friends with whom he [Antonio] love to converse – to lessen the impact of the detachment from the activities to which he had devoted so much of his life121.

So, the invitations continued, while Antonio increasingly devoted himself to the wine-making business and to the books he was still working on. From her correspondence in the Twenties and Thirties with Gaetano Mosca, Luigi Einaudi and Umberto Zanotti Bianco, we learn that the journeys to the house in London continued122, and that her interest and cultural curiosity had not died. In 1934 Etta offered to help get reviews in the Manchester Guardian or the Times Literary Supplement of the books published by Luigi Einaudi. A message sent to Gaetano Mosca raises a wry smile today: she wrote that she had read “an extremely interesting article written by Lloyd George for the paper ‘The Sunday Express’ on 12 August 1934: Why there will be no War for Ten Years”123. In these letters we seem to find the usual Etta. There is only one cautious but unmistakable hint of anti-fascism, found in a letter in which she indicated which passengers she would take on board to then scuttle the ship: “Perhaps you may guess whom by the initials M. & H. ... and just send it adrift toward the rocks”124. However, it was not only the Italian political situation that cast a shadow over the De Viti de Marco family. There was also a sad private matter. Their first-born, James, after his glorious return from the front, showed signs of depression; they attempted to cure him by sending him to live in London for a while. Then, years later, he was diagnosed with a mental illness and in 1931 was admitted to a clinic. It was a family tragedy with complex ramifications125. In June 1937 her daughter Lucia told friends that her mother was not well126. However, in February 1938, in a hand-written letter from Rome, Etta told Zanotti Bianco she had enjoyed an excursion with Lucia. In 1939 when her sister-in- law Carolina went to visit her, she was shocked by her state of health: probably Etta had lost her

121 U. Zanotti Bianco, Antonio de Viti de Marco, “Nuova Antologia”, a. 97, vol. 484, n. 1935, mar. 1962, pp. 337-354, rist. in Meridione e meridionalisti, Collezione Meridionale Editrice, Roma, 1964, pp. 329-335. 122 Letter to G. Mosca, 25 April 1925, Fondo archivistico Gaetano Mosca, Roma, La Sapienza, Fascicolo 174. 123 Letter to G. Mosca, 15 August 1934, Fondo archivistico Gaetano Mosca, Roma, La Sapienza, Fascicolo 174. 124 Letter to Zanotti Bianco, 19 December 1933 Archivio dell’ANIMI, cit. 125 The sad story of James’s mental illness and the conflicts that followed are the subject of research underway by one of the authors (M. Mosca). 126 Letter from Lucia de Viti de Marco to Zanotti Bianco, Archivio dell’ANIMI, cit. 21

memory127. She died in Rome on 28 August 1939 and today rests in the De Viti de Marco family chapel in Salento.

Conclusion However sympathetic the account may be, it is impossible to fully render the vivacity, the passion, the intense and at times impetuous tone found in Etta’s correspondence when she describes the countryside of the South of Italy, her political ideals, her intellectual interests, her anthropological considerations, and her democratic convictions. Liberal Italy, pre-war Italy, was a world in ferment full of faith in progress, where there was the firm belief that one’s personal commitment could speed up and expand the development of humankind, contributing to civilizing the population. Etta fully embraced this dream. She also shared in its twilight and its end, despite being a strong woman, a “stoic” 128, capable of bearing adversity, a woman who said of herself: “I do not really fear bad weather” 129.

127 Eleonora Duse’s daughter wrote “In 1950 I heard that Etta had lost her memory … (from Miss Hungton related to the Dunhams)” Enrichetta Marchetti Bullough, Note a margine, in Ma Pupa, Henriette, a cura di Maria Ida Biggi, Marsilio, 2010, p. 349. 128 In her Annales, in describing a car accident happened in 1936, her sister-in-law Carolina writes that Etta showed “stoicism”; the word “stoic” comes back in a letter from her son James to the princess Henriette Barberini of May 14, 1952. 129 Letter from Etta to Zanotti Bianco, 31 December 1931, Archivio dell’ANIMI, cit. 22