The International Council of Women (ICW) is a women's organization working across national boundaries for the common cause of advocating human rights for women. In March and April 1888, women leaders came together in Washington D.C., with 80 speakers and 49 delegates representing 53 women's organizations from 9 countries: Canada, the United States, Ireland, India, United Kingdom, Finland, Denmark, France and Norway. Women from professional organizations, trade unions, arts groups and benevolent societies participate. National councils are affiliated to the ICW and thus make themselves heard at the international level. The ICW enjoys consultative status with the United Nations and its Permanent Representatives to ECOSOC, ILO, FAO, WHO, UNDP, UNEP, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNCTAD, and UNIDO.
Laura Orvieto, born Laura Cantoni was a Jewish Italian writer, intellectual and women's rights activist. Many of her most known works were written for children to teach them ancient Greek and Roman myths.
Cordula "Lina" Poletti was an Italian writer, poet, playwright, and feminist. Often described as beautiful and rebellious, she was prone to wear men's clothing and is considered one of the first women in Italy to openly declare her lesbianism.
Emma Baeri is a Sicilian feminist historian and essayist. She has played an active role in organizing feminist political action and literary life in Italy along with her academic career.
Margherita Ancona was an Italian teacher and active in the women's suffrage movement in Milan. She was the secretary and later president of the radical bourgeois Comitato lombardo pro suffragio and member of the Italian branch of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA). One of the leaders of the Italian women's suffrage campaigns, she was the only Italian woman to serve in her era on the board of the IWSA and was as a delegate to the Inter-Allied Women's Conference of 1919.
Alice Schiavoni Bosio was an Italian suffragette. She served as the director of the journal Attività Femminile Sociale from its founding in 1913 through 1916. Affiliated with the Consiglio Nazionale delle Donne Italiane, a member of the International Council of Women, Schiavoni was one of the participants in both the Women at the Hague Conference of 1915 and the Inter-Allied Women's Conference of 1919.
The Associazione per la donna, also Associazione Nazionale per la donna, was an early Italian women's organization. Founded in Rome in 1896 by a group of women, including Elisa Agnini, Giacinta Martini Marescotti, Alina Albani, Virginia Nathan, Maria Montessori and Eva De Vincentiis, it was among the first to deal with women's civic and political rights.
The Comitato pro suffragio femminile was an Italian organization founded in 1905 in support of women's voting rights. Among the most active participants were Anna Maria Mozzoni, Linda Malnati and Carlotta Clerici.
Gabriella Rasponi Spalletti (1853–1931) was an Italian feminist, educator and philanthropist. Keen to improve conditions for women, in 1897 she founded an embroidery school in Quarrata, Tuscany. From 1903, as president of the National Council of Italian Women, she supported voting rights for women and was behind the highly successful National Congress of Italian Women in 1908.
Linda Malnati (1855–1921) was an influential Italian women's rights activist, trade unionist, suffragist, pacifist and educator. She is remembered for her efforts to improve the working conditions of teachers from the 1890s, for her contributions to magazines calling for improved conditions for working women and, in the 1900s, for her support for votes for women. She was an active member of various women's organizations.
Piera Fondelli Gatteschi was the commander of the Female Auxiliary Service of the Italian Social Republic, a member of the National Fascist Party and a participant in the March on Rome.
Graziella Sonnino Carpi was an Italian feminist and peace activist in the interwar period. She was a member of the Italian Unione Femminile Nazionale and a delegate to the 1919 Women's Conference.
The history of women in the Italian Resistance plays a key role for the partisan movement in the fight against fascism during World War II. They fought to regain their country's freedom and justice by holding functions of primary importance.
Maria Rosa Cutrufelli is an Italian writer and journalist.
Eugenia Rasponi was an Italian noblewoman who became a suffragist and businessperson. Dedicated to social welfare projects, as her mother had been, she opened a furniture manufacturing business to preserve the local hand-crafted canvases made in Romagna. In 1918, she met openly-lesbian writer and suffragist, Lina Poletti. The two women would share their lives for the next 40 years, traveling throughout Europe and Asia and studying philosophy and theosophy.
Lega promotrice degli interessi femminili was an Italian organization for women's rights, founded in Milan in December 1880. It was the first organization for women's right in Italy. Short-lived, it nevertheless played a pioneering role in the history of the organized women's movement in Italy.
National Council of Women may refer to:
Lina Schwarz was an Italian writer, educator, and pacifist. Born into a Jewish family living in Verona, she spent most of her life in Milan. As a result of participating in the women's rights movement in Italy, she became involved in helping disadvantaged children through civic works projects. Teaching children to read led to her becoming a well-known children's book author and a contributor to children's newspapers. She collaborated with musicians to set poems to music, recognizing the potential to increase learning through song. Many of the nursery rhymes known and recited by Italians were written by Schwarz. Although her poem "Stella, stellina, la notte si avvicina" is widely known in Italy, her authorship of it was lost after World War II ended.
Enrichetta Chiaraviglio-Giolitti was an Italian philanthropist, educational patron and activist. Born in Florence, she was the oldest daughter of five-time Prime Minister of Italy, Giovanni Giolitti. An astute and intellectual woman, she was his confidant and correspondent although they did not always agree on policy. Interested in improving children's education in Italy, she worked with several associations and on commissions to study and create curricula. She was a supporter of the Italian educator Maria Montessori and persuaded Margherita of Savoy, queen of Italy, to become a patron of her schools.
Anita Dobelli Zampetti was an Italian teacher, writer, women's rights activist, and pacifist. Born in Gardone, Lombardy, she grew up in Rome. She taught English and Italian at the women's normal school and became active in the Consiglio Nazionale delle Donne Italiane, serving on its executive board. One of the founders of the Comitato Nazionale Pro-Suffragio Femminile she fought for women's suffrage. Although she was a secretary of the CNPF from 1908 to 1915, she left the organization because of its refusal to object to Italy's involvement in World War I. Joining the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) upon its founding in 1915, she served as correspondance secretary for the national branch from 1915 to 1921 and as chair of the organization's Rome branch.
