The Political Philanthropy of the Female Elites

This Chapter, written by the editors of the book Elena Laurenzi and Manuela Mosca, proposes some methodological and historiographical considerations, pointing out the scarcity of historical studies on activist women belonging to the elite who used their wealth and power to transform reality. It introduces the reader to three paradigmatic figures of American women based in Italy, who exhibit the liberal, inter-faith and international profile of an early twentieth-century political elite. It also exemplifies their practical feminism, which went beyond the mere demand for rights, to undertake significant experimental and entrepreneurial initiatives. The political philanthropic networks they created renewed the conception of charity: by re-interpreting practical feminism as a vast movement of political and social action, they sought to redefine the concept of citizenship and to construct an early form of welfare state. The chapter shows the great heuristic power of the network approach, and how it can overcome the dichotomy between biographical and sociological or institutional approaches. It also recommends the use of informal and private sources in analysing the problems of considering the female transmission of ideas, values and experiences between generations. Thanks to this approach, it demonstrates the endurance of and changes in a wide-ranging political-entrepreneurial project which has continued to the present day.