Jessie White Mario
Encyclopedia
Jessie White Mario was an English (and naturalized Italian) writer and philanthropist. She is sometimes referred to as “Hurricane Jessie” in the Italian press.
She was a nurse to General Garibaldi’s soldiers in four wars; she researched living conditions in subterranean Naples
and working conditions in Sicily’s sulphur mines. She wrote copiously (in English
and Italian
) as both a journalist and a biographer.
Her most famous biography was about Giuseppe Garibaldi
.
, Hampshire
, England
. Thomas was part of the White family of Cowes
, Isle of Wight
, boat builders for generations, but he moved to the mainland and switched from building boats to building docks and warehouses. His was a religiously strict, non-conformist, household.
It was also an educationally non-conformist household. Unlike almost all middle-class girls growing up in Victorian England, Jessie received an excellent education culminating in studying philosophy with Hugues Felicité Robert de Lamennais at the Sorbonne
in Paris
between 1852 and 1854.
Also in Paris during those years was Mrs. Emma Roberts who considered herself engaged to Giuseppe Garibaldi
. Jessie and Mrs. Roberts became friends and when Mrs. Roberts went to visit Garibaldi first in Nice and then Sardinia, she took Jessie as her companion.
Jessie, like many in Britain, had heard for some time about the atrocities of the Austrian, French and Bourbon dictatorships in various parts of the Italian peninsula. Garibaldi fired her imagination and she dedicated herself to the Unification of Italy.
Upon her return to London
in the spring of 1855, Jessie applied to medical schools with the hope of becoming a doctor — some (Edwin Pratt in Pioneer Women in Victoria’s Reign, for one) have said she was the first woman in England to do so. All her applications were rejected because of her gender.
She became a propagandist for the Italian cause working with Giuseppe Mazzini
, then in exile in London. She wrote newspaper articles explaining the issues in Italy, gave lectures and raised funds for the Italian cause in northern England and Scotland
.
When, in 1857, Mazzini went to Genoa, Jessie followed him. Her arrival was announced in the Italia del Popolo newspaper, which had been publishing accounts of her speaking tours. She was treated as a celebrity, toured the area and successfully deflected attention away from Mazzini, who was working on a clandestine expedition to break patriots out of a Bourbon prison near Naples. The operation failed badly, Mazzini escaped the police round-up and returned to London. Jessie and her fiancé, Alberto Mario, were captured and sent to prison in Genoa; Jessie for four months. They married in December 1857 at her family’s home in England.
Jessie continued her speaking tours in England and Scotland. In the Fall of 1858 Jessie and Alberto went to New York
to continue lecturing and fund-raising; she to English speaking audiences and he to Italian speakers.
Spring 1860 found them in Lugano, Switzerland
, from where they rushed to Genoa
to be part of the second wave of volunteers going to Sicily to join Garibaldi in his lightning-fast conquest of the Bourbon-controlled southern half of Italy. Alberto was on Garibaldi’s staff and Jessie was nurse to the wounded, doing whatever was needed. This included tightly holding a boy while his arm was amputated without anaesthesia. Skills learned and refined during this war were used again in 1866 in the war against the Austrians west of Venice
; in 1867 at Monterotondo and Mentana, north of Rome
; and in the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War
when Garibaldi led an army against the Germans in eastern France
.
As the unification of the Italian peninsula became complete, in 1870, with the addition of Rome which quickly became the capital, attention shifted to the problems of this new country. Social issues were not high on the agenda; in fact, most social problems were not even recognised by the new government.
Starting in the early 1870s Jessie worked on three research projects aimed at raising governmental awareness and encouraging subsequent action.
The first was to research the causes, effects and possible solution to the problem of pellagra. This disease, of the three D’s — dermatitis
, diarrhoea and dementia
— is caused by lack of protein-rich foods in the diet and a subsequent lack of vitamin B3. Jessie’s research into pellagra lasted for ten years, and her findings showed that even such simple, readily available diet supplements as two glasses of red wine per week reduced the effects of the illness.
The second was research into the living conditions of the poor in Naples
, which was viewed by the government as a very prosperous city. Jessie found large numbers of people living in grottos, under Naples' streets — huge communal spaces with no sanitation, where only crude curtains separated one family’s area from the others, all unseen and ignored by Neapolitan citizens in the streets above, except for the grotto landlords who collected exorbitant rents. Her report, La miseria di Napoli ("The Poor of Naples"), was published in 1877, and is cited in timelines of important events in southern Italy. (see The New History of the Italian South, edited by Robert Lumley and Jonathan Morris, 1997)
The third was research into working conditions in the Sicilian sulphur mines. There was a concern about child labour and the general health of the miners: many of whom were physically unfit for military service. Jessie made extensive personal tours and investigations of the mines, both above and below ground, and published her report, Le miniere di Zolfo in Sicilia (The Sulphur Mines in Sicily) in 1894.
Jessie made her living writing. Jessie’s career as a journalist had started in England writing for British newspapers (Litta Visconti Arese in his introduction to The Birth of Modern Italy, says Jessie was the first woman journalist in England.) She also wrote for newspapers in the United States and Italian press. Starting in 1866 the first of what would be 143 articles over 40 years appeared in The Nation published weekly in New York. She was also a frequent contributor to Nuova Antologia a semi-monthly magazine published in Florence. (Rossella Certini [see below] has written that Jessie was the first journalist in Italy to explore the ‘cracks’ in the Italian reality.)
Writing was also a way of expressing her passion for Italy and its people. She wanted to make sure that some of the lesser known heroes of the Risorgimento were not forgotten. She wrote biographies of Garibaldi and Mazzini, to be sure; but also biographies of Dr. Agostino Bertani, Carlo Cattaneo
(with Alberto Mario), Giuseppe Dolfo, Alberto Mario (with Giosuè Carducci
), Giovanni Nicotera
. She was gathering material for several more at the time of her death.
Jessie also wrote a couple of histories: I Garibaldini in Francia about the Franco-Prussian War; and The Birth of Modern Italy, which was published posthumously.
She died on 5 March 1906 in Florence. A non-religious ceremony was held at her apartment followed by a procession through the streets of Florence. Her ashes are buried in the cemetery at Lendinara
, south of Venice
, next to Alberto's.
Giosuè Carducci
, the 1906 Nobel Laureate for Literature, said: Jessie White Mario ‘is a great woman to whom we Italians owe a lot.’
She was a nurse to General Garibaldi’s soldiers in four wars; she researched living conditions in subterranean Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
and working conditions in Sicily’s sulphur mines. She wrote copiously (in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
) as both a journalist and a biographer.
Her most famous biography was about Giuseppe Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian military and political figure. In his twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot revolutionaries, and fled Italy after a failed insurrection. Garibaldi took part in the War of the Farrapos and the Uruguayan Civil War leading the Italian Legion, and...
.
Biography
Born Jessie Meriton White, she was the daughter of Thomas White and Jane Teage Meriton of GosportGosport
Gosport is a town, district and borough situated on the south coast of England, within the county of Hampshire. It has approximately 80,000 permanent residents with a further 5,000-10,000 during the summer months...
, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Thomas was part of the White family of Cowes
Cowes
Cowes is an English seaport town and civil parish on the Isle of Wight. Cowes is located on the west bank of the estuary of the River Medina facing the smaller town of East Cowes on the east Bank...
, Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
, boat builders for generations, but he moved to the mainland and switched from building boats to building docks and warehouses. His was a religiously strict, non-conformist, household.
It was also an educationally non-conformist household. Unlike almost all middle-class girls growing up in Victorian England, Jessie received an excellent education culminating in studying philosophy with Hugues Felicité Robert de Lamennais at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
between 1852 and 1854.
Also in Paris during those years was Mrs. Emma Roberts who considered herself engaged to Giuseppe Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian military and political figure. In his twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot revolutionaries, and fled Italy after a failed insurrection. Garibaldi took part in the War of the Farrapos and the Uruguayan Civil War leading the Italian Legion, and...
. Jessie and Mrs. Roberts became friends and when Mrs. Roberts went to visit Garibaldi first in Nice and then Sardinia, she took Jessie as her companion.
Jessie, like many in Britain, had heard for some time about the atrocities of the Austrian, French and Bourbon dictatorships in various parts of the Italian peninsula. Garibaldi fired her imagination and she dedicated herself to the Unification of Italy.
Upon her return to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in the spring of 1855, Jessie applied to medical schools with the hope of becoming a doctor — some (Edwin Pratt in Pioneer Women in Victoria’s Reign, for one) have said she was the first woman in England to do so. All her applications were rejected because of her gender.
She became a propagandist for the Italian cause working with Giuseppe Mazzini
Giuseppe Mazzini
Giuseppe Mazzini , nicknamed Soul of Italy, was an Italian politician, journalist and activist for the unification of Italy. His efforts helped bring about the independent and unified Italy in place of the several separate states, many dominated by foreign powers, that existed until the 19th century...
, then in exile in London. She wrote newspaper articles explaining the issues in Italy, gave lectures and raised funds for the Italian cause in northern England and Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
.
When, in 1857, Mazzini went to Genoa, Jessie followed him. Her arrival was announced in the Italia del Popolo newspaper, which had been publishing accounts of her speaking tours. She was treated as a celebrity, toured the area and successfully deflected attention away from Mazzini, who was working on a clandestine expedition to break patriots out of a Bourbon prison near Naples. The operation failed badly, Mazzini escaped the police round-up and returned to London. Jessie and her fiancé, Alberto Mario, were captured and sent to prison in Genoa; Jessie for four months. They married in December 1857 at her family’s home in England.
Jessie continued her speaking tours in England and Scotland. In the Fall of 1858 Jessie and Alberto went to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
to continue lecturing and fund-raising; she to English speaking audiences and he to Italian speakers.
Spring 1860 found them in Lugano, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, from where they rushed to Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
to be part of the second wave of volunteers going to Sicily to join Garibaldi in his lightning-fast conquest of the Bourbon-controlled southern half of Italy. Alberto was on Garibaldi’s staff and Jessie was nurse to the wounded, doing whatever was needed. This included tightly holding a boy while his arm was amputated without anaesthesia. Skills learned and refined during this war were used again in 1866 in the war against the Austrians west of Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
; in 1867 at Monterotondo and Mentana, north of Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
; and in the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
when Garibaldi led an army against the Germans in eastern France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
.
As the unification of the Italian peninsula became complete, in 1870, with the addition of Rome which quickly became the capital, attention shifted to the problems of this new country. Social issues were not high on the agenda; in fact, most social problems were not even recognised by the new government.
Starting in the early 1870s Jessie worked on three research projects aimed at raising governmental awareness and encouraging subsequent action.
The first was to research the causes, effects and possible solution to the problem of pellagra. This disease, of the three D’s — dermatitis
Dermatitis
-Etymology:Dermatitis derives from Greek derma "skin" + -itis "inflammation" and genetic disorder.-Terminology:There are several different types of dermatitis. The different kinds usually have in common an allergic reaction to specific allergens. The term may describe eczema, which is also called...
, diarrhoea and dementia
Dementia
Dementia is a serious loss of cognitive ability in a previously unimpaired person, beyond what might be expected from normal aging...
— is caused by lack of protein-rich foods in the diet and a subsequent lack of vitamin B3. Jessie’s research into pellagra lasted for ten years, and her findings showed that even such simple, readily available diet supplements as two glasses of red wine per week reduced the effects of the illness.
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, which was viewed by the government as a very prosperous city. Jessie found large numbers of people living in grottos, under Naples' streets — huge communal spaces with no sanitation, where only crude curtains separated one family’s area from the others, all unseen and ignored by Neapolitan citizens in the streets above, except for the grotto landlords who collected exorbitant rents. Her report, La miseria di Napoli ("The Poor of Naples"), was published in 1877, and is cited in timelines of important events in southern Italy. (see The New History of the Italian South, edited by Robert Lumley and Jonathan Morris, 1997)
The third was research into working conditions in the Sicilian sulphur mines. There was a concern about child labour and the general health of the miners: many of whom were physically unfit for military service. Jessie made extensive personal tours and investigations of the mines, both above and below ground, and published her report, Le miniere di Zolfo in Sicilia (The Sulphur Mines in Sicily) in 1894.
Jessie made her living writing. Jessie’s career as a journalist had started in England writing for British newspapers (Litta Visconti Arese in his introduction to The Birth of Modern Italy, says Jessie was the first woman journalist in England.) She also wrote for newspapers in the United States and Italian press. Starting in 1866 the first of what would be 143 articles over 40 years appeared in The Nation published weekly in New York. She was also a frequent contributor to Nuova Antologia a semi-monthly magazine published in Florence. (Rossella Certini [see below] has written that Jessie was the first journalist in Italy to explore the ‘cracks’ in the Italian reality.)
Writing was also a way of expressing her passion for Italy and its people. She wanted to make sure that some of the lesser known heroes of the Risorgimento were not forgotten. She wrote biographies of Garibaldi and Mazzini, to be sure; but also biographies of Dr. Agostino Bertani, Carlo Cattaneo
Carlo Cattaneo
Carlo Cattaneo was an Italian philosopher, writer and patriot.-Biography:Cattaneo was born in Milan; he died in Castagnola, close to Lugano in the Swiss canton of Ticino, where he had spent the last twenty years of his life in exile.A republican in his convictions, during his youth he had taken...
(with Alberto Mario), Giuseppe Dolfo, Alberto Mario (with Giosuè Carducci
Giosuè Carducci
Giosuè Alessandro Michele Carducci was an Italian poet and teacher. He was very influential and was regarded as the official national poet of modern Italy. In 1906 he became the first Italian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.-Biography:...
), Giovanni Nicotera
Giovanni Nicotera
Giovanni Nicotera was an Italian patriot and politician. His surname is pronounced , with the stress on the second syllable.-Biography:Nicotera was born at Sambiase, in Calabria....
. She was gathering material for several more at the time of her death.
Jessie also wrote a couple of histories: I Garibaldini in Francia about the Franco-Prussian War; and The Birth of Modern Italy, which was published posthumously.
She died on 5 March 1906 in Florence. A non-religious ceremony was held at her apartment followed by a procession through the streets of Florence. Her ashes are buried in the cemetery at Lendinara
Lendinara
Lendinara is a town and comune in the province of Rovigo, Veneto, northern Italy. It is part of the historical and geographical region of Polesine.It is the birthplace of Domenico Montagnana , one of the world's finest violin and cello makers....
, south of Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, next to Alberto's.
Giosuè Carducci
Giosuè Carducci
Giosuè Alessandro Michele Carducci was an Italian poet and teacher. He was very influential and was regarded as the official national poet of modern Italy. In 1906 he became the first Italian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.-Biography:...
, the 1906 Nobel Laureate for Literature, said: Jessie White Mario ‘is a great woman to whom we Italians owe a lot.’
Sources
- Certini, Rossella. Jessie White Mario una giornalista educatrice: tra liberalism inglese e democrazia italiana. Florence: Casa Editrice Le Lettere, 1998.
- Daniels, Elizabeth Adams. Jessie White Mario Risorgimento Revolutionary. Athens, OhioAthens, OhioAthens is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Athens County, Ohio, United States. It is located along the Hocking River in the southeastern part of Ohio. A historic college town, Athens is home to Ohio University and is the principal city of the Athens, Ohio Micropolitan Statistical Area. ...
University Press, 1972