Maria Roda (1877–1958) was an Italian American

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

activist, speaker and writer, who participated in the labor struggles among

textile workers Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, and different types of fabric. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Early life

Born in 1877 in

Como Como (, ; , or ; ) is a city and (municipality) in Lombardy, Italy. It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como. Nestled at the southwestern branch of the picturesque Lake Como, the city is a renowned tourist destination, ce ...

, Italy, Maria Roda was an activist in radical social movements from a young age. Her mother, Adele Parravicini, died when Roda was young, leaving her and her three sisters in the care of their father, Cesare Roda Balzarini, a weaver and activist in the local anarchist-inspired labor movements. After her mother's death, Roda and her sisters worked in the

silk mills A silk mill is a factory that makes silk for garments using a process called silk throwing. Traditionally, silk mills were concentrated in Japan, England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Italy and Switzerland. Silk throwing process Silk is a naturally ...

of Como. It was through the influence of her radical father and the contacts she made at the mills that she became an anarchist. The Italian government considered Cesare Roda to be one of the main anarchists in Como with connections to others in the movement abroad, and they monitored his activities and those of Maria throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Early arrest and trial

In 1891, Maria Roda was arrested and sent to prison for three months for her involvement in a labor strike in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

. Roda had been accused of inciting the strikers to riot against the police. She became famous among European activists for her spirit and her willingness to speak her mind. Even though she was only fourteen years old, she received this harsh sentence because of her defiant attitude towards the judge. When questioned about her role in inciting the riot by taunting a police officer, she said, "I pity

hat A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...

guard. I pity him because he barely earns his bread, because he's a poor devil. But it impresses me to see him go after other poor devils, his brothers...let him think about this."

Activism in Italian American anarchist movement

The Roda family immigrated to the United States in 1893 when Maria was 17. They settled in

Paterson, New Jersey Paterson ( ) is the largest City (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Right to Existence Group (). Frustrated by the marginalization of women within the movement, Maria Roda and a few of the other activist women (including Ninfa Baronio and

Ernestina Cravello Ernestina Cravello (1880–1942) was an Italian-American anarcha-feminist activist during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Biography Cravello was born in Northern Italy and emigrated to the United States with her family in 1895. To hel ...

) formed the Women's Emancipation Group () in 1897, so women in the anarchist movement could meet on their own and develop their own theories and methods of revolutionary working-class activism. As a result, Maria Roda and dozens of other women wrote, published and circulated anarchist-feminist writing through this and similar women's groups. Two of Roda's essays were published in '' La Questione Sociale'' (the Italian-language anarchist newspaper that was published in Paterson): "Alle operaie" (To women workers), September 15, 1897, and "Alle Madri" (To mothers), September 7, 1901.

Roda and Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born Anarchism, anarchist revolutionary, political activist, and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europ ...

first heard Maria Roda give a speech at a large rally in 1894 at the Thalia Theater in Manhattan, which celebrated Goldman's release from prison. Although it was in Italian and Goldman understood none of it, she wrote in her memoir how she was moved by Roda's charismatic presence. Goldman wrote, "Maria's strange beauty and the music of her speech roused the whole assembly to tensest enthusiasm. Maria proved a veritable ray of sunlight to me." She then pledged to become Maria Roda's "teacher, friend, comrade."

Roda and Pedro Esteve

Roda's lifelong partner was

Pedro Esteve Pedro Esteve (1865–1925) was a Catalan American anarchist activist and newspaper editor. He first became involved in trade union organizing while working as a typographer, through which he joined the Federation of Workers of the Spanish Regi ...

, a Catalan anarchist, printer, typesetter, and newspaper editor who helped to establish ''La Questione Sociale'', one of the main Italian language anarchist newspapers in the US. When Esteve was editor of ''La Questione Sociale'', from 1899 to 1906, women's writing was at its peak in the paper. While Roda and Esteve were based in Paterson until at least 1908, they also lived in

Tampa, Florida Tampa ( ) is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. Tampa's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and t ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, and

Weehawken, New Jersey Weehawken is a township in the northern part of Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is located on the Hudson Waterfront and Hudson Palisades overlooking the Hudson River. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's po ...

, to spread the cause and organize other marginalized workers. Their home at 611 Gregory Avenue in Weehawken was often a center of radical activism through the 1930s, with large gatherings on Sundays. They had ten children, though only eight survived to adulthood (Violet, Sensitiva, Sirio, Iris, Flora, Pedro, Helios and Zephyr); they lost their ten-year-old son in an explosion that they believed was an attempt on Esteve's life.Paul Avrich, ''Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America'', pp. 210-12, 143, 393

References

Additional resources

*Jennifer Guglielmo, ''Living the Revolution: Italian Women's Resistance and Radicalism in New York City, 1880-1945.'' Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010. *Jennifer Guglielmo, "Transnational Feminism's Radical Past: Lessons from Italian Immigrant Women Anarchists in Industrializing America." ''Journal of Women's History'' 22.1 (2010): 10–33
Project MUSE
* Donna R. Gabaccia, and

Franca Iacovetta Franca Iacovetta (born 1957) is a "feminist/socialist" historian of labour and migration currently working at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation, published as ''Such Hardworking People: Italian Immigrants in Postwar Toronto'', was supe ...

, eds, ''Women, Gender and Transnational Lives: Italian Workers of the World'' (University of Toronto Press, 2002). . *Laura E. Ruberto, ''Gramsci, Migration, and the Representation of Women's Work in Italy and the U.S.'' (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009). *Marcella Bencivenni, ''Italian Immigrant Radical Culture: The Idealism of the Sovversivi in the United States, 1890-1940'' (NYU Press, 2011). *Salvatore Salerno,
Paterson's Italian Anarchist Silk Workers and the Politics of Race
* *Gary Mormino and George Pozzetta, ''The Immigrant World of Ybor City: Italians and their Latin Neighbors in Tampa, 1885-1985'' (University of Illinois Press, 1987). *Frances H. Nichols, "The Anarchists in America," New Outlook (August 10, 1901): 859–863 *Patrizia Sione, "Industrial Work, Militancy, and Migration of Northern Italian Workers in Europe and Paterson, New Jersey, 1880-1913" (PhD dissertation, State University of New York, Binghamton, 1992) *Philip V. Cannistraro, and Gerald Meyer, eds., ''The Lost World of Italian American Radicalism: Politics, Labor, and Culture'' (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003). {{DEFAULTSORT:Roda, Maria 1877 births 1958 deaths Italian-American anarchists American anarchists Anarcha-feminists Italian anarchists Italian emigrants to the United States People from Como American socialist feminists Textile workers Writers from Paterson, New Jersey Italian socialist feminists