La maestra Alda Costa: un mártir antifascista

Abstract

A relevant field to apply new theories of historical and social research is the education of women. Teachers, educators and pedagogists were really revolutionary figures in different periods of history, devoting their lives to widespread useful knowledge for other women. In order to do so, they founded schools, they wrote books and started journals. The Italian women of the Socialist Party who worked as teachers were pioneers in propagating key words like rights, democracy, and claiming for equal wages. At the beginning of the XXth century a famous women was the antifascist teacher Alda Costa (1876-1944), who fought against militarism before the First World War. She hold offices of great significance in the Socialist Party, and was also a friend of Giacomo Matteotti, killed in Rome by the fascists in 1925. For her opposition to the Mussolini regime Alda Costa was imprisoned, and the cruelties she suffered in jail caused her death.