L’ istruzione delle donne nell’Ottocento tra conservazione e modernità. La Scuola superiore femminile “A. Manzoni” di Milano

Nineteenth-century women’s education between conservatism and modernity. Milan’s “A. Manzoni” Secondary School for Girls

Abstract

This article reconstructs the history of Milan’s Secondary School for Girls, with the dual aims of documenting its founding and subsequent evolution and more generally of shedding light upon female education in the second half of the nineteenth century. Set up in the immediate aftermath of Italian Unification, this school’s innovative and independent character (given that it was not regulated by the central State but rather stemmed from an initiative by Milan City Council) meant that it mirrored the broader elements of transformation, continuity, and resistance to change that shaped women’s education over the period in question. The analysis presented here goes beyond the local perspective to address trends at the national and transnational levels also. It begins with the founding of the school in 1861 and ends in the late 1890s, when the institute introduced Latin, albeit as an optional subject, so that graduates might be eligible for admission to the Foreign Languages and Literature Section of the Teacher Training School at the Scientific and Literary Academy of Milan. The research draws on print sources that have not been fully examined to date, along with archival material that has yet to receive in-depth scholarly scrutiny. It is not confined to the analysis of institutional history, but also draws out the
corresponding educational models, documenting the gradual process of change whereby women in that era sought not only to complement their primary schooling but also to train for the intellectual occupations then accessible to females. The focus is therefore on the educational curriculum and subjects offered by the school and schoolwork produced by the pupils.