Editing Italian Americans (section)

===Women===

[[File:Italian Girl (14yo) Paper Box Factory 1913.png|thumb|A fourteen year old Italian girl working at a paper-box factory (1913)]]
[[File:Image of Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire on March 25 - 1911.jpg|thumb|200px|The [[Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire]] in 1911. The victims were almost exclusively Jewish and Italian female immigrants.]]
[[File:Francesca Cabrini.JPG|thumb|[[Mother Cabrini]]]]
[[File:ESL 1918.JPG|thumb|An Italian immigrant making an [[American breakfast]] aided by instructional materials from the [[YMCA]]]]

Italian women who arrived during the period of mass immigration had to adapt to new and unfamiliar social and economic conditions. Mothers, who had the task of raising the children and providing for the welfare of the family, commonly demonstrated great courage and resourcefulness in meeting those obligations, often under adverse living conditions. Their cultural traditions, which placed the highest priority on the family, remained strong as Italian immigrant women adapted to these new circumstances.

To assist the immigrants in the Little Italys, who were overwhelmingly Catholic, Pope [[Leo XIII]] dispatched a contingent of priests, nuns, and brothers of the [[Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo]] and other orders. Among these was Sister [[Francesca Cabrini]], who founded dozens of schools, hospitals, and orphanages. She was canonized as the first American saint in 1946.

Married women typically avoided factory work and chose home-based economic activities such as dressmaking, taking in boarders, and operating small shops in their homes or neighborhoods. Italian neighborhoods also proved attractive to [[midwifery|midwives]], women who trained in Italy before coming to America.<ref>Vecchio (2006)</ref> Many single women were employed in the garment industry as seamstresses, often in unsafe working environments. Many of the 146 who died in the [[Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire]] in 1911 were Italian American women. [[Angela Bambace]] was an 18-year-old Italian American organizer for the [[International Ladies Garment Workers Union]] in New York who worked to secure better working conditions and shorter hours for women workers in the garment industry.

After World War II, Italian American women acquired an increasing degree of freedom in choosing a career and seeking higher levels of education.  Consequently, the second half of the 20th century was a period in which Italian American women excelled in virtually all fields of endeavor. In politics, [[Geraldine Ferraro]] was the first woman vice presidential candidate, [[Ella Grasso]] was the first woman elected as a state governor, and [[Nancy Pelosi]] was the first woman Speaker of the House. In 1980, [[Mother Angelica]] (Rita Rizzo), a Franciscan nun, founded the [[EWTN|Eternal Word Television Network]] (EWTN), a network viewed regularly by millions of Catholics. [[JoAnn Falletta]] was the first woman to become a permanent conductor of a major symphony orchestra (with both the [[Virginia Symphony Orchestra]] and the [[Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra]]). [[Penny Marshall]] (Masciarelli) was one of the first women directors in Hollywood. [[Catherine DeAngelis]], M.D., was the first woman editor of the ''[[JAMA|Journal of the American Medical Association]]''. [[Patricia Fili-Krushel]] was the first woman president of ABC Television. [[Bonnie Tiburzi]] was the first woman pilot in commercial aviation history. [[Patricia Russo]] was the first woman to become CEO of [[Lucent Technologies]]. [[Karen Ignagni]] was the first woman to serve as the CEO of American Health Insurance Plans, an umbrella organization representing all major [[Health maintenance organization|HMOs]] in the country. [[Nicole Marie Passonno Stott]] was one of the first women to go into space as an astronaut. [[Carolyn Porco]], a world recognized expert in planetary probes, is the leader of the imaging science team for the [[Cassini–Huygens|''Cassini'' probe]], which orbited [[Saturn]].

[[The National Organization of Italian American Women]] (NOIAW), founded in 1980, is an organization for women of Italian heritage committed to preserving Italian heritage, language, and culture by promoting and supporting the advancement of women of Italian ancestry.