JULIETA LANTERI

Julieta Lanteri was born in Cuneo, Italy on Mach22, 1873. When she was six,
her family moved to La Plata, Argentina. She was the first woman to enter
the national College in La Plata. She attended Universidad Nacional de
Buenos Aires and graduated in Medicine. There were only six woman doctors
in Argentina in 1906 !
When she was at University she worked in the womans ward at Hospital
San Roque, and after she graduate she worked in the Emergency Hospital
and Dispensary for ten years. She specialized in treatments of illnesses, and
womans and childrens illnesses.
From 1907 to 1920, Julieta travelled to Europa frequently to visit hospitals,
asylums and school there. When she returned to Argentina, she worked to
implement reforms in local hospitals.
Lanteri wanted to be a university teacher but she could not because she
was not Argentinian. In 1910 Lanteri married Dr. Albert Renshaw and so she
could be Argentinian- and teach. In 1918 Julieta formed a political party: the
National Feminist Union. Every election she was wanted to be a candidate
but people in Argentina voted when they finished the military service, so
woman did not vote. In 1929, Lanteri dedided to do the military service but
the authorities did not accept this.
On February 23rd , 1932 a car hit her and killed her. Was this an accident or
political murder? It is still not clear. But a thousand people attended her
funeral.

.........

Wikipedia

Julieta Lanteri
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Julieta Lanteri

Born

March 22, 1873

Briga Marittima, Kingdom of Italy

Died

February 25, 1932 (aged 58)

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Alma mater

University of Buenos Aires

Spouse(s)

Alberto Renshaw

Julieta Lanteri (March 22, 1873 February 25, 1932) was an Italian Argentine physician,
leading freethinker, and activist for women's rights in Argentina as well as for social reform generally.

Life and times[edit source | editbeta]

Julie Madeleine Lanteri was born in rural Briga Marittima, in the Province of Cuneo, Italy (today La
Brigue, France).[1] Her parents, Mattea Guido and Pierre-Antoine Lanteri, emigrated to Argentina with
their two daughters in 1879, and she was raised in Buenos Aires and La Plata.[1][2]
She became, in 1891, the first woman to enroll at the Colegio Nacional de La Plata, a public college
preparatory school. Earning a degree in Pharmacology at theUniversity of Buenos Aires in 1898,

[1]

Lanteri enrolled in the university's School of Medicine with permission from the Dean, Dr. Leopoldo

Montes de Oca. She would encounter opposition to her career as both a student and a professional
by conservatives; objections included the broader concept of allowing women to pursue a career, as
well as more petty ones such as that a woman should not examine a cadaver. These experiences led
Lanteri and Dr. Cecilia Grierson (the first woman to earn a Medical Degree in Argentina) to cofound Asociacin de Universitarias Argentinas, the first university student association for women in
the country, in 1904. Following an internship at the women's ward at San Roque Hospital,[3] Lanteri
became, in 1907, only the fifth woman in Argentina to earn aMedical Degree, and the first Italian
Argentine woman to do so.[2]
Lanteri worked for a decade in the Public Assistance Bureau of Buenos Aires and in the Emergency
Hospital and Dispensary.[4] She campaigned actively for greater access to medical care for the poor
early on, and founded a periodical, Semana Mdica, for the purpose.[2] She established the Argentine
Association ofFree Thought in 1905, and remained active in women's rights causes, having joined
Grierson, Alicia Moreau de Justo, and others in the establishment of the Center for Feminism at the
1906 International Congress of Free Thought, held in Buenos Aires. [5]
She founded the National League of Women Freethinkers and its journal, La Nueva Mujer. She
helped organize the first International Congress of Women in 1910, and later helped organize the
first National Child Welfare Congress.[4] Her application for a faculty position at her alma mater's
Medical School was denied on grounds that she was a still a resident alien, prompting her to apply
for Argentine citizenship. Single immigrant women, however, were not generally granted citizenship
in Argentina. Lanteri married Dr. Alberto Renshaw in 1910, and following an eight-month long lawsuit,
she was granted citizenship in 1911. The marriage was in itself controversial, as he was 14 years
younger than the bride. The same pretext was used to deny her enrollment in the Psychiatry course
at her own alma mater's School of Medicine.[6]
Armed with detailed knowledge of Law 5.098, which specified numerous requisites for the right to
vote while remaining moot on a woman's right to do so, Lanteri persuaded the precinct chair to
accept her vote in the July 16, 1911, elections for the Deliberative Council, thus becoming the first
woman to vote in South America;[6] women were not granted the right to vote in Argentina nationwide
until 1947.[7] Electoral Law was amended that year to require military service (something required of
all male Argentine citizens) in order to vote, again eliminating women. Lanteri instead joined her
lawyer, Angelica Barreda, in forming a political party, the National Feminist Union, in 1918, and she
ran for a seat in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies in every election thereafter until the 1930 military
coup.[2]
Her political party's platform called for universal suffrage, equality of the sexes under the Argentine
Civil Code, and a wide array of progressive social legislation, including: legislation regulating working
hours;equal pay; pensions; maternity leave benefits; labor law reforms regarding women and child
laborers; professional training for women; the legalization of divorce; specialist care for juvenile

delinquents; prison reform; the abolition of capital punishment; investments in public

health and kindergartens; greater work safety regulation in factories; bans on the manufacture and
sale of alcohol, preventive medicine against infectious diseases, and bans on regulated brothels.
[4]

She was unsuccessful, however, garnering 1,000 to 1,730 votes in each election; [7] among her

supporters was the nationalist writer Manuel Glvez who, opposed to both the Conservatives and the
ruling UCR, opted to vote for the "intrepid Dr. Lanteri."

[6]

Dr. Lanteri was inducted into the Argentine Medical Association.[3] She continued to practice
medicine, and provided psychiatric and mental health nursing to needy women and children.[1] She
founded the first primary school in the town of Senz Pea, Buenos Aires, and lectured extensively in
Europe.[3] She ventured into other activities, introducing a hair restoration tonic in 1928.[2] Her work
for women's suffrage took a novel turn when, in 1929, she applied for military service on the rationale
that, since military service was required for all citizens, women should be permitted military service
and, accordingly, the vote. The case reached the Argentine Supreme Court, where it was stricken
down, however.[2]
Lanteri walked along Diagonal Norte Avenue, in downtown Buenos Aires, on February 23, 1932,
when a motorist struck her. The driver fled, and following two days in the hospital, the noted
physician and activist died at age 58;[2] over 1,000 people attended her funeral.[4]
The incident, ruled an accident by the police, was called into question at the time by El Mundo writer
Adelia Di Carlo. The news daily published details of the incident, including the fact that the police
report had had the driver's name and vehicle tags blotted out; that the man, David Klapenbach, was
a member of the right-wing paramilitary group, the Argentine Patriotic League; and that Klapenbach
himself had committed numerous murders. Di Carlo's home was ransacked by the Argentine Federal
Police following the publication of these details.[2]
Investigative journalists Araceli Bellota and Ana Mara De Mena published biographies of Lanteri
(Julieta Lanteri: La pasin de una mujer and Palomita Blanca, respectively), in 2001.[2][4] A street in
the newest district of Buenos Aires, Puerto Madero, was named in her honor.[8]

References[edit source | editbeta]

1.

^ a b c d "Lanteri e Pastorelli in Argentina".

2.

^ a b c d e f g h i "Julieta Lanteri". El Argentino.

3.

^ a b c Argentines of To-day. New York: The Hispanic Society of America. 1920.

4.

^ a b c d e "Julieta Lanteri (1873-1932)". University of North Carolina.

5.

^ "Alicia Moreau de Justo". La Nacin.

6.

^ a b c "Julieta Lanteri, una precursora de los derechos de las mujeres". La Fogata.

7.

^ a b "Calendario Histrico: Se aprueba el voto femenino (21 de Agosto de 1946)".

Buenos Aires Ciudad.

8.

^ "Calles de Puerto Madero". Luis Cortese.