17 Facts About Teresa Noce

Teresa Noce was an Italian labor leader, activist, journalist and feminist.

Teresa Noce served as a parliamentary deputy and advocated broad social legislation benefiting mothers.

Teresa Noce was born in Turin, Italy on 29 July 1900 to an unmarried, working-class mother.

Teresa Noce started working as a turner in the local Fiat Brevetti factory at the age of ten.

Teresa Noce protested when Italy entered World War I in 1915 and joined the Young Socialist movement in 1919.

Teresa Noce met PCI functionary Luigi Longo, whom she married in 1926.

Teresa Noce organized a strike of rice workers in the spring of 1934.

Teresa Noce then fled to Paris and surfaced as a leading political figure among the Italian exile community.

Teresa Noce led a campaign on behalf of imprisoned PCI leader Antonio Gramsci that resulted in mass demonstrations in Paris.

Teresa Noce edited the anti-fascist periodical La voce della donne in 1934.

Teresa Noce penned several pamphlets reporting and appealing on behalf of the Spanish Republicans.

Teresa Noce led an effective partisan unit as a member of the underground and adopted the nom de guerre Estella.

Teresa Noce was freed in the spring of 1945 and returned to Italy.

In 1947, Teresa Noce was elected as the general secretary of the Italian Federation of Textile Workers, becoming the first woman to lead a major Italian industrial trade union.

Teresa Noce served until 1955, when she became the general secretary of the Trade Union International of Textile and Clothing Workers, and then as president of its successor, the Trade Union International of Textile, Leather and Fur Workers Unions.

Teresa Noce was then elected to the Italian Parliament and was appointed general secretary of the textile workers union, where she founded the publication La voce dei tessili.

Teresa Noce was aligned with the Unione Donne Italiane.