Click here for the pamphlet The Return of Mary Nardini. In the interest of fostering physical print media, the full text is print only.
Introduction
Like most anarchist women, we know very little about Mary Nardini. She was born Maria Frattesi in 1882 in the Italian village of Pergola, a rural village near the edge of the province of Pesaro e Urbino, and it was here that her brothers were also born: Vincenzo, Adolfo, and Giuseppe. Maria was the eldest, and sometime near the turn of the 20th century, the novocento, she met a man from the coastal town of Fano named Pasquale Nardini, and soon enough they were married.
It’s likely both Maria and Pasquale were anarchists when they met, just as they both came from Pesaro e Urbino, the province once ruled by the Malatesta family, the same dynasty which produced the rebel anarchist Errico Malatesta. Maria and Pasquale stayed in this region through the first decade of the novocento, and in 1905 they had a son together, whom they raised in Italy for the next years.
The eldest of Maria’s brothers, Vincenzo, was the first to emigrate, traveling to Avignon, France where he worked as a laborer. He was arrested twice there, first in 1908 for assault, and then once again in 1910, for which he served eight days in jail. That same year, just as he was getting out of a French dungeon, his sister Maria, her husband Pasquale, and their five year-old son crossed the Atlantic on a steamer and settled in the United States. Of all the cities, they chose frigid Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Maria and Pasquale eventually joined the anarchist Social Studies Circle run out of a clubhouse in the Bayview District, and when her brothers Vincenzo and Adolfo moved to Milwaukee, they also joined the Circle. Not only did Maria’s brothers live in Milwaukee, her husband Pasquale’s brothers were also around, anarchists just like them. By 1914, these two families were linked together in an anarchist network that spanned the entire US, and Maria Nardini was just one of many agitators, her role no less vital than the others. Based on the evidence, it seems she was a fervent anarchist with a love for theater, just as she was a loving mother to her son.
This unnamed boy was twelve year-old when his parents and the Social Studies Circle began to heckle an evangelical priest who was giving pro-war speeches near their clubhouse. It was the late summer of 1917, and after heckling him twice, the priest brought along police protection on September 9. As the late anarchist historian Paul Avrich described it, the priest had completed his speech and the crowd had begun to sing “America” when members of the Ferrer Circle rushed the platform and tore down the American flag. Police moved in and opened fire.
Antonio Fornasier, director of the Circle’s theater group, was shot through the heart and killed instantly. His comrade Augusto Marinelli drew a pistol and fired back but was mortally wounded in the chest; he died in the hospital five days later. A third anarchist, Bartolo Testalin, was shot in the back but survived. Two detectives were also wounded, neither of them seriously. Eleven anarchists, including a woman, Mary Nardini, described by the police as the “instigator” of the riot, were placed under arrest. The police then raided the [Social Studies Circle] club, roughed up its members, and seized a quantity of anarchist literature.
In retaliation, their comrades on the outside planted a bomb outside the priest’s church on November 24, 1917, but when it was discovered, the police brought the bomb back to the station, where it quickly exploded, killing ten cops, two of them involved in the massacre in the Bay View. Many more were injured, the police station was damaged beyond use, and a random person was also killed, although no one was ever caught. In all likelihood, the bombing was carried out by the anarchist Mario Buda with help of one E. Nardini, the brother of imprisoned Pasquale.
The state took swift revenge, and in the absence of a captured bomber, they used all their power to rail-road the Italian anarchists arrested after the Bay View massacre, all of them now charged with assault with the intent to commit murder. As Paul Avrich described, that Mary Nardini—dubbed “the queen of the anarchists” by the press—refused to salute the American flag further inflamed passions against the defendants. Though charged with shooting the two detectives on September 9, they were really, some observers believed, being tried for the explosion of November 24.
All eleven anarchists were sentenced to twenty-five years in the Waupun State Penitentiary, with the state taking custody of the Nardini’s five-year-old [son], though relatives had offered to take care of her. Among those sentenced were Maria’s younger brothers Adolfo and Vincenzo, also caught up in the net, but their brother Giuseppe remained free in Racine, Wisconsin where he began acting on their behalf from the outside, possibly in coordination with E. Nardini and the bombers.
Thanks to the help of radical lawyer Clarence Darrow, all of these anarchists had their sentences and charges dismissed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. However, despite this good luck, all of them were arrested by federal immigration authorities once they were released from jail, each of them now facing a deportation case. Maria beat her deportation order and was able to reunite with her now teenage son, although the others weren’t so lucky, including her husband Pasquale, who was deported to Canada in 1921. Adolfo and Vincenzo were among those deported to Italy, and along with Giuseppe, who was arrested while supporting them, the Frattesi brothers never again set foot in the United States.
Meanwhile, their sister Maria and her son crossed the border to Canada in 1921 and lived there with Pasquale for the next years. In 1925, the family crossed back into the US, although this was illegal for Pasquale, who clearly didn’t give a shit. They settled in New Haven, Connecticut with their twenty-year-old son and from the subscription records of the Italian anarchist newspaper L’Adunata dei Refrattari, it appears Pasquale and his wife Maria remained anarchists through the 1920s and into the 1930s.
In the middle of World War II, the Nardinis moved to Harlem where they ran a grocery for the next years. At the time, the Black population of Harlem was around 80%, with the rest of the population made of the Italians of East Harlem. It was a vibrant place to live, with the effects of the Harlem Renaissance still palpable, although beginning to fade.
In 1945, at the end of the war, Maria Nardini applied for and was granted US citizenship, a choice with no clear explanation. Six years later, in 1951, her husband Pasquale passed away, and it’s likely he was an anarchist until the end, just like his wife. We have no idea when Maria Nardini died, nor what happened to her son, but this is about where her trail ends, midway through the terrible and violent novocento. Like many of her generation, Maria wanted above all to destroy capitalism and bring about the anarchist primavera, the regenerating spring that would sweep away the old world which tried, and failed, to crush her comrades.
Maria Nardini is very much still with us, and while her story has often been veiled in mystery, we hope this text and the subsequent pamphlet will add more nuance to our understanding of exactly who she was and what she fought for. Her dream is also very much still alive, and with any luck, we can all finally bring about an anarchist spring.
Long Live Maria Nardini!
Long Live Anarchy!
the transmetropolitan review 