Female gymnastics/physical education teachers in the Piedmontese women’s emancipation process

Abstract

Elaborated and developed between the mid-eighteenth and the end of the nineteenth century, first in European countries and then in Italy, the new way of considering the body determined an innovative awareness about the usefulness of physical movement to improve the human race and public health. This conscience was also the engine of Italian women’s gymnastics activities.
Not equated with the teachers of other subjects until 1909 and forced to fight against deep prejudices throughout Italy, the P.E. teachers represented a strong woman’s model, also on the physical side, that captured the collective imagination .
The present study retraces the stages of the training of this model of femininity in Piedmont: from the Gymnastic Courses in 1867 in Turin to the teacher Pedani, created by Edmondo De Amicis, from the teacher Luisa Rebecca Faccio to Andreina Sacco.