Born: 17 November 1889, Argentina
Died: 23 March 1917
Country most active: Argentina
Also known as: NA
Despite dying from tuberculosis when she was just 27, Argentine industrial researcher and social/political activist Carolina Muzzilli improved conditions in work sites in her short life. She was also the first female official in the National Department of Hygiene and Labor when she was hired (without pay) as an inspector in 1915.
The daughter of working-class Italian immigrants, Muzzilli was a militant feminist who criticized wealthier women for doing little or nothing to support poor women. Socialist Party deputy Alfredo Palacios encouraged the teenager, and a report that she produced on the conditions of women working in factories formed the basis for work that he did in the Congreso Nacional. In 1906, Muzzilli’s work with the Sociedad de Beneficencia resulted in worker protection legislation being enacted.
Following the legalization of divorce in Uruguay in 1907, Muzzilli began fighting for a divorce law in Argentina, even drafting a bill at the Centro Socialista Femenino with fellow activist Fenia Chertkoff. In 1909, she represented the Centro at the International League of Domestic Workers. She also spoke at the First International Women’s Congress in Buenos Aires in May 1910. She went on to win awards for her work at international expositions, presenting a piece titled “Women’s Work” at Ghent (Belgium) in 1913 and submitting a monograph to San Francisco’s in 1915. She started the Tribuna Femenina periodical in 1916, including her own essays and monographs and advocating for women’s education and safer work environments.
As a health inspector, her primary purpose was fighting tuberculosis in workplaces, and she would go undercover as a worker herself if she was not permitted to speak with employees. She was eventually infected and, even as she lay hospitalized, a series of her articles were published in the socialist newspaper La Vanguardia.
She published two books during her life, “Women’s Work” (1916) and “Divorce” (1912), with her third, “For the Health of the Race,” published posthumously.