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.

[4] She campaigned actively for greater access to medical care for the poor early on, and founded a periodical, Semana Médica, for the purpose.

[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.

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.

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.