Peasant Women and Politics in Facist Italy: The Massaie Rurali section of the PNF

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PEASANT WOMEN AND POLITICS IN FASCIST ITALY

Peasant women were the largest female occupational group in Italy between the wars. They led lives characterized by great poverty and heavy workloads but fascist propaganda extolled them as the mothers of the nation and the guardians of the rural world, the most praiseworthy of Italian women. This study is the first published history of the Massaie Rurali, the Fascist Party’s section for peasant women, which, with three million members by 1943, became one of the largest of the regime’s mass mobilizing organizations. The section played a key role in such core fascist campaigns as nation-building and ruralization. Perry Willson draws on a wide range of archival and contemporary press sources to investigate the nature of the Massaie Rurali and the dynamics of class and gender that lay at its heart. She explores the organization’s political message, its propaganda, structure and activities and the reasons why so many women joined it. Perry Willson is Lecturer in Italian History at the University of Edinburgh. Her previous publications include The Clockwork Factory: Women and Work in Fascist Italy (Oxford 1993) and numerous articles on modern Italian women’s history.

PEASANT WOMEN AND POLITICS IN FASCIST ITALY The Massaie Rurali

Perry Willson

First published 2002 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 2002 Perry Willson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Willson, Perry R. Peasant women and politics in Fascist Italy: the Massaie rurali section of the PNF / Perry Willson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. 1. Women peasants – Italy – Political activity – History – 20th century. 2. Fascism and women – Italy – History – 20th century. 3. Partito nazionale fascista (Italy). Sezione Massaie rurali – History. I. Title. HQ1236.5.I8 W54 2002 324.245′02 – dc21 2002074322 ISBN 0-203-45168-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-45775-7 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–29170–4 (hbk) ISBN 0–415–29171–2 (pbk)

CONTENTS

List of plates Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Glossary of Italian terms and organizations Map of Italy Introduction

vii viii ix xi xiv 1

1 Peasant women, the rural world and the Fasci Femminili

7

2 Ladies in the field: women’s farm education, the Unione delle Massaie della Campagna and Domus Rustica

30

3 ‘An Extraordinary Thing’: the National Fascist Federation of Massaie Rurali

53

4 ‘Going to the People’: the Massaie Rurali section of the Fasci Femminili

77

5 ‘Into Every Farmhouse and Cottage’: propaganda in print

100

6 ‘Women with a Hundred Arms’: the training programme

117

7 ‘At the Gates of Rome’: the Sant’Alessio Training College

136

8 A Dopolavoro for rural women? radio, film and folklore

153

v

CONTENTS

9 Recruiting for the nation: Why did three million join the Massaie Rurali?

170

Epilogue

202

Index

214

vi

PLATES

1 Annita Cernezzi Moretti

39

2 A massaia rurale displaying the kerchief

91

3 Anti-sanctions propaganda in L’azione delle massaie rurali

102

4 The distribution of La massaia rurale newspaper in an Arezzo section in May 1942

110

5 Massaie rurali and donne fasciste at a prize-giving ceremony in Naples, 18 November 1941

122

6 Massaia rurale Annunziata Sivagni and her family, prize-winners in one of the national childcare competitions

123

7 Massaia demonstrating the spinning of angora rabbit wool at a rabbit farming exhibition in Treviso in October 1941

127

8 Students feeding poultry at Sant’Alessio College

145

9 Massaie rurali at a Party rally in Rome

155

10 Massaie rurali and their teachers. Training course in Reggio Emilia in 1940

vii

191

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I owe thanks to many people who gave me invaluable assistance of various kinds during the preparation of this book. In particular I would like to thank, in Italy, Giusi Archetti, Stefania Bartoloni, Annarita Buttafuoco, Olga Cernezzi, Dinora Corsi, Giovanni Focardi, Rosetta Martellacci, Maura Palazzi, Maria Rosaria Porcaro, Anna Rossi Doria, Silvia Salvatici and Massimo Storchi and, in Britain, Lynn Abrams, Frances Dow, Elizabeth Harvey, Lynette McCafferty, Claudia Nocentini, John Pollard, Sian Reynolds, Anthea Taylor and Jon Usher. I am also indebted to Carlo Fiorentino at the Archivio Centrale dello Stato in Rome; the librarian at the Società Agraria di Lombardia; the staff of the Archivi di Stato in Leghorn, Treviso, Arezzo and Reggio Emilia; Christiane, administrator of La Fonte Merivigliosa Cultural Centre in Rome (former Sant’Alessio College); the staff of the Sala Riservata in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence; the staff of the Biblioteca Panizzi in Reggio Emilia and of the Biblioteca Alessandrina in Rome. I should also like to take this opportunity to thank the British Academy for funding for research trips to Italy, the Arts and Humanities Research Board for awarding me special leave to write up my work and the Institute for the Advanced Study of the Humanities (Edinburgh University) for the use of their excellent study facilities. I acknowledge the permission of the Archivio Centrale dello Stato to publish Plates 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 (ACS authorization number 346), Fratelli Alinari for the cover picture and Plate 8 and the Biblioteca Panizzi (Reggio Emilia) for Plate 10. Plate 1 appears by kind permission of Olga Cernezzi. All translations are my own. While every effort has been made to trace and acknowledge ownership of copyright material used within this volume, the publishers will be glad to make suitable arrangements with any copyright holders whom it has not been possible to contact.

viii

ABBREVIATIONS

Archives • • • • • • • • • • • • •

AFCDEC – Archivio della Fondazione centro di documentazione ebraica contemporanea. Archivio generale (Milan) Arch. Cernezzi – Private archive of the Cernezzi family (Milan) ASSA Lombardia – Archivio della Società agraria di Lombardia (Milan) ASArezzo, PNF – Archivio di Stato di Arezzo, fondo Partito Nazionale Fascista, Carteggio con i Fasci di Combattimento e con i gruppi rionali ASL, PNF – Archivio di Stato di Livorno, fondo Partito Nazionale Fascista ASM, Gab. Pref. – Archivio di Stato di Milano, fondo Gabinetto di Prefettura ASPisa, PNF – Archivio di Stato di Pisa, fondo Partito Nazionale Fascista ASPistoia, Gab. Pref. – Archivio di Stato di Pistoia, fondo Gabinetto di Prefettura ASRE, Gab. Pref. – Archivio di Stato di Reggio Emilia, fondo Gabinetto di Prefettura AST, PNF Conegliano – Archivio di Stato di Treviso, fondo Partito Nazionale Fascista, Sezione di Conegliano AST, Gab. Pref. – Archivio di Stato di Treviso, fondo Gabinetto di Prefettura di Treviso ASTorino, Gab. Pref. – Archivio di Stato di Torino, fondo Gabinetto di Prefettura ASV, Gab. Pref. Vercelli – Archivio di Stato di Vercelli, fondo Gabinetto di Prefettura

Archivio Centrale dello Stato (Rome) • •

•

ACS, MRF – Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista ACS, PI, DG, Ist. Tec., Div.III – Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, Direzione Generale, Istruzione tecnica, Divisione III, Insegnamento agrario 1925–1940 ACS, PNF, DN, SV – Partito Nazionale Fascista, Direttorio Nazionale, Servizi Vari ix

ABBREVIATIONS

• • • •

ACS, PNF, SC – PNF Senatori e Consiglieri ACS, PNF, SPEP – PNF Situazione politica ed economica delle provincie ACS, SPD-CO – Segretaria Particolare del Duce, Carteggio Ordinario ACS, SPD-CR – Segretaria Particolare del Duce, Carteggio Riservato

Newspapers/magazines Almanacco – Almanacco della donna italiana AMR – L’azione delle massaie rurali Bullettino – Bullettino dell’agricoltura: Giornale della Società agraria Lombarda DF – La donna fascista DR – Domus rustica DRu – La donna rurale DC – La donna nei campi Giornale – Il giornale della donna LAF – Il lavoro agricolo fascista MR – La massaia rurale RR – Radio rurale

Other abbreviations used in the Notes b. – busta fasc. – fascicolo sf. – sottofascicolo FD – foglio di disposizioni FO – foglio d’ordini (NB The FDs and the FOs were the ‘sheets of directives and orders’ sent out by the PNF Secretary to local Party Federations. The numbering of the ‘sheets’ started from scratch each time a new Party Secretary was appointed.)

x

GLOSSARY OF ITALIAN TERMS AND ORGANIZATIONS

Agrari – large farmers (landowners or tenants) Ammasso – official stockpile or warehouse for collecting produce Appoderato – peasant who was resident on the land actually tilled Biennio rosso – the ‘Red Two Years’ (1919–1920) when there was huge unrest in both rural and urban areas and Italy appeared to be on the brink of a socialist revolution Bonifica integrale – land reclamation and improvement Bracciante – farm labourer Bracciante avventizio – casual farm labourer paid by the day Capoccia – most widely used term for male head of smallholding or sharecropping household. (Other regional terms include reggitore, vergaro, azdor and massaro) Cassa Nazionale di Maternità – National Maternity Fund Cattedre Ambulanti di Agricoltura – ‘Travelling Agricultural Lectureships’. Organization which provided farm education for adult peasants CFSLA Confederazione Fascista Lavoratori dell’Agricoltura – National Fascist Confederation of Farmworkers. Fascist union for farmworkers CNFSA Confederazione Nazionale Fascista Sindacati dell’Agricoltura – National Fascist Confederation of Agricultural Unions Coldiretti – Christian Democrat organization for small farmers in postwar period Colona (f), colono (m) – sharecropper Contadina (f), contadino (m) – peasant Compartecipazione – land tenure system that includes some sharing of the crop between landowner and peasant household Comune – unit of local government. Can be a village, town or city Collocamento di classe – ‘group recruitment’. A list of union members who took turns at work available in order to share the burden of unemployment Donna(e) fascista(e) – member(s) of the Fasci Femminili Donne Rurali – women’s section of the Coldiretti Dopolavoristi – members of the OND Dopolavoro – see OND xi

GLOSSARY

Fascio di Combattimento – local section of the Fascist Party Fasci Femminili – women’s sections of the Fascist Party ‘Fascists of the First Hour’ – those who joined the fascist movement during the very early days (usually means before the March on Rome) Fattoressa (f), fattore (m) – farmsteward Fattoria – central farmbuilding. This term is most often used for farms where the peasantry are appoderati. Generally means where the fattore lived Federale i.e. Segretario Federale – (male) head of a Provincial PNF Federation FNFMR Federazione Nazionale Fascista delle Massaie Rurali – National Fascist Federation of Massaie Rurali. Name of Massaie Rurali organization when it was part of the farmworkers’ union in 1933–4 Frazione – subdivision of a comune. Smallest administrative unit of local government. Usually corresponds to a village or hamlet too small to have its own Town Hall GIL Gioventù Italiana del Littorio – Italian Youth of the Lictors. Name of Party youth organization from 1937 Giovani Fasciste – fascist organization for young women aged 18–21 Giovani Italiane – fascist organization for girls aged 13–18 GUF Gioventù Universitaria Fascista – Fascist University Youth. Student section of PNF Imponibile di manodopera – ‘labour tax’. Contractual obligation forcing landowners to hire a specific number of farm labourers per hectare of land according to crop and season Ispettorati Provinciali dell’Agricoltura – Provincial Agricultural Inspectorates. New name for Cattedra Ambulanti di Agricoltura from 1935 Maestra/o – primary school teacher Massaia – housewife. See Massaia rurale Massaia rurale (or massaia) – member of the Sezione Massaie Rurali dei Fasci Femminili. Literally means rural housewife/farmwoman. See also Reggitrice. In the text Massaia(e) with a capital M indicates the organisation, while massaia(e) is used for the individual members of the organisation. Mezzadria – sharecropping Mezzadra (f), mezzadro (m) – sharecropper Mondina – female riceweeder (although the term is usually applied to all female riceworkers) ONB Opera Nazionale Balilla – National Balilla Agency. Fascist youth organization founded 1926 OND Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro – National Fascist Afterwork Agency. Fascist mass leisure organization ONMI Opera Nazionale per la Maternità ed Infanzia – Fascist Maternal and Infant Welfare Agency Podere – small farm worked by sharecroppers, smallholders or small leaseholders who actually live on the land itself PNF Partito nazionale fascista – Fascist Party xii

GLOSSARY

Reggitrice – most authoritative female figure in a sharecropping or smallholding household. (Various other terms are used in different regions including massaia and arzdora.) Usually, but not always, the wife of the capoccia. In the text I have used the term reggitrice rather than the term massaia which I use only to indicate a member of the Sezione Massaie Rurali Salariato fisso – landless farm labourer with annual employment contract Sansepolcrista – person who had been present (or was officially recognized as having been present) at the founding meeting of fascism in Piazza San Sepolcro in 1919 Sbracciantizzazione – ‘decasualization’, fascist policy of reducing the numbers of braccianti Sezione Massaie Rurali dei Fasci Femminili – Rural Housewives section of the Fascist Women’s Groups. Section of PNF for rural women. Founded 1934 SOLD Sezione Operaie e Lavoranti a Domicilio – section of Fasci Femminili for women workers and homeworkers Squadrista (pl. squadristi) – member of the fascist squads, gangs of armed thugs who violently attacked opposition groups and organizations during the rise of fascism UMC Unione delle Massaie della Campagna – Union of Country Housewives. Lombard organization for rural women. Founded in the First World War UNMC Unione Nazionale delle Massaie della Campagna – National Union of Country Housewives. New name for the UMC from 1932 Ventennio – the ‘twenty years’. Name often used to denote the fascist regime 1922–1943

xiii

Brenner Pass

Bolzano VA L

ALTO ADIGE Trent VENETIA LOMBARDY Treviso

Gorizia Aosta Padua Brescia Trieste TA Vercelli Milan Venice Fiume Pavia Mantua Turin EMILIA Ferrara PIEDMONT Pola Parma Bologna Ravenna Alessandria Genoa Reggio Emilia Forli Carrara Predappio La Spezia Pistoia TUSCANY M Florence ARCH Ancona Pisa ES Leghorn Arezzo Perugia AO S

LI G

UR IA

D’

UMBRIA

Adriatic Sea

AB RU ZZ I

CORSICA (FRANCE)

ROME

ITALY CA

MP AN

IA

Naples

AP BA

UL

SIL

Bari

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Brindisi ICA TA

Taranto

SARDINIA CA

Cagliari

Mediterranean Sea

Palermo

LA

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Messina

Marsala Catania SICILY Syracuse

IA

INTRODUCTION

In 1946 Italian women voted for the first time. In the language of many contemporary politicians women were ‘granted’ suffrage by the new anti-fascist coalition government (rather than ‘winning’ it) as a reward for their role in the wartime Resistance. However, as Anna Rossi Doria has argued,1 the reasons for women gaining the vote were more complex and include the strategies of the major political parties at the time as well as the fact that, both in the pre-fascist Liberal period as well in the early years of the fascist regime itself, women themselves had actively campaigned for it. Rossi Doria’s important book, published only in 1996 and somewhat startlingly the first real research published on the advent of female suffrage in Italy, is part of a tentative process in some recent historiography to rethink the role of the Resistance as a huge watershed in women’s history. It is undeniable that the Resistance was extremely important in the history of Italian women and that millions were involved in various ways2 but there is an increasing recognition recently that too much emphasis has been placed on this short, if momentous period and too little attention paid to what preceded and followed it. The suffrage campaign born in the Liberal period died out in the late 1920s. Its only success had been the meaningless law of 1925 granting the vote to specific groups of women in local elections just as democracy was about to disappear. Nonetheless, as increasing numbers of studies are now showing, fascism was far from a mere ‘gap’ between two periods of female political activism when women were passively crushed by the fascist boot. Instead it was a time of complex changes which shaped the future in ways which are only just beginning to be explored. It is, of course, no longer true, as many commentators used to note, that there is no research on the role of women in the fascist period. Recent studies have successfully undermined the idea that this was simply a reactionary period for women. Instead, it was full of contradictory trends, both traditional and modernizing. Despite fascist misogynous rhetoric and some oppressive legislation limiting their employment prospects, the interwar also opened up new activities and opportunities for many women. Many had fewer babies, some did gymnastics and other types of sports3 and a few found new types of employment in the 1

INTRODUCTION

growing social welfare sector. Even fascist ideology on gender roles was somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, the aspect most often stressed in early research on this topic4 was the fact that it preached female subordination and women’s need to submit entirely to their biological destiny. On the other hand, it also offered a new definition of the relationship between women and the state/nation. This implied, on a purely theoretical level, some equality of the sexes since, in the new totalitarian order, no individual, of either sex, had rights. Instead both sexes had duties to the state.5 The duties of each sex were, of course, quite distinct and, where the state intervened to arbitrate between the competing needs of each gender, it invariably came down heavily on the side of male needs (giving them, for example, priority in certain forms of employment). Such dual, contradictory aspects affected the mass political organizations. As De Grazia has argued, the women’s sections of the Fascist Party – the Fasci Femminili – and the girls’ organizations may have preached motherhood as women’s mission and destiny but, at the same time, they opened up new spaces for women. Despite the utterly subordinate nature of the Fasci Femminili to the male party hierarchs, the women involved in this organization were clearly activists, widening their own sphere as they busied themselves with carrying out the Party’s orders, mainly in politicized versions of welfare activity. The activism of the middle-class women was, however, in marked contrast to the experience of millions of other women who joined the PNF in the special sections, one for peasant women set up in 1933, and another for workers in 1937 (the Sezione Operaie e Lavoranti a Domicilio – SOLD),6 both of which encouraged a far more passive approach to politics among its membership. This book is a study of the larger of these two organizations7 – the Sezione Massaie Rurali dei Fasci Femminili (Rural Housewives Section of the Women’s Fascist Groups). Perhaps surprisingly, whilst we now know a good deal about many aspects of women’s experience of the ventennio, the historiography on the role of women in the Fascist Party itself is still extremely patchy. Most ‘general histories’ of the PNF have either ignored women or simply devoted very brief sections to them8 and, whilst feminist historians have been keen to record and analyse the heroic activities of antifascists,9 they have dragged their feet in studying Party members, seen as a rather unpalatable topic. This has resulted in the rather odd phenomenon that, until very recently, a disproportionate number of the studies published on this topic were by foreigners such as De Grazia and Detriagache.10 Conversely the historiography on anti-fascist women, until the publication of Jane Slaughter’s recent book,11 was almost non-existent in languages other than Italian. We still know little about either ordinary female PNF members or about organizers at local or national level or about such topics as how hierarchies of gender and class intersected within the Party. This situation is now beginning to change as a new generation of younger Italian historians, such as Helga Dittrich Johansen,12 are beginning to work on these questions but, even so, much research remains to be done on the role of Party women. 2

INTRODUCTION

This book deals with the largest group of women who joined the PNF – peasants. For many years, the historiography of fascism and of the Resistance, long dominated by communist historians, was more concerned with workers than peasants, seen as the less interesting ‘backward’ class. The situation has changed greatly over the last decade but it is only very recently that the revival of interest in the peasantry has begun to encompass gender issues, with, in particular, the appearance of important new research by Salvatici and Imbergamo.13 All this helps explain why only one previous scholarly historical article has been published on the history of the Sezione Massaie Rurali – a local study of Lombardy by Angela Amoroso.14 Perhaps it is not surprising that a conservative organization concerned mainly with cookery, gardening and the raising of farmyard animals should have failed to capture the imagination of the new generation of feminist historians. Nonetheless, although the history of the Massaie Rurali might seem a rather uninspiring subject compared with the heroic deeds of Resistance heroines, such a huge organization as this clearly merits serious investigation, both in terms of the history of women and in terms of historical knowledge of the impact of fascism on the rural world.

The Sezione Massaie Rurali dei Fasci Femminili In fascist ruralization propaganda extolling the virtues of traditional lifestyles on the land, where honest peasants toiled for the nation unpolluted by urban values, peasant women often appeared clad in regional costumes or wearing the headscarf and badge of the Massaie Rurali section.15 They were paraded through the streets of Rome and photographed on many occasions and, according to a letter from one Partito Nazionale Fascista (PNF) hierarch to another in 1939, this was an organization which was: ‘particularly dear to Mussolini and the Party’.16 Founded in the early 1930s, the Massaie Rurali grew rapidly to an impressive membership of three million by the fall of the regime. It lay at the heart of a number of important fascist campaigns, particularly those concerned with gender roles, ruralization, demography, and autarky. Although its real mission was political mobilization, its declared aims were to give moral, social and technical assistance to rural women, promote technical education on small-scale farming methods as well as domestic science, childcare and craft manufacturing and to discourage the rural–urban shift. This was an organization typical of the 1930s when fascism decided to ‘go to the people’ enrolling millions of Italians into mass mobilizing organizations with the aim of forging a consensus for the regime and its policies, and binding the people to the ostensibly class-neutral concept of nation. Mass organizations such as youth groups, leisure clubs and so on mushroomed in this period. One truly innovative aspect of this new wave of mobilization was the fact that it included women. Unlike certain other fascist organizations such as the unions and the mass leisure organization the Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro 3

INTRODUCTION

(OND), which essentially replaced existing class-based ones, the women’s organizations represented an attempt to bring into the nation a section of the population largely previously excluded from organized politics. This book examines how the regime attempted to reach out to a group of women who were amongst the most excluded and neglected of all – the female peasantry. As I aim to demonstrate in this book the inclusion of poorer women into the study of fascist political mobilization policies tends to create a somewhat different picture from the ‘modernizing view’ which emerges from certain other studies. The following pages will trace the history of the Sezione Massaie Rurali in a roughly chronological fashion. After a look at the general situation of the peasantry and the female peasantry in particular in Chapter 1, I go on to examine the origins of the organization and its initial foundation as part of the fascist farmworkers’ union in the next two chapters. Chapters 4, 5, 6 and 8 focus on the nature of the organization after it was absorbed into the PNF, looking at, in particular, its structure, its political message and its activities. Chapter 7 considers the special training school for Massaie Rurali leaders set up in Rome in the late 1930s and Chapter 9 addresses the question of who the members were and how Party organizers managed to recruit them in such large numbers. Finally, in the Epilogue, the organization’s legacy is examined. Intertwined with the history of this fascist organization is the history of another, much smaller one, the Unione delle Massaie della Campagna (UMC), a good example, amongst many, of an autonomous women’s organization which could not survive the totalitarian aspirations of the fascist state. This, the decline of autonomous female politics, was a notable feature of the fascist period. During the 1920s, many women continued to belong to the range of nonfascist women’s organizations which had emerged before the ventennio. Some of these were explicitly feminist, while others were primarily focused on causes such as the promotion of women’s education or the defence of the interests of specific groups such as war widows.17 Gradually, however, fascism closed down or absorbed and refashioned most of them. This process led eventually to the eclipse of an important field of women’s political activism – autonomous organizations dedicated to what could be called specifically ‘female’ (although not necessarily ‘feminist’) agendas. As time went by, during the ventennio, the only real alternative to the Fascist Party women’s sections were other organizations which were also dependent on and subordinate to the interests of a powerful male-dominated institution – those for Catholic women.18 There was a degree of continuity in this trend in the postwar and, after the fall of fascism, much ‘women’s politics’ was pursued in sections of parties or trade unions essentially controlled by men, and, at least in part, pursuing agendas set by men. The history of the UMC’s ill-fated postwar revival (discussed in the Epilogue) well exemplifies this trend: this small, essentially autonomous, organization was quickly overwhelmed by the polarized politics of the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. 4

INTRODUCTION

Notes 1 A. Rossi Doria, Diventare cittadine. Il voto alle donne in Italia, Florence, Giunti, 1996. 2 Their role, of course, was largely different from that of men – rarely, for example, bearing arms – historically often seen as a precondition for citizenship. On how female roles in the Resistance have been viewed by subsequent postwar generations see P.R. Willson, ‘Saints and heroines: rewriting the history of Italian women in the Resistance’, in A. McElligot, T. Kirk (eds), Opposing Fascism. Community, Authority and Resistance in Europe, Cambridge University Press, 1999. 3 On sports see R. Isidori Frasca, . . . e il duce le volle sportive, Bologna, Patron, 1983; Isodori Frasca, ‘L’educazione fisica e sportiva, e la “preparazione materna”’, in M. Addis Saba (ed.), La corporazione delle donne, Florence, Vallecchi, 1988. 4 See, for example, the pioneering book by P. Meldini, Sposa e madre esemplare. Ideologia e politica della donna e della famiglia durante il fascismo, Florence, Guaraldi, 1975. 5 See V. De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women. Italy 1922–1945, Berkeley, California University Press, 1992. See also L. Re, ‘Fascist Theories of “Woman” and the Construction of Gender’, in R. Pickering-Iazzi (ed.), Mothers of Invention. Women, Italian Fascism and Culture, Minneapolis, Minnesota University Press, 1995. 6 SOLD was, in some respects, similar to the organization for peasant women but its membership was far smaller. It had its own news sheet – the extremely tedious Lavoro e famiglia. 7 Most of the primary sources I have consulted – from central and local archives and from the press – are official fascist material. Such sources, of course, have many limitations. The central archive of this organization has not survived. Many fascist records were deliberately destroyed in 1943 and 1945 whilst others have been lost through archival disorganization or are closed to the public due to an overzealous interpretation of ‘privacy laws’ by archivists. 8 One noteworthy exception is R. Lazzero, Il Partito Nazionale Fascista, Milan, Rizzoli, 1985. 9 Much has been published on anti-fascist women ranging from published memoirs of some of the most important protagonists to recent academic studies such as those by De Luna and Gabrielli. See G. De Luna, Donne in oggetto. L’antifascismo nella società italiana (1922–1939), Turin, Bollati Boringhieri, 1996; P. Gabrielli, Fenicotteri in volo: Donne communiste nel ventennio fascista, Rome, Carocci, 1999. 10 De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women; D. Detragiache, ‘Il Fascismo Femminile da San Sepolcro all’Affare Matteotti (1919–1925)’, Storia contemporanea, no. 2, 1983, pp. 211–51. See also A. De Grand, ‘Women Under Italian Fascism’, Historical Journal, no. 4, 1976, pp. 947–68; P.R. Willson, ‘Women in the Partito Nazionale Fascista’, in K. Passmore (ed.), Women, Gender and the Extreme Right in Europe 1919 to 1945, Manchester University Press, forthcoming. 11 J. Slaughter, Women and the Italian Resistance, 1943–45, Denver, Arden, 1997. See also M. Gibson, ‘Women and the Left in the Shadow of Fascism in Interwar Italy’, in H. Gruber, P. Graves (eds), Women and Socialism. Socialism and Women, New York-Oxford, Berghahn, 1998. 12 See, for example, H. Dittrich Johansen, ‘Strategie femminili nel ventennio fascista: la carriera politica di Piera Gatteschi Fondelli nello stato degli uomini (1919–1943)’, Storia e problemi contemporanei, no. 21, 1998, pp. 65–86. 13 Silvia Salvatici, Contadine dell’Italia fascista: presenze, ruoli, immagini, Turin, Rosenberg & Sellier, 1999; Barbara Imbergamo, ‘“Si parte cantando giovinezza”: le mondine durante il fascismo (1925-1939)’, tesi di laurea, University of Florence, a.a.1997-98. See also the classic work by N. Revelli, L’Anello forte. La donna: storie di vita contadina, Turin, Einaudi, 1985.

5

INTRODUCTION

14 A. Amoroso, ‘Le organizzazioni femminili nelle campagne durante il fascismo’, Storia in Lombardia, no. 1–2, 1989, pp. 305–16. See also S. Salvatici, ‘Modelli femminili e immagine della donna nella propaganda fascista con particolare riferimento alle fonti fotografiche’, tesi di laurea, University of Florence, 1992, ch. 3. There is also some limited discussion of the organization in V. De Grazia, ‘Contadine e massaie rurali durante il fascismo’, in Annali Cervi, no. 13, 1991, pp. 151–76. 15 On the visual representation of peasant women in the ventennio see Salvatici, ‘Modelli femminili e immagine della donna nella propaganda fascista’; Salvatici, ‘Modelli femminili e immagine della donna attraverso le fotografie della stampa fascista’, no. 18, Archivio Fotografico Toscano, 1994; M.R. Porcaro, ‘Storia di una conquista, storia di un abbandono (1880-1950)’, in C. Cristoforci, M.R. Porcaro (eds), Immagini di donne dalle campagne umbre, Perugia, Regione Umbria, 2000. 16 Letter from Mario Mazzetti of the PNF National Directory to Mario Muzzarini, President of the Fascist Farmers Confederation, 28.12.1939, ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.125, fasc.96/i. 17 See, on widows, F. Lagorio, ‘Italian Widows of the First World War’, in F. Coetzee, M. Shevin Coetzee (eds), Authority, Identity and the Social History of the Great War, Providence, Berghahn, 1995; Lagorio, ‘Appunti per una storia sulle vedove di guerra italiane nei conflitti mondiali’, Rivista di storia contemporanea, 1994, pp. 170–93. 18 The membership of the Catholic women’s organizations was large. In 1939 the youth section (GFCI) had 863,000 members. (C. Dau Novelli, Famiglia e modernizzazione in Italia tra le due guerre, Rome, Studium, 1994, p. 203.) See also Dau Novelli, ‘L’associazionismo femminile cattolico (1908-1960)’, Bollettino dell’Archivio per la storia del movimento sociale cattolico in Italia, vol. 33, no. 2, 1998, pp. 112–37; P. di Cori, ‘Storia, sentimenti, solidarietà nelle organizzazioni femminili cattoliche dall’età giolittiana al fascismo’, Nuova DWF, no. 10–11, 1979, pp. 80–124.

6

1 PEASANT WOMEN, THE RURAL WORLD AND THE FASCI FEMMINILI

The pattern of agricultural production and women’s place in this system helped determine how the fascists attempted to mobilize them politically. Agriculture was still Italy’s largest single economic sector in this period. Despite rapid economic growth around the turn of the century, which had created pockets of modern industry, mainly in the ‘industrial triangle’ of the North, millions still worked on the land. Numbers of those occupied by this sector remained high during the first half of the twentieth century and by 1936 were still roughly the same as in 1901. According to the 1931 census 41.5 per cent of Italian families (3,800,000 families) had a ‘head of family’ engaged in farming. The rural world, however, was far from static. Since Unification a series of forces, including the increased role of the market, the agricultural crisis of the 1880s, the rise of socialism, emigration and technological innovation had led to much change.1 In some rural areas, moreover, industry had an increasing impact on traditional lifestyles.2 Rural industry varied greatly including both factories (mainly textiles and food processing) and various types of cottage industry. Large numbers of Tuscan peasant women, for example, made straw hats for export until the 1929 crash destroyed their markets.3 The First World War only served to accelerate processes of change when over two and a half million peasants went to the front. Rural Italy was a mosaic of different types of farming and such changes interacted with local situations in diverse ways. Not just crops and methods of cultivation but the size of holdings, modernity of farming techniques and forms of land tenure varied greatly from region to region, and even within close geographical areas.4 It is, of course, beyond the scope of this chapter to properly investigate this complex panorama, one which has been the focus of a considerable volume of historical research. I will limit myself to a consideration of the main types of peasant figure, a brief overview of fascist agricultural policy and a look at women’s role in agriculture. Finally I will discuss the founding of the fascist women’s sections and their attitude to rural questions. During the rise of fascism, peasants were to be found in a variety of positions on the political spectrum. Italy, of course, was unusual in Western Europe in that socialism had spread in some rural areas at the end of the nineteenth century. Just after the First World War, large numbers of peasants, particularly 7

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landless farmworkers but also sharecroppers, belonged to socialist organizations. Others, including many smallholders, joined Catholic ‘white’ leagues. These had previously been tiny but now grew with, by 1920, nearly a million members.5 Yet others rallied to the blackshirts. There were still, however, many peasants little affected by organized politics. Italy’s formidable geography meant that many had little interaction with the world beyond their farm and local community. The lives of many Italian peasants were characterized by great hardship, poverty, insufficient diet and poor health. Insanitary and overcrowded housing was widespread. It was even possible to find peasants who lived in dwellings made of earth and foliage, or in caves or cellars. These were the most extreme cases but a survey of 1933 classified the housing of a third of the rural population as either ‘uninhabitable’ or ‘almost uninhabitable’.6 Very few had running water or electricity. Only hard labour could wrest a living from Italy’s difficult terrain, 35.5 per cent of which was classified as ‘mountainous’, 53.5 per cent as ‘hilly’ and only about 12 per cent as ‘plain’. Much farmland was the product of earlier reclamation efforts, mainly terracing, irrigation and drainage. Not all human interventions had improved things: some areas suffered from deforestation and soil erosion. Mechanization was introduced only slowly, held back by the abundant labour supply, fragmented landholding and steep slopes. In 1936, for example, Italy had only 32,500 tractors and 30,000 threshing machines.7 Rural unemployment and underemployment were endemic, problems greatly exacerbated by the reduction in emigration. The peasantry was still the largest occupational group in interwar Italy. Behind the single term ‘peasant’ hid a complex range of different figures. Most belonged to one of three major categories: landless farmworkers, smallholders (tenants or owners) and sharecroppers. There were also various kinds of ‘mixed’ figures, such as smallholders who also did seasonal day labouring. Other peasant figures were essentially variations of the three main categories.8 All figures were found all over Italy although some broad generalizations are possible. Landless labourers were most numerous on the modern farms of the Po Valley, although even here there were also many other types of peasant. ‘Pure’ sharecropping (mezzadria classica) was most common in the Centre. In the South pockets of commercial farming producing things like olive oil and citrus fruits coexisted with huge estates of little improved land – the latifundia – run by tenant farmers.9 Many of the politically ‘red’ peasants were landless labourers. Various subcategories of such farm labourers existed. The braccianti avventizi, day labourers without security of employment, usually lived in towns and villages, with whole families (often nuclear) in one or two rented rooms whilst ‘salariati fissi’, who had annual contracts, were usually housed on the farm with their families and often paid in both kind and money. They sometimes also sharecropped small plots of land. It was particularly among the braccianti avventizi, especially in 8

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the Po Valley and on the great estates of Apulia, that socialist politics had taken hold before fascism. The Po Valley had many large, modern capitalist farms, mainly run by improving tenant farmers on long leases, who worked the rich soils of the alluvial plain on land drained or watered by modern irrigation systems. Here the proletarianized peasantry10 had become organized from the late nineteenth century and unions had been extremely effective. In some areas they had achieved control of the labour market, introducing the imponibile di manodopera (which stipulated how many workers should be employed per hectare of land according to crop and season) and the collocamento di classe (a list of union members who did this work in turn).11 Both were highly unpopular with employers. Another area with huge numbers of braccianti was Apulia in the ‘heel’ of Italy where vast capitalist estates, devoted almost exclusively to growing wheat, had been established after Unification by ploughing up sheep pastures. Owned mostly by absentee landlords and run by tenants on short leases with little incentive to invest in improvements, profitability was maintained largely by paying near starvation wages to a mass of proletarianized labourers who lived in slum conditions in agro-towns. Such expansive monoculture with low rates of mechanization meant high rates of seasonal unemployment. The Apulian social divide was stark and class hatred bitter. No paternalistic tradition softened landlord–peasant relations. Violence characterized class conflict and, from the turn of the century, revolutionary syndicalism spread.12 Landless day labourers were common in other parts of the South too but elsewhere they were frequently mixed figures, who might, for example, also farm tiny smallholdings. Although there was much unrest in the rural South before fascism, Apulia was the only place where socialism took root so strongly. In the turmoil following the First World War most Southern peasants hungered not for bolshevism but for land.13 The second category, smallholders, embraced both small tenant farmers and peasant proprietors who tilled their own land. Many owned only tiny unviable plots of poor land and despite having what was many peasants’ most heartfelt dream – landownership – they were often extremely poor. By the end of the Second World War, 83.1 per cent of private landowners had less than two hectares. In this situation many could not survive by farming alone and pluriactivity was widespread, including, for example, industrial or agricultural waged work, handicrafts, wetnursing, remittances from migrants and so on. Nonetheless, these peasants’ land-owning status was one that they clung to, toiling endlessly to retain it. Traditionally most smallholdings were in mountain areas but many more recently created small farms were established in hilly or flatland areas. Although some smallholdings were essentially subsistence farming, many (particularly in parts of the South such as Campania and Sicily) produced specialized crops like fruit and vegetables, often for export.14 The third major category was sharecropping, a land tenure form much praised by the regime. There were broad categories – classic sharecropping 9

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(mezzadria) and variants which came generally under the umbrella term of compartecipazione. The latter forms, common in the South but found elsewhere too,15 were usually not very different from waged labour except that the worker was paid with a share of the crop rather than a flat rate. Intermediate categories existed too, such as ‘fitto misto’ (‘mixed renting’), widespread in, for example, the Veneto, a system somewhere between sharecropping and tenant farming.16 It was in Tuscany (particularly the provinces of Arezzo, Pisa, Florence and Siena) that ‘classic sharecropping’ predominated but it was also common in Emilia Romagna, the Marches and Umbria.17 In this system landowners provided tools and a house on the land for the sharecroppers (mezzadri or coloni), who worked the land (the podere) in return for roughly half the annual crop. The costs of cultivation were divided with the landowner and contracts included various other obligations. An annual tithe of products (the ‘regalie’) such as eggs, poultry and hams, days of work on the landlord’s other fields which were unpaid or paid below market rates and regular laundering of clothes for the landlord were typical examples. Contracts also contained innumerable detailed clauses regulating things like which crops to grow, which livestock to raise, whether croppers were allowed to hire additional labour and could even give owners the right to veto marriages.18 Sometimes croppers were obliged to buy certain goods such as olive oil from the landlord, thereby increasing their dependency. Sharecropping traditionally had offered peasants a reasonable standard of living, relative security of employment and a paternalist relationship with landowners who assisted in difficult times such as illness. In traditional contracts, nonetheless, landlords always had the upper hand because of the power to evict when annual contracts expired. Although many sharecroppers did remain on the same podere for generations, this could only be achieved by maintaining a deferential attitude. Some sharecroppers dealt directly with landowners, in other cases farms were run by a fattore (steward). There was sometimes also a fattoressa who would look after the female side of the farm’s activities. She would supervise the work of the women sharecroppers, arranging, for example, for the ‘regalie’ to be brought to the central farm buildings (fattoria).19 The fattoria included not just the fattore’s home but also barns, an oil press, machinery and so on. Many farms of this type were mixed with some land tilled by farmhands and some sharecropped. Classic sharecropping was traditionally associated with social stability, high birth rates, extreme self-exploitation by all household members and low rates of innovation. By the interwar period, however, sharecropping had begun to change due to various factors. Landlords, wishing to take advantage of increased markets for agricultural produce, had begun to attempt to squeeze more and more work from sharecroppers by, for example, reducing the size of poderi. This, and rising taxation, increased peasant indebtedness. Gradually this eroded the paternalistic, deferential landlord–cropper relationship and led, in some areas, to socialist politics. During this period of militancy improved contracts were won 10

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but fascist squadristi violence soon enabled landowners to largely reverse the gains.20 After this terms of contracts generally worsened for croppers, and many of these were codified in 1933 with the ‘Sharecroppers Charter’ issued by the regime.21 Sharecropping households often included more than one family unit – usually a number of brothers and their wives and children – and had a rigid hierarchical structure according to age and gender, headed by one adult male, the capoccia (other regional names include reggitore, vergaro, azdor and massaro). He alone negotiated the annual contract, controlled the household budget and might be the only one to go to market. Since sharecroppers lived on the podere, for everyone but the capoccia, everyday life could be extremely isolated, particularly on poderi far from the nearest village. Alongside the ‘capoccia’ was the ‘massaia’. The organization which is the topic of this book was called the Sezione Massaie Rurali. To simply translate this as ‘Rural Housewives Section’ (as is usually done) means missing much of the meaning of the term. The word massaia does, indeed, mean housewife and in urban areas could denote just that. In a rural context, however, it referred to a very specific figure. The massaia (regional variations include reggitrice, vergara and azdora) was the most authoritative female in the household. Usually she was the capoccia’s wife, although sometimes his sister-in-law was chosen to avoid concentrating power in one couple. If widowed, she often continued in this role once her son became capoccia. The massaia ran the domestic sphere, cooking, cleaning and budgeting monies raised by female activities such as egg sales and so on which were spent on specific household items like salt, thread and buttons. In some areas reggitrici might also control expenditure for the elderly or small children of the household, but even here the capoccia was in charge of far greater sums. He handled all the main income and expenses, including things like purchasing clothing. For reasons of clarity, in this book I will use the term reggitrice to denote this figure, reserving the term massaia to mean a member of the Sezione Massaie Rurali. The reggitrice ruled over the other female members of the household, unmarried daughters, nieces and daughters-in-law (brides transferred to their husband’s family). Such younger women were more likely to do fieldwork while the reggitrice stayed at home, often with their children in her care. Younger women had few rights. They virtually never handled money, had no say in household decisions and rarely left the podere except for Sunday mass. In the house they had to obey the reggitrice, in the fields, the capoccia. Indeed, everyone, including the reggitrice, deferred to the capoccia, even using, for example, formal forms of address (‘voi’ instead of ‘tu’) when speaking to him. Barbagli’s deservedly well-known research on the history of the family22 has demonstrated that such traditional hierarchies and formal roles persisted throughout this period in most sharecropping households and, to a degree, also in many smallholding households. It was, however, among sharecroppers that roles were most rigid. In other rural families various factors slightly muddied the 11

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picture, such as where men emigrated temporarily or where younger women left the farm to earn wages. Even here, however, they had to hand over all, or almost all, their pay to the capoccia. Different too was the situation in the large numbers of rural households headed by women which, due largely to the events of war and to male emigration, had increased to nearly one and a half million in 1921.23 Braccianti families, which were units of consumption rather than production, had, by now, essentially adopted the urban family model. Here roles were less rigidly structured and familiar forms of address more common.

The ruralization campaign and fascist agricultural policy The interwar years were difficult ones for Italian agriculture. The revaluation of the lira followed by the world depression made the rural world truly, as Salvatici has aptly phrased it, ‘a world in trouble’.24 Often, however, fascist policy addressed real problems with little more than rhetoric and, in many cases, social stability was prioritized over growth in agriculture.25 The romanticization of rurality rose to great heights although, in contrast to Nazi Germany, Italian fascist ritual and propaganda exalted not nature itself but human intervention on the land.26 Instead of worshipping nature, they wanted to conquer it, fighting malaria, increasing production and reclaiming land. The peasantry themselves were highly celebrated in a manner which linked them closely to imperialism and war. They came to symbolize the First World War as the infantry sacrificed for the nation, and peasant women were eulogized as the standard bearers of the demographic campaign.27 Presented as the most fecund of Italian women in the regime’s ‘Battle for Births’, they were to produce the next generation of colonizers for the empire and troops for the front. Torrents of propaganda praised an idealized notion of the smallholding or sharecropping family which was seen as having been eroded by recent increases in braccianti numbers and by the rural–urban shift. Anti-migration legislation attempted to control movement of labour, especially into towns where the unemployed could pose a political threat.28 Despite such unprecedented and intense attention in ideology, ceremony and policy to the rural world, historians have generally concluded that fascism failed to actually improve life on the land for the vast majority of the peasantry. For many, indeed, things got worse, particularly during the world economic depression. In practice, much fascist attention to the countryside was largely an attempt to stem rural change and unrest. Fascism rose amidst great rural turmoil and some of the most bitter battles of the early 1920s were in the countryside. Land occupations, strikes and other forms of rural militancy erupted after the First World War. Many peasants, particularly braccianti and sharecroppers, fought the squadristi whilst many ‘agrari’ (big landowners and tenant farmers) funded and supported fascist violence. In some areas, however, the situation was less simple. Although many sharecroppers 12

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became socialists, others feared aspects of the socialist programme such as the collectivization of land. In Ferrara,29 for example, many sharecroppers, smallholders and small leaseholders rallied to fascism, angered by the socialists’ iron grip on the agricultural labour market and the fact that the socialists had attempted to hinder land sales. Some peasants had saved enough, during the postwar price rises, to purchase land, or at least make downpayments. Many bigger landowners became suddenly prepared to sell off marginal land, partly to offset dwindling income as rents had lagged behind inflation but also in the hope of creating a conservative bulwark of smallholders against the ‘red threat’. In Ferrara, furthermore, even some braccianti deserted socialism in the hope of obtaining land. The early fascist programme promised just that, in 1919 even calling for the expropriation and redistribution of land. The policy of ‘land to those who work it’ was, however, dropped by March 1921 as fascism moved to the right and to a defence of private property and agrari interests, helping them roll back the conquests of the postwar turmoil. Nonetheless, even at this point, some landhungry peasants did swell the ranks of the squadristi. After the defeat of the Left, land sales recommenced where they had been blocked. Numbers of smallholders had already greatly increased during and immediately after the First World War, particularly in the South where peasants had occupied the latifondi during the biennio rosso, taking over mainly pastureland or wasteland, spurred on by rash government promises during the war. The movement was so great that the state was forced to condone it, at least temporarily, with the Visocchi decree in September 1919. Despite the fact that this decree was later revoked by the fascist regime, between 1919 and 1933 5.7 per cent of the nation’s farmland was acquired by peasant families.30 Most plots sold were, however, tiny and, in the economic downturn of 1926–7, many smallholders suffered from lost export markets for specialized crops. With falling prices for their produce many found it impossible to pay off debt incurred on land purchased at high prices and were forced to sell all or part of their farms. Nonetheless, some was bought up by other peasants, able to buy as land prices plummeted. After this some new owners did continue to emerge due in part to settlement opportunities on land reclamation schemes. But the general trend was for an increase in tenant farmers and sharecroppers whilst the numbers of peasant proprietors declined a little. Small leaseholders, too, were hard hit by the crisis of the late 1920s as produce prices fell but rents remained high. The creation of new smallholders and sharecroppers was part of a wider fascist policy called sbracciantizzazione (decasualization) which aimed to transform the braccianti into other types of peasants. During the interwar years, numbers of waged farm labourers did fall. They dropped, between 1921 and 1936, from 44 per cent to 28 per cent of the peasantry, with the braccianti among these falling most – from 39 per cent to 19 per cent, which means there was a move towards salariati fissi contracts. The promotion of sharecropping, generally considered a 13

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very unmodern form of land tenure, has aroused much interest from historians. However, as Corner and others have argued, this in fact made real sense for landowners in a time of falling prices as it enabled workers to be paid in kind not cash.31 Many new smallholders, furthermore, had so little land that they were forced to seek other work thereby ensuring a low cost labour supply for bigger farmers. Thus fascism’s encouragement of small landownership and sharecropping was far from incompatible with the interests of its agrari supporters. Another highly publicized policy, the ‘Battle for Wheat’, launched officially on 20 June 1925, aimed to halt grain imports, seen as a major factor in the balance of payments deficit. Many contemporary experts wanted a broader policy to increase productivity across a whole range of farm produce but wheat was chosen for emotive and political reasons. Bread was the ‘staff of life’ in religious imagery as well as an essential part of every Italian’s diet.32 For the poor it formed a large proportion of what they ate. Grown in many regions, it was one of Italy’s most important crops. A Permanent National Wheat Committee was set up in 1925 to devise the campaign. It aimed to raise output through more intensive cultivation rather than increased acreage. Self-sufficiency was eventually achieved through various means including subsidizing fuel for farm machinery, financial assistance to help growers purchase machines and fertilizers, campaigns to increase yields through better seed and national competitions. Most important were tariff increases beginning in July 1925, followed by a series of further increases over the next few years. There were also restrictions forcing millers to mix a certain percentage of domestic grain with imported wheat and wheat had to be sold through government stockpiles (ammassi) to keep prices steady. Whilst Northern farms mainly increased output through productivity gains, many Southern farms did so largely by extending acreage. Many historians have judged the Battle for Wheat harshly, noting, for example, that high duties meant that Italians ate expensive bread far above world prices and that the obsession with wheat damaged other produce.33 Meat output, for example, fell as feed costs rose and pasture was ploughed up. Even the fascists themselves eventually acknowledged this problem and did, in the late 1930s, attempt to increase productivity in other farm produce, campaigns in which the Massaie Rurali section played an important role. The Battle for Wheat helped big landowners more than small as anyone who had to buy grain was damaged.34 Many small landowners ate all they grew so gained nothing from high prices. Landless labourers now paid more for bread. Despite the focus on wheat, even in the early period, however, other crops were not totally ignored. In 1926 import restrictions were imposed on other agricultural goods and from 1929 there were subsidies to encourage exports of certain crops. The following year output, acreage and price controls were laid down for most major crops. Another core agricultural policy was land reclamation (bonifica integrale), a policy most associated with Arrigo Serpieri,35 Under-Secretary for Agriculture in 1923–4 and, from September 1929, Under-Secretary for Land Reclamation. 14

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The first phase of Serpieri’s ambitious plan was to be public works, later moving on to a public–private partnership. The scheme was principally aimed at the South where the terrain rendered reclamation particularly difficult and costly. Serpieri, a modernizer who believed in the benefits of capitalism for agriculture, hoped to make the latifondisti more enterprising, even threatening those who failed to invest with expropriation. But Serpieri was also committed to peasant proprietors, seen as vital to social harmony. The bonifica integrale aimed to increase output through reclaiming land (mainly by drainage), then improving it and, finally, settling smallholders on it. The state was to do big hydraulic projects, build main roads and so on and then a whole host of things were to be provided by private money but with state help such as irrigation schemes, the provision of drinking water, rural aqueducts, small roads between poderi and villages, reforestation and so on. There was also a third level of improvements which private landowners had to fund alone. The plan was to run from 1930 to 1944 and the state intended to spend 4.3 thousand million lire matched by private money of 3 thousand million lire. Serpieri’s plans were formulated in a period of economic buoyancy but when, in September 1929, he had the chance to implement them, agriculture was in crisis. Consequently, the bonifica, designed primarily for the South, was needed to absorb Northern unemployment and risked being simply transformed into old-fashioned public works. There was also much resentment among landowners about what they were required to contribute. By 1934 many of the public works were complete but very little private money had been spent and Serpieri drafted a new law on the expropriation of land. This was rejected by the Senate. Serpieri was forced to resign and was replaced by a large Apulian landowner in January 1935. The bonifica did lead to some improvements in the North but in the South the only real success was the reclamation of 75,000 hectares in the Agro Pontino, conveniently located, for propaganda purposes, close to Rome. Overall, most conclude, the bonifica was largely a waste of money as productivity was little stimulated by it.36 Despite deluges of propaganda and supposedly pro-farming policies, fascism did not, in practice, ‘ruralize Italy’. Between 1921 and 1940 agriculture fell from generating 38.3 per cent of national income to only 29.8 per cent and farming incomes fell from 66 per cent of non-farming incomes in 1921 to only 36 per cent in 1936.37 Nor did the regime really prioritize the smallholders and sharecroppers much lauded in propaganda, and historians generally concur that big landowners benefited more than small from many of the regime’s policies. In a number of ways, furthermore, government policy assisted industry far more than agriculture. One example is the fact that the Battle for Wheat and the bonifica both created lucrative markets for industrial products like fertilizers and farm machinery.38 Meanwhile many of the peasantry ate less and worked harder. The rhetoric of the ruralization campaign, in reality, harked back to an Italy which was already gone in many areas. Change continued. Anti-migration 15

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laws failed to halt the rural–urban shift, although it was slowed down. Similarly, despite the pro-natalist campaign, birth rates continued to decline in the North at least. The world economic depression and the interminable series of wars in which fascism was involved from 1935 onwards also had a disruptive impact on traditional rural lifestyles and gender roles.

The role of women in agriculture In peasant families, most farming activities were divided according to gender. Fieldwork was considered largely men’s work whilst the female sphere encompassed both housework (cooking, cleaning, sewing and childcare) and activities referred to as ‘piccole industrie domestiche’ (small farming industries), a term used to denote such things as handicraft manufacturing, poultry farming, dairying, the raising of rabbits and silkworms, bee-keeping and vegetable gardening. In practice, however, women often did many other types of agricultural work too and their exact role depended on numerous factors including patterns of land tenure, size of landholding, the sex and age composition of each individual household, local custom and whether or not the household was appoderata (resident on the land they tilled). Those that were appoderate tended to be units of both production and consumption whereas the other households (including most in the South) were more, although not exclusively, units of consumption. Precisely how many women were employed in farming is not easy to determine. Census figures put the numbers of females classified as ‘economically active in agriculture’ at just over 1.5 million in 1931 and nearly 2.5 million in 1936 but many commentators, including even the notes to the publication of the 1931 census itself, suggest that these were gross underestimations.39 More reliable are the recalculations of statistician Ornello Vitali which are based on the assumption that all women in sharecropping and smallholding households who appeared on census forms as housewives were, in reality, economically active, in certain regions at least. Vitali’s explanation for the census enumerators’ erroneous classification is rather speculative. The reasons, he suggests, include both fiscal motives as well as the fact that women themselves may have preferred to be called housewives rather than manual workers. This method, assuming women to be defined by what men did is, of course, open to criticism, but qualitative research on life for smallholders and sharecroppers broadly supports Vitali’s argument. He concludes that the true number of ‘economically active’ farmwomen was closer to 4 million.40 This figure certainly holds far more water than the original census statistics but it is doubtless still only a conservative estimate. Many other categories are probably omitted. Census figures, for example, often ignored cases where smallholding women farmed largely without male help by recording seasonally migrant men as resident on their land all year. It needs to be stressed, furthermore, that this was not the total number of women living in peasant families. It excludes women from households where only men farmed, such as in, for example, many Southern areas. It also probably 16

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excludes many women, in both South and North, who did only seasonal fieldwork. In reality, moreover, even those who rarely went to the fields often processed farm produce. In Sardinia, for example, although women worked in the fields only at harvest-time, they spun and wove wool and grew vegetables.41 Not simply census figures, but many other sources have greatly underestimated the importance of women in the rural interwar economy. The labour contracts of salariati fissi, for example, often did not mention women, despite the fact that it was assumed that female household members would provide seasonal labour. Moreover, where salariati were given small plots of sharecropped land, in practice this land was worked largely by women42 and some wives would even do the work their husbands were contracted for, to free them for earning outside wages.43 The crucial importance of peasant women’s labour, and the extent to which official documents ignore it, form the core argument of a recent important book by Silvia Salvatici,44 based primarily, although not exclusively, on reports produced by INEA (Istituto Nazionale di Economia Agraria)45 particularly their Monografie di Famiglie Agricole. Salvatici demonstrates how, although largely unrecognized as such by the regime, by farming experts or by census enumerators, women’s work was essential to interwar agriculture. Indeed, they did huge amounts of it: the example of three women from Ancona who did 1,700 hours of agricultural and 1,500 hours of domestic work per annum was far from unusual.46 This situation made peasant women unable to be the ‘exemplary wives and mothers’ lauded by the regime and high rates of infant mortality were the bitter price they paid. Such ceaseless toil in field and home received little legal or official recognition. Where women did fieldwork, for example, many descriptions portray them as merely ‘helping’ men and, in the ‘Serpieri coefficient’ women were defined as worth only a fraction of a male worker. According to this formula (used in a variety of contexts including sharecropping contracts), the labour of an adult woman (aged 18 to 68) was worth 60 per cent of an adult man. Similarly, males of 10 to 17 years or over 68 were valued at 50 per cent whereas females in the same age bracket were rated only 30 per cent.47 In terms of inheritance, too, women were undervalued. Although settlements did vary, women often only received a small dowry or cash payment as peasants strove to keep together holdings by leaving them to one or more sons. Only in areas like Sicily where holdings were fragmented and frequently located away from the home did women tend to inherit land. On the death of their husbands widows rarely received land, but more usually were granted the right to farm it without actual ownership.48 Despite lack of recognition, many of the tasks done by women, whether in the field or those dismissively termed ‘housework’, were essential to the survival of rural households. In sharecropping families, for example, women’s careful housekeeping, their sales of eggs and rabbits and their flexible labour ready to step into the fields when required were all crucial. In some cases all the meat 17

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and vegetables consumed by the family was raised or grown by female labour. Even housework, far from easy given the appalling state of much rural housing, was often hard to distinguish from ‘productive’ work. One example is cooking. Where casual labour, such as the extra hands sharecroppers or smallholders sometimes hired for harvest, was paid largely in food, even meal preparation became part of the household’s productive activities. All this largely unrecorded female activity was vital during the economic depression when the relatively closed economy of the podere allowed sharecroppers to survive by enormous self-exploitation, working harder and eating less. The crisis did provoke some modifications in the traditional household hierarchy. According to Salvatici, the predominant trend was increasing flexibility in the use of female labour with women frequently crossing into traditionally male roles (although always considered mere ‘helpers’) in the fields, to replace men who had left to seek outside waged work as farm incomes dwindled. Where households suffered from a lack of female labour, conversely, men rarely took on domestic tasks. Some traditions were too deeply rooted to be overcome by economic imperatives. Smallholding families too were hit hard by the crisis. They too tried to ride it out by vast amounts of work or by increasingly resorting to various types of pluriactivity, often done by women. Where the crisis forced men off the land to seek outside employment, some smallholdings were run largely by women. In Northern braccianti households the role of women in the agricultural economy was important too. Although women’s hours and wages were often lower than men’s, considerably more women than were officially recognized did do waged fieldwork and this seems to have continued despite widespread male unemployment. Landowners often preferred female labour as it was cheaper. One particular type of casual farm labour, moreover, was done almost entirely by women – rice weeding. By the interwar period, ricegrowing was concentrated in the provinces of Vercelli, Pavia, Milan and Novara, with small amounts in Emilia and the Veneto. Most ricefarms were large as the investment necessary in drainage canals and so on was too great for the majority of smallholders. Ricegrowing was hit, from 1926, by falling export prices,49 but initially, unlike wheat, it was not protected by high tariffs. The crisis was faced by various means including reducing acreage, cutting pay and urging Italians to eat more rice. The government also founded the National Rice Agency in 1931 which at first, rather ineffectively, attempted to increase exports. From 1933 onwards, its main role was to control the price of domestic rice. Ricegrowing was seasonally very labour intensive, employing roughly 160,000 to 170,000 braccianti (about 90 per cent of them female).50 Huge numbers did spring weeding, lesser numbers transplanted and harvested. About 70 per cent were local including some whose labour formed part of the contract of their ‘salariati fissi’ husbands. The rest were migrants. Most mondine (riceworkers) came from peasant families but some were factory workers or servants 18

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who were attracted by relatively good pay. This was, in fact, the only agricultural work with equal pay for men and women. Reasonable pay, largely the legacy of past militancy, was necessary to ensure a labour force as this was tough, unpleasant work. Weeders were bent double all day and risked occupational diseases including easily infected cuts, eye infections, skin damage, digestive problems and insect bites although malaria, the traditional scourge of the paddy fields, was substantially reduced by this period.51 The Northern mondine are undoubtedly the best-known female braccianti but even in the South some women did casual farmwork. Although most waged labour, which was widespread in many parts of the South, tended to be done by men, women were often hired for seasonal tasks such as harvesting. Many olive pickers, for example, were female. Women were also to be found harvesting various ‘specialized crops’ such as citrus fruits, almonds, tobacco, apples, tomatoes and jasmine. They also worked in the processing of crops like hemp and tobacco. Many of these crops were adversely affected by the regime’s focus on wheat and, for this reason, although more research is needed to clarify such trends, Southern women’s role in fieldwork was probably declining in this period. Wheat tended to provide exclusively male employment, although mass emigration had meant that, at the turn of the century at least, some women were doing this work.52 On smallholdings too, numbers of which had steeply risen in the 1920s, Southern women could be found doing farmwork. Generally speaking, however, women did far less actual agricultural work in the South than in the North. Except for those living in the more populated countryside near cities like Naples and Palermo most Southern peasants were not properly rural at all, but lived, often in dreadful conditions, in overcrowded agro-towns. Home and field were separate. Men often walked long distances to the fields, sometimes even sleeping there whilst women remained at home, doing mainly domestic tasks. Such Southern women often led very isolated lives. An extreme example was the village of ‘Milocca’, studied by American anthropologist Charlotte Gower Chapman in the 1920s, which lay an hour’s walk from the nearest road and two hours from the railway. In ‘Milocca’, cultural values kept women out of the public sphere as much as possible.53 This was an extreme example but in many other parts of Italy too, many peasant women were illiterate and had little interaction with the outside world at all. A series of factors were, however, serving to change this situation. Migration and emigration, for example, helped break down the isolation of rural women’s world. Temporary migrants included not just rice weeders and olive pickers but also women who sought employment as urban domestic servants, some, but not all, later returning home. Others migrated as wetnurses. Although many wetnurses worked in their own homes, around the turn of the century live-in wetnurses increasingly became status symbols for wealthy families. Peasant women, particularly from Tuscany and Friuli, moved to the houses of the rich to breastfeed and care for a baby. This latter form of temporary 19

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migration could be very traumatic, uprooting women from their families and their own children, but it offered excellent wages.54 Emigration abroad was heavily reduced in this period with, for example, the Quota Acts of 1921, but it did not cease.55 Traditionally emigration involved mainly lone men, making some women, temporarily at least, effective heads of families. In the case of sharecroppers, however, whole families often emigrated together for cropping contracts often prevented men leaving alone. Many sharecroppers headed for Latin America in search of land.56 Despite fascist legislation, migration within Italy continued. For some this was an abandonment of the peasant life as they deserted the land with their entire families, often by chain migration. There were also other factors that eroded the isolation of rural women’s world. In many areas peasant women did industrial work, such as textile manufacturing.57 Such changes notwithstanding, in the interwar period peasant women’s lives remained deeply subordinate to the authority of men and the needs of the household. In the case of those who did industrial work, for example, although for some this could be the start of a transition to a new identity as a worker, this was not necessarily so. Much extra-domestic labour continued to be totally determined by the life-cycle of the peasant family.58 Moreover, the type of farming activities peasant women did, where they lived and their position in the household hierarchy, was essentially dependent on the role and status of their husbands. ‘Economically active’ as most of these women were, it is difficult to see their work, except in exceptional cases such as rice weeding, as a potential source of autonomy and emancipation. Whether from the North or from the South, from all the varied types of rural household, all peasant women worked extremely hard, and with the outbreak of the Second World War this work increased even further. Women had effectively demonstrated their ability to keep agricultural production going during the previous World War.59 The situation in this new war was, however, somewhat different as agricultural output fell due to lack of fuel for machines, the requisitioning of donkeys and mules for the army and so on. Of each farm’s meat livestock 30 per cent had to be handed over to feed the army, prices were blocked and all grain, except a predetermined amount for feeding the peasant’s own family, had to be sent to government stockpiles.60 Despite this, agriculture’s problems were not immediately apparent. In 1940–1 few rural labour shortages emerged because of endemic rural underemployment and because some peasants were granted temporary leave for sowing and harvesting. By March 1941 many provinces had still not requested an extension of the length of the farming working day. More female labour was eventually required as the war dragged on. Some Southern women, however, proved reluctant to do fieldwork, preferring to survive on small subsidies for the dependants of poorer soldiers (six lire per woman and two lire per child per day in late 1940). In many areas rising industrial wages were an enticing alternative and this, in turn, drove farm wages up as employers competed to recruit hands. In sharecropping and smallholding 20

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families things were different. Women simply took over men’s work wholesale. In some cases this hugely increased workload was too much and lone women with small children ended up abandoning the podere.61

The Fasci Femminili and rural questions One of the forces for change in rural women’s world in the years before fascism was the involvement of some in trade unions and political activities. During the First World War many peasant women participated in a range of protests about such things as high prices and demands for increased allowances for soldiers’ relatives and even in attempts to sabotage the call-up. Riceworkers went on strike and other women took part in land occupations.62 During the biennio rosso, too, women were undoubtedly present in many agricultural strikes although the extent of this is hard to tell from existing sources. Many strikes were about sharecropping contracts and here the active part was played by the capoccia although, of course, all household members might have to withdraw their labour together. Nonetheless, some women did join unions individually and, at this time, the socialist farmworkers’ union the Federterra even had a female National Secretary – Argentina Altobelli. Women were not organized autonomously in the Federterra, although, at local level, female leagues did exist.63 Individual female union membership was almost entirely restricted, however, to braccianti. By 1921 (a year when union membership was already falling due to blackshirt violence) 60,000 women belonged to the Federterra (constituting 20 per cent of the membership).64 At first the PNF displayed little interest in targeting such women in recruitment campaigns. Most early members of the Fasci Femminili (FF – the PNF women’s sections) were urban and middle class. The first Fascio Femminile was founded in 1920 and was soon followed by others although numbers were initially very small. There were only nine women sansepolcristi and a tiny number of female squadristi. Those who did join at this point received little encouragement from male fascists who mainly wanted women confined to support roles, welfare and propaganda. Somewhat perversely, this general disinterest of the hierarchs gave fascist women some autonomy, allowing them to organize their own conferences and even lobby for female suffrage. In November 1924, however, a Venetian noblewoman, the former wartime Red Cross nurse Elisa Majer Rizzioli, was appointed National Inspectress and a basic structure was imposed which assigned the Fasci Femminili a subordinate position. Majer Rizzioli, a moderate feminist who aspired to real power for PNF women, did not hold the post for long. Soon Party Secretary Farinacci began to impose his authority. In 1926 she was forced to resign, her post was abolished and her newspaper, the Rassegna femminile italiana, closed down.65 After this the Fasci Femminili were directly controlled by the PNF Secretariat. At provincial level troublesome female leaders were purged and the FF were left with only Angiola Moretti, 21

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previously Majer Rizzioli’s secretary, as a kind of national co-ordinator in the period 1926–30. Trained as a teacher like so many other female hierarchs, she had been leader of her local FF in Pontevico (Brescia) from 1921. Like Majer Rizzioli she was also a Fiume veteran but, born in 1899, much younger.66 Central control was further tightened in May 1931, when all nominations for local leaders became subject to central approval. The Rassegna was allowed to reopen in 1927, albeit in a more propagandistic guise, and it remained the official FF organ until 1929 when Turati selected the Giornale della donna (renamed La donna fascista in 1935), edited by former suffrage campaigner Paola Benedettini Alferazzi, to replace it. In the 1930s, Starace gave the FF new prominence as part of the regime’s ‘consensus policy’ and in 1932 the new PNF regulations stipulated that one should exist in every single Fascio di Combattimento. Despite this, they never had any real political power and, after 1930, lacked a national leader. They were also extremely poorly funded. For most of the 1930s their budget was lower than that of the fascist university students’ organization (GUF), which had a far smaller membership. In the 1920s FF membership remained limited but later swelled considerably, rising from, in 1929, roughly 100,000 members to about 750,000 by the outbreak of the Second World War. The class composition of this membership has never been subject to systematic historical analysis (and existing sources make it unlikely that this will be possible) but it seems probable that it was predominantly middle- or upper-class although it did eventually widen a little. In Pavia, for example, in the 1920s the FF were an elite group of upper-class ladies but, during the 1930s, they increasingly included women like dressmakers and clerks. About the social composition of their leaders more, albeit fragmentary, evidence exists. Some of the most prominent figures were aristocrats but there were also numerous professionals, mostly teachers, who took organizational roles at all levels. In 1934, 130 of the 188 Pavian local section leaders were elementary teachers. The rest were mainly women with a prominent social position due to wealth or political connections, often wives of Party hierarchs.67 In Leghorn, six of the highest ranking FF hierarchs in 1939 were teachers, three were housewives (two of whom were teacher trained) and two were clerks.68 In provinces as diverse as Cosenza, Belluno and Reggio Emilia many local Fasci Femminili were headed by primary school teachers.69 After the Party tightened its control in 1926, the Fasci Femminili’s role as almost exclusively welfare-orientated was confirmed and this was further reinforced with the launching of the demographic campaign. Even in this sphere, however, they had virtually no influence on the actual formulation of policy. Increasingly they became subordinate agents of Party and state, reduced to carrying out orders. Much of their work involved assisting the female poor and their children. Typical activities included teaching sewing and domestic science courses to girls and working-class women, visiting pregnant women and new mothers in their homes to assess their needs and distribute advice and 22

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propaganda, handing out milk and layettes to needy mothers with new-born babies and running children’s summer camps. Such activities were not, of course, dissimilar to the philanthropic role of prefascist upper- and middle-class women. Even feminists, through ‘practical feminism’, had busied themselves with similar work. But the work of fascist women did form a break with the past as now welfare and benevolence were to be in the service of the state. Although far less than some fascist women had aspired to, for those involved, such activities gave them a new public role and a sense of importance. Busy as the donne fasciste were, in the early days virtually none of their activities were particularly rural and the main political organizations for women in the 1920s in rural areas were Catholic. Initially predominantly urban, by 1922, Catholic women’s groups had begun to spread into the countryside. Their activities were not, however, specifically tailored to peasant women except for ‘moral and spiritual assistance’ for mondine. Their main concerns were morality campaigns or lobbying on issues such as divorce.70 The answers they gave to a questionnaire sent out by the women’s section of the International Farming Conference in 1927 make clear that, by then, they still did nothing ‘professional’ for farmwomen.71 In the 1920s there were admittedly a few, rare examples of rural Fasci Femminili activities – such as the cultivation of a wheatfield in 1926 by a Como section to encourage local peasants to enter competitions for the Battle for Wheat.72 Such initiatives, however, were extremely unusual. When in 1927, on behalf of the Fasci Femminili, Guglielmina Ronconi addressed the International Farming Conference in Rome on the subject of ‘the women’s fascist organization and its relationship with agriculture’ she was forced to devote most of her speech to listing what the Fasci Femminili wanted for peasant women: pride in their nation and an appreciation of their sacred task as mothers. Exactly how peasant women were to be instilled with these new values was not specified in the speech. Ronconi had nothing concrete to report.73 In the Rassegna italiana femminile and the Giornale della donna, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, little attention was paid to rural matters. Only a few articles addressed this theme. Although some were about things like the need to encourage female rural handicrafts, just as frequent were articles dedicated to topics such as how to survive housework in a rented summer holiday home, or the problems of dealing with domestic staff whose rural backgrounds had ill prepared them for urban housework.74 The major exception to this were regular, seasonal articles about riceworkers. Riceworkers, particularly migrants, were a cause for concern to the fascist authorities. They were seen as morally disturbing because they appeared to be free of constraints. Migrants slept in dormitories (usually barns or storerooms) away from the supervision of the patriarchal family and exposed a lot of flesh as they worked (usually knotting their skirts at the top of their legs to keep them dry). They also had a tradition of socialist politics75 and, even during the regime 23

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when strikes were illegal, there were substantial stoppages in 1927 and 1931.76 Riceworkers were, therefore, seen as very different from the fascist ideal peasant woman, the solid, maternal reggitrice. The fascists produced a special riceworkers’ newspaper – La mondina. Published 1925–43, its main topic was the good things the regime was doing for riceworkers and how life was now incomparably better than in the ‘bad old days’ before ‘fascist solidarity’. This latter term meant welfare assistance. Although various state and Party organizations were involved in this, most of the volunteer labour was supplied by donne fasciste. Their task was to calm this turbulent and disturbing group and to make ‘class collaboration’ appear to work. Previously Catholic organizations had offered some, limited, welfare assistance, mainly aimed at safeguarding the mondine’s morality. The Fasci Femminili programme, however, eventually became much larger. Initially it was sporadic and regionally diverse, the spontaneous initiatives of local Fasci Femminili. But, from 1929, this welfare work became official PNF policy and gradually became more and more structured and centrally co-ordinated.77 The main provisions were refreshment stalls, sometimes with first aid stations, at railway stations where migrants passed through on their way to and from ricefarms. These offered free snacks or meals and some even had camp beds for mondine to rest on. The donne fasciste also helped run nurseries for workers’ children, although the fascist ladies do not seem to have got their hands too dirty as they were ‘assisted by women who did the heaviest jobs’.78 By the late 1930s there were nurseries in both emigration and ricegrowing provinces. The ‘fascist home visitors’ were also involved in inspecting dormitories and other facilities although they themselves had no power to intervene but only to report problems to fascist union officials. Such attempts to offer material comfort were intertwined with numerous interventions aimed at shaping the mondine’s moral behaviour and political views. Propaganda films were screened and huge rallies, addressed by fascist hierarchs, were held. The fascist ladies also interfered with the mondine’s leisure time, ensuring they went to mass, imposing curfews and offering morally acceptable activities to keep them from the dangers of dances and local young men. In further attempts to keep the sexes apart, all-female teams were encouraged, female team-leaders (guide) appointed, and, from 1937, even a female figure who liaised between the unions and the workers – the prima mondina. These figures are intriguing as they were effectively union shopfloor representatives, something the fascist unions were not allowed until 1939 in other sectors. In the late 1930s donne fasciste were also involved in training courses for riceworkers, especially for the prime mondine. The ‘Battle for Rice’ was but a foretaste of things to come for the urban fascist ladies. Mondine were, however, a very specific type of rural woman and providing welfare for them involved only donne fasciste from a few Northern provinces and only for about 40 days each year. Soon, however, fascist women 24

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all over Italy had to start thinking about how to reach out to other types of peasant women once, in the 1930s, the Party attempted to cast its ‘capillary net’ far more widely.

Notes 1 P.P. D’Attorre, A. De Bernardi, ‘Il “lungo addio”: una proposta interpretiva’, in P.P. D’Attorre, A. De Bernardi (eds), Studi sull’agricoltura italiana, Milan, Feltrinelli, 1994. 2 See, for example, A. Bull, P. Corner, From Peasant to Entrepreneur. The Survival of the Family Economy in Italy, Oxford, Berg, 1993, which attempts to trace the roots of the ‘Third Italy’ to interwar rural industry. 3 See A. Pescarolo, G.B. Ravenni, Il proletariato invisibile. La manifattura della paglia nella Toscana mezzadrile (1820–1950), Milan, Angeli, 1991. 4 A classic text which is still an excellent starting point for this question is E. Sereni, Storia del paesaggio agrario italiano, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1999 (9th ed., 1st ed. 1961). See also, for a collection of studies on a number of these different regional rural situations, P. Bevilacqua (ed.), Storia dell’agricoltura italiana in età contemporanea, 3 vols, Venice, Marsilio, 1989, 1990 and 1991. 5 In 1920 socialist farming unions had 1,139,000 members whereas the corresponding Catholic leagues had 945,000. (C.T. Schmidt, The Plough and the Sword. Labour, Land and Property in Fascist Italy, New York, Columbia University Press, 1938, p. 28.) 6 Ibid., pp. 165–8. 7 Admittedly this meant that numbers of tractors were growing since, in 1924, there were only 5,840. It is still, however, a minute number compared with the numbers of people engaged in farming in this period. 8 Much has been published on these different peasant figures. See, for example, A. Manoukian, ‘La famiglia dei contadini’, in P. Melograni (ed.), La famiglia italiana dall’Ottocento a oggi, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1988, pp. 26–34. 9 Even though Marta Petrusewicz has made a controversial recent attempt to rescue the hitherto dreadful reputation of the nineteenth century latifundia, depicting them as harmonious, paternalistic economic entities governed by a type of ‘moral economy’, even she agrees that, by the end of the century, raw exploitation took over. (Petrusewicz, ‘The Demise of Latifondismo’, in R. Lumley, J. Morris (eds), The New History of the Italian South. The Mezzogiorno Revisited, Exeter University Press, 1997.) For a more traditional view see D. Mack Smith, ‘The Latifundia in Modern Sicilian History’, in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, no. 51, 1965, pp. 85–124. 10 On the lives of the Po Valley braccianti see G. Crainz, Padania. Il mondo dei braccianti dall’Ottocento alla fuga dalle campagne, Rome, Donzelli, 1994. 11 See, for example, F. Cazzola, Storia delle campagne padane dall’Ottocento a oggi, Milan, B. Mondadori, 1996, ch. 10. 12 See F.M. Snowden, Violence and Great Estates in the South of Italy. Apulia 1900–1922, Cambridge University Press, 1986. 13 See L. Masella, ‘Braccianti nel Sud’, in P.P. D’Attorre, A. De Bernardi (eds), Studi sull’agricoltura italiana, Milan, Feltrinelli, 1994. 14 On peasant proprietors see G. Masullo, ‘Contadini. La piccola proprietà coltivatrice nell’Italia contemporanea’, in Bevilacqua, Storia dell’agricoltura, vol. II. There are many local studies of this group. See, for example, P. Gaspari, Agricoltura e società rurale in Friuli dal X al XX secolo, Monza, Pittarerio, 1976, pp. 238-41. On pluriactivity see Cazzola, Storia delle campagne, ch. 9. 15 For a discussion of Southern land tenure forms see Placanica, ‘Il mondo agricolo meridionale’, in Bevilacqua (ed.), Storia dell’agricoltura, vol. II.

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16 F. Piva, ‘I mezzadri veneti nel primo e nel secondo dopoguerra’, Annali Cervi, no. 8, 1986, p. 38. 17 Much has been written on Central sharecroppers. See, for example, S. Anselmi, ‘Mezzadri e mezzadrie nell’Italia centrale’, in Bevilacqua (ed.), Storia dell’agricoltura, vol. II; F.M. Snowden, The Fascist Revolution in Tuscany 1919–1922, Cambridge University Press, 1989. 18 The level of detail in contracts, particularly concerning family members, increased in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century as landowners attempted to control cropping more tightly. See C. Papa, ‘La famiglia mezzadrile come ambito normativo specifico e luogo di conflitto “di diritti”’, Annali Cervi, no. 9, 1987, pp. 195–226. 19 J. Pratt, ‘La ricerca antropologica anglosassone e la mezzadria. Studi in Umbria e in Toscana’, Annali Cervi, no. 9, 1987, p. 44. 20 See, to cite but one example of a rich literature on this topic, M. Lodovici, ‘Il potere sull’aia. Le campagne forlivesi tra mita della ruralità e modernizzazione’, Memoria e ricerca, no. 2, 1993, p. 38. 21 This was the consequence of legislation dating back to 1926 which made legally enforceable collective contracts compulsory for employers and employees in corporative organizations. The idea of the Charter was much resisted by landowners but its actual terms closely reflected their interests not those of the peasants. See D. Preti, Economia e istituzioni nello stato fascista, Rome, Riuniti, 1980, ch. 4. 22 M. Barbagli, Sotto lo stesso tetto, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1984, chs 8 and 9. On power relations in sharecropping families see also M. Coppi, M. Fresta, ‘Il passato nella memoria contadina. Vita rurale fra Maremma e Val di Chiana nella memoria femminile e maschile’, Annali Cervi, no. 2, 1980, pp. 205–19. 23 S. Soldani, ‘Donne senza pace. Esperienze di lavoro, di lotta, di vita tra guerra e dopoguerra (1915–1920)’, Annali Cervi, no. 13, 1991, p. 54. Women generally only became heads of family in the absence of a suitable adult male. (See M. Palazzi, Donne sole. Storia dell’altra faccia dell’Italia tra antico regime e società contemporanea, Milan, B. Mondadori, 1997, pp. 298–302.) 24 This phrase is taken from S. Salvatici, ‘Un mondo in affanno: famiglie agricole nell’Italia fascista’, Passato e presente, no. 36, 1995, pp. 93–115. On the impact of the depression see Salvatici, ‘Campagne in crisi. L’Italia rurale negli anni del regime fascista (1927-1935)’, Annali Cervi, no. 17/18, 1995–6, pp. 157–92. 25 On fascist agricultural policy much has been written. See, for example, C. Daneo, Breve storia dell’agricoltura italiana 1860–1970, Milan, A. Mondadori, 1980; A. Cadeddu, S. Lepre, F. Socrate, ‘Ristagno e sviluppo nel settore agricolo italiano (1918–1939)’, Quaderni storici, no. 29/30, 1975, pp. 497–518; A. D’Alessandro, ‘La politica agraria del fascismo’, Annali Cervi, 1979, pp. 349–80; C. Barberis, Le campagne italiane dall’Ottocento a oggi, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1999. 26 E. Gentile, Il culto del littorio, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1993, p. 177. 27 The demographic campaign aimed to increase the size of the Italian population mainly by raising the declining birth rate. It involved a range of measures including a tax on bachelors, a huge amount of propaganda and some maternal and infant welfare measures. On this campaign see, for example, M.S. Quine, Population Politics in Twentieth Century Europe, London, Routledge, 1996, ch. 1; D.V. Glass, Population Policies and Movements in Europe, Oxford University Press, 1940; C. Saraceno, ‘Redefining Maternity and Paternity: Gender, Pro-natalism and Social Policies in Fascist Italy’, in G. Bock, P. Thane (eds), Maternity and Gender Politics. Women and the Rise of the European Welfare States 1880s–1950s, London, Routledge, 1991. 28 See A. Treves, Le migrazioni interne nell’Italia fascista, Turin, Einaudi, 1976. On fascist ruralist ideology see A. Di Michele, ‘I diversi volti del ruralismo fascista’, Italia contemporanea, no. 199, 1995, pp. 243–67.

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29 P. Corner, Fascism in Ferrara 1915–1925, Oxford University Press, 1975, esp ch. 7. 30 Massullo, ‘Contadini’, p. 27. 31 P. Corner, ‘Rapporti tra agricoltura e industria durante il fascismo’, in A. Aquarone, M. Vernassa (eds), Il regime fascista, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1974, p. 391. 32 On the symbolic importance of bread in fascist ideology see S. Falaschi-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle. The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini’s Italy, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, California University Press, 1997, pp. 155–6. 33 See, for example, J.S. Cohen, ‘Fascism and Agriculture in Italy: Policies and Consequences’, Economic History Review, no. 32, 1979, pp. 73-4; E. Fano, ‘Problemi e vicende dell’agricoltura italiana tra le due guerre’, Quaderni storici, no. 29/30, 1975, p. 480. 34 G. Tattara, ‘Cerealicoltura e politica agraria durante il fascismo’, in G. Toniolo (ed.), Lo sviluppo economico italiano 1861–1940, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1973, p. 385. 35 Born in 1877 in Bologna Serpieri taught ‘Rural Economics’ in Perugia then in Milan from 1907. In 1928 he founded INEA (Istituto Nazionale di Economia Agraria) and, in 1927, was elected President of the Accademia dei Georgofili. See S. Lepre, ‘Arrigo Serpieri’, in F. Cordova, Uomini e volti del fascismo, Rome, Bulzoni, 1980. 36 See J.S. Cohen, ‘Un esame statistico delle opere di bonifica intraprese durante il regime fascista’, in Toniolo (ed.), Lo sviluppo economico. 37 C. Barberis, ‘La società rurale italiana dal 1911 al 1951’, Annali Cervi, no. 1, 1979, p. 124. 38 For a detailed discussion of ways in which fascist agricultural policies helped industry see P. Corner, ‘Fascist Agrarian Policy and the Italian Economy in the Interwar Years’, in J.A. Davis (ed.), Gramsci and Italy’s Passive Revolution, London, Croom Helm, 1979. Many other historians have portrayed fascist agricultural policy as a vehicle for industrial growth. See, for example, Preti, Economia e istituzioni, ch. 1. 39 On how women became excluded from many census statistics as enumerators tried to apply ‘modern’ classification systems see S. Patriarca, ‘Gender Trouble: Women and the Making of Italy’s “Active Population” 1861–1936’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, no. 2, 1998, pp. 44–63. This ‘modernizing’ process reflected changing gender assumptions: ‘real’ workers were increasingly identified as male. 40 See O. Vitali, La popolazione attiva in agricoltura attraverso i censimenti (1881–1961), Rome, Failli, 1968; Vitali, ‘I censimenti e la composizione sociale dell’agricoltura italiana’, in Bevilacqua, Storia dell’agricoltura, vol. II. In 1931 approximately 2.4 million women were recorded by the census as economically active in other economic sectors. This rose to 2.8 million in 1936. ‘Active’ males in agriculture were recorded as 6.6 million in 1931 and 6.4 million in 1936. 41 L. Pisano, ‘Il lavoro delle donne nella società rurale sarda: ricerca storica e studi antropologici a confronto’, Annali Cervi, no. 12, 1990, pp. 129–46. 42 Crainz, Padania, pp. 102–3. 43 M. Palazzi, ‘Donne delle campagne e delle città: lavoro ed emancipazione’, in R. Finzi (ed.), Storia d’Italia. Le regioni dall’Unità a oggi. L’Emilia Romagna, Turin, Einaudi, 1997, pp. 382–4. 44 S. Salvatici, Contadine nell’Italia fascista: presenze, ruoli, immagini, Turin, Rosenberg & Sellier, 1999. For another very well-researched study of the role of peasant women (albeit mainly about the nineteenth century) see Palazzi, Donne sole. 45 On INEA see P. Manganelli, ‘L’Istituto nazionale di economia agraria. Un’istituzione del fascismo’, Quaderni storici, no. 36, 1977, pp. 889–95; P. Bertolini, ‘Arrigo Serpieri e l’attività di ricerca dell’INEA durante il ventennio fascista’, AAVV, Agricoltura e forze sociali in Lombardia nella crisi degli anni trenta, Milan, Angeli, 1983. 46 Salvatici, Contadine nell’Italia fascista, p. 35. 47 This, abolished only in 1964, was not invented by Serpieri. He simply gave official

27

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48

49

50

51

52 53 54

55 56 57 58

59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67

recognition to what was already normal practice on many farms. (A. Tiso, ‘Le lotte per la parità e la questione del “coefficiente Serpieri”’, Annali Cervi, no. 13, 1991, p. 295.) The undervaluing of women in terms of inheritance was, of course, far from new in the fascist period. See on this question, for example, M. Palazzi, ‘Nuovi diritti e strategie di conservazione dopo l’Unità: le famiglie contadine del bolognese’, in G. Calvi, I. Chabot (eds), Le ricchezze delle donne. Diritti patrimoniali e poteri famigliari in Italia (XIII–XIX), Turin, Rosenberg & Sellier, 1998. See D. Brianta, ‘Risicoltura e fascismo negli anni della crisi. Alle origini dell’Ente nazionale risi (1927–1933)’, in AAVV, Agricoltura e forze sociali in Lombardia nella crisi degli anni trenta, Milan, Angeli, 1983; Brianta, ‘Il riso tra stato e mercato. Un commercio agricolo padano’, in Bevilacqua (ed.), Storia dell’agricoltura, vol. 3. B. Imbergamo, ‘“Si parte cantando giovinezza”: le mondine durante il fascismo (1925–1939)’, tesi di laurea, Università di Firenze, a.a.1997–98, pp. 59–60. During the Second World War numbers rose to about 200,000. (See ‘Il Duce per i lavoratori’, La mondina, no. 3, 30 June 1941, p. 2.) Imbergamo, ‘Si parte cantando’, pp. 99–105. Malaria declined gradually from about 1900 but was only properly eradicated by DDT after the Second World War. On fascist attempts to tackle malaria see F.M. Snowden, ‘“Fields of Death”: Malaria in Italy, 1861–1962’, Modern Italy, no. 1, 1999, pp. 43–8. G. Chianese, ‘Note di ricerca su famiglia e lavoro nelle campagne meridionali’, Annali Cervi, no. 13, 1991, pp. 193–205; Palazzi, Donne sole, pp. 365–84. C. Gower Chapman, Milocca. A Sicilian Village, London, Allen & Unwin, 1973. Wetnurses were well cared for in their temporary homes as their wellbeing was deemed crucial to the welfare of the infants they nursed. See A. Dadà, ‘Partire per un figlio altrui’, in D. Corsi (ed.), Altrove. Viaggi di donne dall’antichità al Novecento, Rome, Viella, 1999. On rural women and emigration see P. Corti, ‘Donne che vanno, donne che restano. Emigrazione e comportamenti femminili’, Annali Cervi, no. 12, 1990, pp. 213–35. See I. Moretti, ‘L’emigrazione contadina della Val di Chiana come protesta sociale (1894-1903)’, Annali Cervi, no. 2, 1980, pp. 191–203. See, for example, P. Corner, ‘Women in Fascist Italy. Changing Family Roles in the Transition from an Agricultural to an Industrial Society’, European History Quarterly, no. 23, 1993, pp. 51–68. On this, see, for example, G. Nemec,‘Identità femminile e lavoro. Le operaie tessili isontine durante il fascismo’, Passato e presente, no. 24, 1990, pp. 167–84. On interwar textile workers see also B. Bianchi, ‘I tessili: lavoro, salute, conflitti’, Annali Feltrinelli, vol. 20, 1979–80, pp. 973–1070. Soldani, ‘Donne senza pace’. ‘Mobilitazione civile della Nazione’, La massaia rurale, no. 7, 1940, p. 2. CFLA, ‘Disponibilità e fabbisogna della manodopera agricola nelle annate 1941–1942’, ACS, SPD–CO, 509.381. G. Procacci, ‘La protesta delle donne delle campagne in tempo di guerra’, Annali Cervi, no. 13, 1991, pp. 57–86. L. Tomassini, ‘Mercato del lavoro e lotte sindacali nel biennio rosso’, Annali Cervi, no. 13, 1991, pp. 87–117. At this point there were 160,000 female union members compared with one million men. See S. Bartoloni, ‘Il fascismo femminile e la sua stampa: la “Rassegna Femminile Italiana” (1925–1930)’, Nuova DonnaWomanFemme, no. 21, 1982, pp. 143–69. ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.37, fasc ‘Angiola Moretti’. E. Signori, ‘Il Partito nazionale fascista a Pavia’, in M.L. Betri et al.(eds), Il fascismo

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in Lombardia, Milan, Angeli, 1989, pp. 86–7. 68 ASL, PNF, b.58, fasc ‘Fogli informativi 1939’. 69 See V. Cappelli, Il fascismo in periferia. Il caso della Calabria, Rome, Riuniti, 1992, p. 143; F. Vendramini, ‘Guerra e donne nel giornale Bellunese “Dolomiti”’, Protagonisti, no. 39, 1990, p. 4; A. Zavaroni, ‘La donna del fascio. I La donna che comprese il buon cuore del Duce’, L’almanacco, no. 32, 1999, pp. 70–1. 70 ‘Il II Congresso Nazionale dell’Unione Femminile Cattolica Italiana’, Il giornale della donna (hereafter Giornale), no. 22, I Nov 1922, p. 4. 71 Baronness De Crombrugge de Picquendaele, ‘Les cercles de fermières’, in Actes du XIIIème Congrès Internationale d’Agriculture, vol. 4, Rome, Tip. Poliglotta, 1927, p. 502. 72 ‘Propaganda agraria’, Giornale, no. 12, 15 June 1931, p. 9. 73 G. Ronconi, ‘L’organisation féminine fasciste dans ses rapports avec l’agriculture’, in Actes du XIIIème, pp. 526–7. 74 See, for example, M. Guidi, ‘I problemi del lavoro femminile’, Giornale, no. 3, 1 Feb 1929, p. 2 which is about the difficulties of finding suitable servants, tracing the root of the problem to the poor living conditions in the rural homes most servants came from. Thus rural problems are considered purely in terms of the needs of urban middle-class women. Its tone towards servants themselves is harsh. 75 See E. Gentili Zappi, If Eight Hours Seem Too Few. Mobilization of Women in the Italian Rice Fields, Albany, NY, SUNY Press, 1991; Crainz, Padania, pp. 103–10. 76 About 10,000 struck in 1927. Numbers for 1931 are uncertain. Imbergamo, ‘Si parte cantando’, pp. 153–86; L. Arbizzani, ‘Le lavoratrici delle campagne durante il fascismo e la Resistenza nella Valle Padana’, Annali Cervi, no. 13, 1991, pp. 223–46; I. Vaccari, La donna nel ventennio fascista, Milan, Vangelista, 1978, pp. 169–72. 77 Almost every issue of La mondina discusses these initiatives. See, for example, ‘Quello che il fascismo fa per le mondine: come si compie l’opera d’assistenza in risaia’, La mondina, no. 3, 23 June 1929. 78 M. Gaj, Assistenza fascista alle Mondariso, Vercelli, Gallardi, 1942, p. 2.

29

2 LADIES IN THE FIELD Women’s farm education, the Unione delle Massaie della Campagna and Domus Rustica

One of the core activities of the fascist organization for peasant women was the training of rural women for their agricultural and familial role. This chapter traces the roots of this project, examining pre-existing training provisions for rural women, provisions which were, in fact, far from numerous. Frequently, the most developed programmes of this kind were found in industrialized nations and the fact that Italy lagged behind certain other European countries, such as Germany and Belgium,1 in this respect, may be linked to its relatively slow rate of industrialization. An interest in educating women to be good farmwomen tended to emerge once there was a risk that they would desert the land. In fascist Italy this link was clear. Like the ruralization campaign as a whole, most farm training initiatives for women were, at least in part, a response to industrial and urban growth and it was not by chance that a disproportionate number of those initiatives that did exist were in the industrialized region of Lombardy.

Agricultural education in Italy before 1933 Italian agricultural education in the early twentieth century fell into two broad categories: schools (residential and non-residential) and practical training for adults. Most of these initiatives originated in the last two decades of the previous century, a period of agricultural depression and technological change. Because many had emerged spontaneously and only later come under state regulation, provisions were diverse and regionally uneven. They included practical post-elementary schools, secondary schools and higher educational institutions offering degrees and a more theoretical curriculum.2 The rise of fascism did not lead to an immediate expansion in such schools, although they were subjected to tighter state control. A law in 1923 regulated their curricula and harmonized the diplomas they issued. Those schools that had done so previously now ceased training adults and some were reclassified. Twenty-three became upper middle schools and the rest practical middle schools, nine of which were ‘specialized’ (in viticulture, fruitgrowing, etc.). Apart from this little was done, for Gentile, the architect of fascism’s first major 30

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educational reform in 1923, had little interest in this issue. Indeed, in teacher training colleges he made agricultural instruction no longer compulsory.3 Gentile’s primary concern was to remove the educational ‘ladder’ created by the Liberal state, in which most schools had provided open routes to higher education. His reform offered a rigorous, classical education to the elite, whilst other pupils were to be channelled into dead-end schools, like the new ‘complementary schools’ which offered neither true vocational training nor access to university.4 After Gentile’s fall in 1924 there was a stream of educational legislation, reflecting both a great deal of interest in education and wide disagreements among policymakers on this subject. Policy, which eventually undermined much of Gentile’s reform, oscillated between the conflicting desire to encourage take up and fear of the socially destabilizing potential of an open system. More emphasis on practical and scientific education relevant to the economy did gradually emerge, due partly to the fear of economic decline and also as a means of channelling pupils away from higher education. In the case of farming this led, for example, to the inclusion of an agricultural specialism in some of the new ‘scuole secondarie di avviamento al lavoro’ (technical post-elementary schools for 11–14-year-olds) created from 1929. More ambitiously, the School Charter of 1939 proposed a new ‘artisan school’ for rural areas which included much manual training. In the 1920s, however, despite the economic importance of agriculture, only minute numbers studied in farming schools. In 1923–4 the agricultural secondary schools had a mere 757 pupils nation-wide and this had risen to only 1,100 by 1929–30. The situation was similar in the lower level ‘practical schools’ rising slightly from 2,082 in 1923–4 to 2,337 in 1929–30.5 To put this into context, in 1923–4 there was a total of 223,840 pupils in public secondary schools.6 Similarly, in 1925–6, the six Istituti Superiori di Agraria had only 1,039 students compared with 4,682 enrolled in the Istituti Superiori di Economia e Commercio.7 Quite clearly, despite the rhetoric of the ruralization campaign, parents who could afford to educate their offspring were reluctant to train them for life on the land. From 1927, when responsibility for agricultural schools was transferred to the Education Ministry, they ceased offering a route to university. Admission to degree courses in Agriculture became reserved for those who had attended classical and scientific grammar schools. Critics of this law argued that it discouraged enrolments in the agricultural secondary schools. Whilst it did not actually lead to an immediate collapse in numbers in such schools, it probably stemmed their expansion and the legislation was duly reversed in the 1930s. Such schools once again offered access to higher education. These changes, however, were irrelevant to the vast majority of the rural population. Most peasant children learned to farm by imitation. In Tuscan sharecropping households, for example, agricultural education for the young consisted essentially in copying and working alongside adults and corporal 31

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punishment was liberally applied to slow learners.8 Most girls learned from their mothers or from the reggitrice of the household into which they married. By this period, however, some felt that such methods were too stagnant as each generation simply relied on the traditional techniques of their parents, techniques which could not cope with change and offered, for example, no help to farmers facing new poultry diseases spread by increased commerce. One way to solve this problem was the provision of part-time practical training programmes for those already working the land. This was the job of the Cattedre Ambulanti di Agricoltura (Travelling Agricultural Lectureships).9 These, like the farming schools, had mostly spontaneously emerged locally at the end of the nineteenth century. A few were founded by the State where they had not appeared independently. Initially largely financed by local backers such as farming organizations, by 1920 they were receiving regular funding from the state and from provincial administrations. Although they never became part of the state education system, the regime gradually increased control of their activities, so that, for example, the President and two members of each local Cattedra’s administrative committee became government appointees.10 With this structure they became agents of the ruralization campaign, playing a key role, for example, in the Battle for Wheat. The Cattedre gave talks on technical subjects, produced publications and ran practical farm training courses (either general or specialized) of varying lengths, usually taught in the evenings. They also maintained demonstration fields to spread the introduction of new methods of cultivation. In the 1920s they ran separate, longer courses for 14–17-year-olds but this was dropped after only four years and subsequently most instruction was directed at the 14–25 age group. In theory the Cattedre operated in every rural comune but they were more active in the North and Centre. Although previously a number of different organizations offered such training, from 1928 the Cattedre were given a virtual monopoly. Their courses were free of charge (with attendance subsidies for particularly impoverished students) and offered the chance to win prizes such as tools or books. The Cattedre flourished in the ventennio. As their funding increased, their staff (‘technicians’ from the agricultural schools or Agricultural Science graduates) expanded from 350 in 1919, to 843 in 192711 and 1,072 by 1934.12 Their courses reached far greater numbers than the farming schools. In 1933–4, for example, they ran 3,495 courses for 144,786 students.13 In practice, of course, this represented only a fraction of the millions who worked the land. In 1935 they were effectively taken over by the State and renamed Ispettorati Provinciali d’Agricoltura with their staff becoming state employees.

Women’s agricultural education If agricultural education in general was not exactly extensive in this period, this was even more true in the case of women. Most provisions were aimed at men 32

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and boys. The practical schools were residential and admitted girls only exceptionally as ‘external students’. This particular issue, however, was not seen as a problem by those who began to promote female agricultural training in this period since they tended to advocate not co-education but separate initiatives and institutions tailored to what they saw as the distinct role of women on the land. Some of the ‘pioneers of women’s farm education’ discussed in this chapter were fascists or later became fascists. Others never went down that path but, on many issues, there was much common ground between commentators whether they were right-wing Nationalists like Ester Lombardo14 or democrats like Annita Cernezzi Moretti. The work and writings of these ‘pioneers’ were significant in setting the agenda for the 1930s when the Fascist Party and unions turned their attention to peasant women. Those who called for increased training for rural women in the early twentieth century all tended to take a negative view of the rural–urban shift, arguing that society would benefit if the peasantry could be persuaded to stay on the land. They all, moreover, found themselves in agreement that one of the key ways to improve life in the countryside was to offer technical training to those who tilled the soil (and also to better-off rural women, such as the wives of larger farmers). All concurred that such instruction should be gendered, for, in their view, rural men and women required different skills. Women, they believed, needed to study domestic science and the ‘lighter’ side of farming, the ‘piccole industrie agricole’. They wanted rural women to have the opportunity of learning how to perform such tasks in a more ‘modern’ way, thereby enhancing their economic role without disrupting the family unit or creating competition with men in the labour market. This essentially conservative movement frequently portrayed rural women themselves as ignorant, lacking in necessary skills and in need of training. Many of these observers envisaged a role for middle-class and upper-class urban women in this training, despite the fact that few such ladies had, in reality, experience of this kind of work themselves. All tended to look to foreign examples, particularly to Belgium, for inspiration. A final point which needs to be stressed about these commentators is that, in spite of their interest in the rural world, few, if any, of them actually lived on the land. Many were urban residents and often of high social extraction. This was not seen as problematic. As the right-wing feminist Ester Lombardo reassured the readers of her newspaper La donna nei campi in 1921: we are not trying to say to city women: Go to the countryside and look for work; but to those who live there: Stay. Cities cannot offer you the affluence you are looking for. You will be able to find this near where you live now.15 One of these ‘pioneers’ was Carolina Valvassori, director of one of the few practical farming schools for women, the Giuseppina Alfieri Cavour Women’s 33

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Farming and Domestic Science School, founded in 1907 in Florence. Her school offered six-month, non-residential courses in farming and domestic science (plus short residential courses for peasant girls in the summer)16 although from 1928 it also began to provide teacher training courses for rural primary school teachers with a timetable that enabled them to attend after work. Valvassori was a domestic science expert who was eventually to become quite well known as the author of household management texts such as the Piccola Enciclopedia per la Vita Domestica ad Uso delle Famiglie (Little Family Encyclopaedia for Domestic Life) (Florence, Bemporad, 1932). Such expertise was entirely in keeping with her agricultural role since it was common for rural ‘domestic science’ courses to include tuition on such topics as the care of poultry and rabbits. In 1920, when Valvassori surveyed the field of women’s agricultural education for the feminist annual the Almanacco della donna (hereafter Almanacco)17 she concluded happily that: Young ladies are enrolled in the Agricultural Colleges; silkfarming courses and popular farming courses are followed with interest. Many women who have not studied properly, run farms, and dedicate all their time to the economic and moral improvement of the sharecropping families on their land and to the progress of agriculture.18 This was, however, extremely optimistic, particularly given the brevity of the list of actual initiatives she was able to provide in this survey. Valvassori’s list ranged from short training courses, mainly in domestic science, to a handful of schools which provided practical agricultural instruction. The earliest of these was a two-year course established in Udine’s teacher training college in 1887, offering a rural specialization for teachers. Some of those trained there became rural primary school teachers whilst others went on to teach the subject in other teacher training colleges.19 Valvassori was able to mention only two actual women’s farming schools, her own in Florence and a residential one in Niguarda (Milan) founded and run by Aurelia Josz (see Chapter 7). Two other earlier initiatives, a school in Anagni (Rome) with a ‘special section for women’s farming instruction’ and one for peasant women in Città del Castello, had already folded by this time. Apart from this there was little to report, only a scattering of domestic science courses in rural areas and the occasional initiative by local Cattedre Ambulanti, such as the Piacenza Cattedra which ran silkfarming courses for both sexes. The Milan Cattedra was unusually active in this respect as it employed a female instructor (Olga Lombroso – trained at Niguarda) to teach a range of subjects including beekeeping. Beyond these specific initiatives, education for peasant women and girls was limited.20 There was some teaching of farming methods in rural elementary schools but peasant girls attended less than boys and parents were reluctant to spend money on specialized farming and domestic science education for 34

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daughters. The girls most likely to receive such training were orphans seen as needing tuition in what would otherwise be learned at home. The work of Olga Lombroso in Milan was unusual for virtually all Cattedre courses were for men.21 At the higher levels, middle- and upper-class girls showed little enthusiasm for the study of agriculture. Despite press articles suggesting Agriculture as a good choice of faculty for female fascists, and the fact that the Chair of Genetics and Silkfarming at the Portici Higher Education Farming College was held by a women – Anna Foà, only a handful of women actually enrolled in such degree courses during the interwar period.22 Ester Lombardo, writing in the Almanacco the following year accurately summed this up. She noted that Italy ‘lacks female farmers whose expertise and knowledge stems from proper agricultural education’23 although she too attempted to be optimistic by drawing attention to what she saw as promising signs such as the appointment of a couple of female teachers in state agricultural schools, and the fact that a new farming and domestic science school for local peasant girls was about to open in Atina (in the southern province of Caserta) with the help of the director of the Niguarda school.24 The story of the Atina school, however, illustrates the problems facing anyone interested in providing practical farm training to rural girls. The school, founded in 1921, struggled right from the start from lack of funding, pupils and even staff. It proved difficult to recruit and even harder to retain competent teaching staff for this, the most rurally located female farming school in Italy, in a small town (5,000 inhabitants) with only one bus a day connecting it to the railway line.25 Funding was too precarious to offer security of employment to teaching staff and they all left at the first opportunity. The local peasantry, furthermore, proved reluctant to send their daughters and the few who did attend deserted the school for the fields when spring arrived. Most of the pupils had to be recruited from the local petty bourgeoisie who were interested in only part of the curriculum. Soon farm training was effectively abandoned in favour of a domestic science course taught mostly by nuns.26 More successful was the Practical Farming and Domestic Science School in Teodone (in the border province of Bolzano) founded in 1909, for peasant children. Unusually this was ‘mixed’, but even here, courses for the two sexes were held at different times of the year with different curricula.27 Indeed, the girls’ course essentially existed to boost the school’s income, which saw its main purpose as instructing boys. By the time of the International Farming Conference held in Rome in 1927, seven years after Valvassori’s survey, little had changed. Here and there a few initiatives had appeared such as a small travelling school based in Villa Umberto (Rome) which, pulled by horses or tractors, moved from village to village instructing peasant women in farming and home economics,28 but this was very unusual. At the Conference a proposal was made to set up an Italian ‘Women’s Committee’ to promote practical training for peasant women but this came to nothing. According to Paola Benedettini Alferazzi, editor of Il giornale 35

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della donna, this was not the fault of the women involved but due to lack of official encouragement.29 Two years later in 1929, Regina Terruzzi (future founder of the Massaie Rurali) published an outspoken article in the fascist daily Il popolo d’Italia on her return from the International Agricultural Congress in Bucharest, in which she too lamented the dearth of official interest in women’s farm education, arguing that Italy had seemed the ‘Cinderella’ of the nations represented in the women’s section of the conference.30 A rather different type of initiative did, however, exist in Lombardy, an organization in which Terruzzi herself was involved. This was the Unione delle Massaie della Campagna (Union of Country Housewives), a mass training organization which was a direct precursor of what was to come in the 1930s. This, along with two other similar but more short-lived initiatives, the Sezione Agraria of the Fascio Nazionale Femminile and the Unione Agricola,31 owed its origins to the experience of the First World War when some urban patriotic women had become interested in women’s agricultural role. The first of these to emerge was Emilia Santillana’s32 Sezione, founded in April 1918.33 It eventually became involved in trying to set up a farming school for orphan girls in Giugliano (Naples) but the main activity of its upper-class lady members was to carry propaganda to peasant women in villages near Rome, bearing a message of patriotism and the need to increase production in ‘small farm industries’. A report of the Sezione’s activities submitted to the Ministry of Agriculture (which subsidized it) reveals it as class-based, hierarchical and patronizing. The report saw no problem in referring to villagers inspected by its delegates using terms like ‘a primitive type of population’.34 This organization was far more concerned with increasing productivity than with the needs of rural women themselves. Its work continued after the war, being transferred into the Società degli Agricoltori on the closure of the Fascio Nazionale.35 It was, however, never very active and most of the supposed ‘reports of its activities’ are lists of plans.36 The Unione Agricola Femminile was also located in Rome. Founded in June 1919 by Ester Lombardo, it was similarly patriotic and full of unrealized plans. Its project was to encourage ‘small rural industries’ through technical training and publications as well as assisting in the marketing of produce.37 This too was a tiny organization with only a small membership of well-heeled ladies. It achieved virtually nothing except the production of a magazine La donna nei campi38 (founded before the organization itself). Some of the language of this publication clearly foreshadowed fascist rhetoric, as can be seen, for example, in the following: ‘the primary energy of the race lies in the peasant masses, and the great health of these masses must be protected as a fundamental and essential wealth, against all the deviations of modernity.’39 Its ideology also reflected the Europe-wide hysteria about women invading the labour market in the aftermath of war and demobilization40 by explicitly advocating forms of female employment which did not compete with men. Unlike the later fascist organization, however, the Unione Agricola wanted peasant women to get away from 36

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self-sufficient home consumption and move towards market orientated production. These small Roman initiatives, mainly talk and little action, possibly partly because the biennio rosso was an unpropitious moment for urban ladies to tour the countryside, joined forces in late 1921.41 Soon after they appear to have quietly died away. Ester Lombardo, facing up to the lack of widespread interest in rural affairs among her potential readership, turned her attention to other matters. Since sales of La donna nei campi had been limited, she closed it down and reopened it in 1922 as Vita femminile with a much broader subject matter designed to appeal to a wider, more lucrative, urban audience.42 In this format it continued publication until 1943. Far more successful than these Roman initiatives was the Unione delle Massaie della Campagna (UMC),43 founded at the end of the First World War in Lombardy by ‘a few Lombard women farmers who courageously farmed the fields while their husbands were in the trenches’.44 Although it shared some of Santillana and Lombardo’s ideology, it was far more active, more democratic and included peasant women among its membership. It also differed from the Roman organizations in that it offered training to women of different classes since all, ranging from landowners to peasants, were seen as having much to learn.

The Unione delle Massaie della Campagna What was initially known as the Unione Massaie d’Italia established its first section in Melegnano in early 1919. At first it was linked to the local Cattedra Ambulante45 with Olga Lombroso as its first Secretary and Giuseppina Caminada as President,46 although by 1921 Caminada had been replaced by Luigia Fontana Goggia with Annita Cernezzi Moretti as her deputy.47 In these early days it was tiny but, in 1924, it adopted a new set of regulations, forged links with the Società Agraria di Lombardia and took on a new lease of life. It is from this date that most information is available on the UMC as it began to publish a regular, monthly column in the newspaper of the Società Agraria – the Bullettino dell’agricoltura: Giornale della Società agraria lombarda (hereafter Bullettino).48 The choice of the Società Agraria, rather than another of the various Milanese agricultural organizations, was probably significant. The Società Agraria, founded in the mid-nineteenth century to promote the interests of landowners and agricultural modernization, was, in this period, particularly a voice for the interests of absentee landowners49 and some of the UMC organizers themselves undoubtedly came from similar circles. The UMC was an interclass organization whose membership included aristocrats, middle-class women, primary school teachers and peasant women. Despite its ambition to eventually extend its activities all over Italy, the majority of its members lived in the upland areas of Lombardy and Piedmont. It was dedicated to improving rural women’s lives through training in domestic science 37

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and farming techniques. Its aims, according to Article 2 of its 1924 Regulations were: a)

to promote the general culture and protect the interests of country massaie, so that they can contribute to the moral, hygienic and economic progress of the family and so that they can make a valid, active contribution to national agricultural progress; b) to promote professional training, so that they can competently carry out the tasks entrusted to them (growing vegetables, raising farmyard animals, hens, rabbits, bees etc., small domestic and farming industries, hygiene and domestic science); c) to forge social links between massaie from different villages and provinces in order to bring them together, spur them on and render women’s precious energies ever more profitable through precisely defined and continuous interventions; d) make them appreciate all the advantages of life on the land (in order to stem “urbanization” as much as possible).50 Although much of its programme was perfectly compatible with fascist ideology, particularly the desire to slow the flight from the land and the promotion of class harmony, the Unione was not connected to any political party. It was structured into sections (one could be established wherever there were at least ten members) and was run by a Central Committee which was democratically elected by secret ballot at Annual General Meetings (Art.7). From 1928, reflecting the organization’s expansion, annual meetings were replaced by an annual Referendum (a postal ballot of the members).51 Annita Cernezzi Moretti, President from 1924, was the guiding force behind the UMC and the author of many of its publications. She devoted a considerable amount of her time and energy to it, building it up from a tiny organization to an active concern with, eventually, its own monthly periodical Domus rustica. An aristocrat (by marriage) and a graduate, Cernezzi Moretti is an intriguing figure. In 1898 she had become, at the age of 24, the first woman to graduate in Mathematics and Natural Sciences at Pavia University. Three years later she married Aldo Cernezzi, a Milanese aristocrat (although she herself was probably middle class),52 a medical student at the same university. After a stint as a teacher she devoted herself to her family and had three children. Her interest in rural matters crystallized when her husband’s job took him temporarily to the countryside near Como. During this period she followed courses with the local Cattedra Ambulante and the Ispettorato Forestale and also developed connections with the Pro Montibus of Como.53 Neither she, nor her husband, appear to have been involved in politics of any kind in this period. With the outbreak of the First World War she returned to mathematics teaching in a number of different schools and volunteered as a hospital nurse. It is difficult to discover more than this about her early life since she was extremely 38

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Plate 1 Annita Cernezzi Moretti. (Private collection, Cernezzi family)

modest and reticent to divulge personal information in her writings. Such difficulties are compounded by the fact that she often signed her writings with a pseudonym, her initials, or not at all. Despite being such a private person, publicly she was committed and energetic. In the 1920s she became extremely active in the UMC, as well as various other women’s organizations (in 1925, for example, she was on the organizing committee of the Italian National Nurses Association). Under Cernezzi Moretti’s leadership, the UMC expanded steadily until, after polling its membership, in early 1932 it ambitiously changed its name to the Unione Nazionale Massaie della Campagna (UNMC) although, in practice, it still 39

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had few members outside Lombardy and Piedmont. From the start its principal source of funding was its membership fees which were levied on a sliding scale according to income. It also depended on subsidies from individual benefactors, farming organizations, local banks and firms54 and, from 1928, the National Economy Ministry. Most of the members were peasant women (see Table 2.1) but the organizers and activists were all middle- or upper-class ladies.55 Indeed, it was not even necessary for members to actually live in the country as ‘any permanent or temporary resident of the countryside’ (Art. 4 of its Regulations) was allowed to join. This clause opened membership to well-off urban ladies who (like Cernezzi Moretti herself who had a villa in Guanzate, Como) spent the summer escaping the heat in their second homes in the country. Regina Terruzzi, in a rather sentimental report she presented at the ‘Congrès International des Cercles de Fermières’ in 1930, praised the UMC’s interclass approach: in this way, she argued, the peasant and wealthier women could reach a better understanding of each other: Village women have no more resentment or envy of the well-off or rich members, who they see working just like them, rolling their sleeves up, worrying about the catastrophes which afflict peasants’ labour and prevent them from harvesting its fruits. The landowners, the aristocratic noblewomen, start to appreciate the hardworking lives of their humble companions, they understand their worth and as their feelings of respect and sympathy grow, they come to like them. The proof of this spirit is in the photographs which appear in their publications: these show primary school teachers, ladies in hats and furs and village women surrounded by their joyful offspring, little helpers who are already useful.56 Table 2.1 Membership of the Unione Massaie della Campagna, 1924–29 Year

Peasants L.5 rate

1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929

224 388 599 685 1,105 1,532

Ordinary members L.10 rate – 5 181 347 563 808

Higher L.15–100 51 54 55 84 93 119

Total 275 447 835 1,116 1,761 2,459

Source: UMC, Relazione dell’Opera svolta dalla Unione Massaie della Campagna nell’anno 1929, Milan, Tip. Castiglioni, p. 13.

Most of the members were female but men were permitted to join. This was partly because some peasant women, lacking confidence, preferred joining by proxy initially, with their husbands signing up on their behalf.57 Upper- and 40

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middle-class men also played a role as patrons. Membership increased steadily until 1929 (see Table 2.1) but, although exact figures for subsequent years have proved impossible to find,58 it seems unlikely that they rose much further since by 1932 the UMC still had only ‘more than 2000 members, in the provinces of Milan, Como, Varese, Pavia, Novara and . . . Bergamo’.59 By the end of the same year 46 local sections existed. Despite its small size, limited geographical spread and reliance on volunteer labour, the UMC was an active concern. It ran stalls and exhibits at agricultural and commercial fairs (with organized group visits for members), practical farming courses (particularly in poultry and rabbit farming, beekeeping and domestic science), organized competitions, produced pamphlets and set up ‘model chicken coops’ as teaching aids. It offered free individual consultations on farming problems, either orally or in writing, for members and produced an annual almanac60 which: is the text [to which] peasant women refer to know how to look after their realm and themselves. Beside the date and the saint for the day, there is a column for daily notes and there is information on which tasks should be done each month as well as moral and religious teachings.61 The ‘moral teachings’ were in the form of sayings and maxims such as ‘Work begun is half done’, or ‘land is the mother of us all’.62 UMC members could benefit from handouts. In 1927, for example, all members received vegetable seeds, samples of chemical fertilizers, serum for treating sick poultry and one larger item chosen from a selection ranging from fruit trees to pairs of rabbits. There was also the chance for members to borrow special pairs of breeding rabbits for a year paying only 50 lire deposit.63 As is clear from an article on poultry farming by Cernezzi Moretti in 1933, such handouts and loans were not merely incentives to join but intended as an integral part of the training programme. The training: is done in different ways depending on who is being taught. For an elderly massaia, at first, there is nothing theoretical. She is just given an improved stock pullet which will immediately catch her attention because of its high output compared to her own hens. For younger women, who are by nature more open to these new ideas, however, training can include the use of books or lessons by correspondence. In short, the idea is to spread, together with the practical side of things, those core scientific ideas which are necessary to understand why rational techniques have to be followed. This method arouses the massaia’s interest and this interest, as well as leading to improvements in her own henhouse, can also lead her to make a certain amount of spiritual and intellectual progress. Only in small ways, of course, but not insignificant ones. We can demonstrate this with many things members 41

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have written in their letters, they show the progress the massaie have made over the last decade.44 Cattedre Ambulanti staff carried out much of the UMC training. Other courses were run in collaboration with the Gibelli Foundation, which organized courses taught by instructors trained in the Bergamo domestic science school.65 The Foundation’s courses (held weekly or for 40 days full time) were mainly for factory workers, seen as at risk of losing the skills needed to fulfil their ‘true mission’ of motherhood and domesticity. Until it worked with the UMC the Foundation had found it hard to bring such instruction to peasant women due to a dearth of enthusiasm amongst landowners.66 Run, until 1938, by General Pietro Gibelli and an all-male committee, this deeply conservative organization emphasized the benefits for the whole of society of training women for their domestic role. Overall the UMC was very active. It must be admitted, however, that most activities took place in the summer months when organizers were in their country villas. During the winter (when peasant members often had more free time) activities sometimes dwindled to little more than lectures in town given by experts from the Società Agraria di Lombardia. As will be clear from the events outlined in the next chapter, the UMC was used as a model for the fascist organization and Cernezzi Moretti herself had an important role in its creation. Eventually, however, once the Massaie Rurali had been absorbed into the Fascist Party in 1934, the fascists came to see the prototype as a rival. For a while Cernezzi Moretti strove to defend it by stressing publicly how much it was collaborating with the fascists and how the two organizations could harmoniously co-exist.67 In May 1935, however, PNF Secretary Starace ordered its closure, tolerating no independent competition to the new fascist organization.68 After this, all that remained of the UMC was its correspondence course and its monthly magazine.

Domus rustica Despite the fact that she did not have a degree in Agriculture, Annita Cernezzi Moretti was one of very few women in interwar Italy who was capable of writing knowledgeably about the technical aspects of farming. She became one of Italy’s foremost experts on women’s agricultural role and was an official delegate at international conferences in Bucharest, Antwerp, Prague and Rome. She also published a great deal and, despite the huge class divide between her and her intended readership (her journalistic and organizational activities were carried out from her elegant apartment in central Milan or, in summer, from her country villa), she was a good person to write for those with only limited familiarity with the written word as her style was concise, clear, simple and direct. Her work as a journalist began with the UMC’s monthly columns in the Bullettino but in December 1932 she founded Domus rustica. This magazine was unusual for the period: unusual both in terms of its 42

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subject matter and in terms of its intended audience. By the interwar, of course, Italy already had a flourishing and varied range of women’s periodicals69 but the vast majority of them concentrated on urban affairs and were clearly meant to be read by a predominantly urban, often middle- or upper-class, audience.70 Even La donna nei campi was aimed at such readers, and the only real precedents for Domus rustica were seasonal newspapers for mondine. Before 1932 nobody seems to have attempted to produce periodicals specifically for the other, far more numerous categories of peasant women, such as sharecroppers, smallholders and tenant farmers.71 Domus rustica also contrasted with many women’s periodicals of its day in other respects. It was not intended to be read as a form of leisure activity nor was it driven by commercial forces or consumerism. It offered no purely escapist dreams, such as romantic fiction, to its readers. It was a technical publication with explicitly didactic aims designed not to be bought or subscribed to but to be received automatically by UMC members. It lacked beauty or fashion pages, and the body as a subject was rarely mentioned, except in articles devoted to hygiene (mainly child hygiene) and first aid. After the Second World War Cernezzi Moretti herself became its editor but under fascism, officially, the position was always held by a man. Despite this it is possible to see Domus rustica as journalism by women as well as for them since much of the material it contained was written by women. The male editors rarely wrote in the journal itself and the editorial on the first page was usually written by Cernezzi Moretti. In practice, it seems that she herself was the real editor from the start. This magazine was set up originally in 1932 as part of the UMC’s new ‘Domestic Science and Farming Correspondence Course’. Using Domus rustica as the course handbook, students had to write answers to simple questions on topics such as how to do laundry, how to plant cabbages, how to clean a kitchen or how to select eggs to be hatched. The course, which cost five lire extra (including writing paper and envelopes), was originally intended for young women from areas too isolated to attend training courses. In practice only tiny numbers actually enrolled and most preferred simply to read the periodical without doing the homework.72 The course itself provided copy for Domus rustica as comments on the work sent in and even actual samples of the best homework were published. It is clear from the sort of things they write that some of the students were primary school teachers or of even higher social extraction: some answers refer to peasant women in the third person. Nonetheless, this is not true of all the students and this means that Domus rustica was actually publishing texts written by peasant women, a most unusual thing for the time. Some of the homework published showed the readers’ own methods and, as such, readers themselves were presented as valuable sources of knowledge. This makes Cernezzi Moretti very different from women like Lombardo and Santillana. Furthermore, the aim of the course was not just to impart facts. As Cernezzi Moretti wrote in the first issue in 1932: 43

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We want to help these young massaie and to do this, not so much by the quantity and multiplicity of subjects taught but more by the method we are using, by encouraging them to think, to discover in themselves much more potential than they thought they had, fostering confidence in their own capabilities, which is the most important precondition for success.73 There were opportunities for readers to contribute in other sections too, such as the regular letters page (called ‘The Beehive’).74 This was a forum for debate and the exchange of information. ‘The Beehive’ was: open to all members of the UMC and to all Domus rustica subscribers, who can, in this way, exchange views, consult each other about any topics of interest to women, send in advice and properly tested recipes. The purpose of the Beehive is to enable members to help one another reciprocally and disinterestedly.75 Here, readers could comment on articles published or share their farming or gardening ideas or housework tips. Once again this section demonstrates that readers themselves were considered valid sources of technical information. Apart from such material Domus rustica published a host of technical articles and a mixture of other items including literary writings, such as stories by Ada Negri and once even a poem by Rabindranath Tagore. The range of areas covered was wide. There was cookery each month – almost always written by ‘Melisenda’ (the pseudonym of Cernezzi Moretti’s close friend Giuseppina Albertini Verga76) but also gardening, poultry and rabbit farming, child medicine, sewing patterns, hygiene and even articles on such things as poisonous mushrooms, vipers, chicken-sexing, cats (in the form of a regular column from the Italian Feline Society clearly aimed at wealthier readers), safety ladders for use in fields and so on. A few of these articles were written by male farming experts but most were by women. The most common contributor was Cernezzi Moretti herself, who ranged over an extremely broad spectrum of technical subjects, although her greatest expertise was in poultry farming. In some issues she personally provided a great deal of the copy. In the first issue of 1939, for example, her writings and those of ‘Melisenda’ between them fill 101⁄2 pages out of 20 and they probably wrote some of the smaller unsigned items too. Of the regular contributors Cernezzi Moretti is easily the woman who writes the most technical material, to the extent that when, in the early 1940s she temporarily stopped writing after her daughter’s tragic death from cancer, the magazine was reduced to largely gardening and cookery. Domus rustica was, in some ways, a model for the fascist publication L’azione delle massaie rurali (hereafter AMR) but the two differed in a number of respects. In AMR the words of its readers rarely appeared and peasant women were 44

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simply presented as recipients of the advice of ‘experts’. In the readers’ letters column in the fascist paper, for example, usually only the replies to the letters were published rather than the letters themselves. In Domus rustica there were only passing references to religion77 and explicit fascist propaganda was rare. Fascism per se was, of course, never openly criticized and, although Cernezzi Moretti herself was never personally converted to the fascist cause,78 neither was she ever involved in any sort of active anti-fascism. Where government initiatives and policy did seem to offer improvements to the lives of rural women, these were favourably commented on. The magazine even lent its support to the autarky campaign by calling on its readers to increase production. However, despite the fact that in this period Domus rustica had to be careful what it published in order to survive, such articles rarely mention the Duce and Cernezzi Moretti’s readers are exhorted to work for autarky in the name of the patria and not of fascism. In Domus rustica, furthermore, although women were patriotically urged to do their bit for the war effort, war was presented not as the glorious war of fascist ideology but as something to be endured with patriotic stoicism. Emblematic of this viewpoint was an editorial of 1940 in which Cernezzi Moretti greeted Italy’s intervention in the Second World War thus: War is a sad event, a painful necessity: but the tears stay hidden in the hearts of our women, who find that even more intense work and even more effective co-operation is a way to soothe their pain and give purpose to their lives and well-deserved pride for the greatness of the Motherland.79 It is true that certain contributors did strike a more explicitly fascist tone but these writers – such as Giuseppina Cattaneo Adorno of Genoa, Maria Cerruti of Biella and Gabriella Anderloni of Como – were UMC activists who subsequently had become involved with the fascist organization. The core Domus rustica writers Cernezzi Moretti and ‘Melisenda’ remained doggedly faithful to their original ‘technical’ mission. Admittedly they did share some fascist ideas, in particular the desire to stem the flow of the rural masses from the land, but their principal aim was to improve the lives of rural women through training them to do their job better. This, they believed, would awaken their intelligence and enable them to carry out their traditional tasks more profitably and with less effort.80 The purpose of this was not any sort of notion of individual ‘emancipation’ but to improve the quality of their lives within pre-existing structures. It is important to understand, of course, that given the massive workloads of peasant women discussed in the last chapter, such a lightening of their load was an extremely desirable aim. In this respect the magazine probably did reflect at least some aims of the women themselves. Nonetheless, at times the great social gulf between Domus rustica’s writers and its readers was clear. Easily the most extreme case of this was in 1933 when, in 45

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an article signed only ‘The Queen Bee’, Domus rustica criticized the fact that many farmwomen chose to wear black aprons because they hid dirt better. This was condemned as a sign of laziness and the author recommended, instead, white aprons for domestic and farm work which were described as more cheerful. Wearing such pale garments, it was argued, would teach women to take greater care not to get dirty: ‘white aprons will remind you to be more careful in every gesture, in every task, which, as a result, will be done better.’81 It seems unlikely that the author of this article had ever personally performed the huge amount of labour involved in washing clothes in homes without running water, electricity or servants. Such overtly patronizing comments were, however, extremely rare and mainly this journal did at least try to respect the views of its peasant readers. Far more problematic, however, are its silences. In Domus rustica’s pages peasant women tend to be presented as if they were all the same and the differences between the various types of peasants are not addressed. As such, the peasant women seem somewhat unreal, offstage figures. A number of the articles written by upper-class members give the impression that they are trying hard to understand but have missed a good deal. The main answer to all peasant problems is presented as lying in learning ‘rational’, scientific work methods for farming and housework.82 This, it is argued, will help them by giving them more time to look after their families. This, and this alone, is the definition of a better life. Admittedly some of this could be seen as empowering (the correspondence course, as was demonstrated above, did try to promote literacy and independent thinking) but there is absolutely no discussion of power relations either inside or outside the home. Indeed, these are assumed to be immutable. Domus rustica never addressed, for example, questions like the terms of sharecropping contracts, which was hardly surprising given the class background of the organizers. Nor did it question the gender hierarchy of the family unit and rarely the gender division of labour (although it did sometimes lament the fact that women had to do what it considered to be men’s work which was too heavy for them). It presented woman’s true mission as her duty to her family and it aspired only to enable her to carry this out better. Ultimately the project was somewhat naive. Despite the limitations of their approach and understanding of the issues, the organizers were undoubtedly well intentioned in their belief that their activities could contribute to improving and dignifying rural women’s lives. The circulation of Domus rustica was never great. Initially it included the few thousand UMC members, but once this closed the magazine struggled, somewhat ironically only surviving thanks to occasional orders from Massaie Rurali provincial federations.83 Such orders were not enough. The level of difficulties faced was spelled out by Cernezzi Moretti in a letter to Luisa Valle Monti84 in 1940 in which she stated that things were so bad she was considering closing the magazine and asked for assistance in finding advertisers, sponsors or organizations (such as firms with workers who had allotments) willing to subscribe. At 46

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this point, despite a block subscription for 580 copies from the North Milan Edison Railway Workers Social Club, the accounts were in deficit and she herself was doing almost all the work as she lacked proper clerical assistance.85 Domus rustica struggled on after this until December 1943 but the increasing numbers of reports it published on Massaie Rurali activities (in a special section entitled ‘News and Examples’) in this period suggest that it was having to play to this audience to increase sales.

Towards the future The last real autonomous initiative of the UMC was the hosting of the ‘Farmwomen’s International Trophy’, in 1932 as part of the Fourth Agricultural Training Congress (the Italian contestant had previously been selected by a UMC-run national competition). During the competition, a three-day event consisting in a series of practical exercises86 – cooking soup, planting cabbages, ironing, preparing chickenfeed and keeping three small children amused for 15 minutes (without the use of speech) – five national representatives competed together with three other unofficial entrants. Numerous dignitaries, including the Minister of Agriculture, the Princess of Piedmont and the Prefect of Milan, were present at the prize-giving ceremony held in Milan Castle. For their work on this event, in 1932 the fascist regime honoured Annita Cernezzi Moretti and her co-organizer Regina Terruzzi by awarding them gold medals. Honours however, can be dangerous, and such unprecedented attention initiated a train of events which was to eventually prove disastrous for Cernezzi Moretti’s project. Official minds may have been further focused by the fact that Italy limped in in fourth place. The winner was Belgium, a nation which could boast of extensive agricultural and domestic science training programmes for women. It is not hard to see why the UMC represented an attractive model for the fascists to use. It had the potential to reach huge numbers of women and its reliance on volunteer labour made the whole project very economical. It offered a formula for mass farm education that could succeed where actual schools failed. Rural parents had proved unwilling to send their daughters to such institutions and, unable to find pupils even for the tiny number of places available, the schools ended up doing teacher training or, in the case of Atina, offering domestic science only. The UMC, by contrast, offered practical instruction, which was available, at the cost of only a small annual fee, to those continuing to carry out their normal work in home and field. This approach avoided what was perceived as a danger inherent in expanding places in women’s farm schools, the risk that women would then compete for jobs with men who had qualified as ‘agricultural technicians’.87 The UMC formula, furthermore, was appealing as it proposed to improve peasant women’s lives not at anyone’s expense, not at the expense of male members of households, nor at the expense of landowners. Women were simply to stay on the land, carrying out their traditional role but doing it more expertly and efficiently. 47

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By the early 1930s, apart from occasional Cattedre Ambulanti initiatives the UMC was effectively the only Italian organization delivering this type of training. Once they took it over, the fascists were able to make use of the enthusiasm of its organizers who wanted their work to spread all over Italy. As was so often the case when they took over pre-existing initiatives, however, the fascists changed what they absorbed. The Lombard prototype was small, earnest and democratic. It may have been slightly patronizing but mostly it was fairly inoffensive. Its successor was very large, authoritarian and highly politicized.

Notes 1 On Germany, for example, see R.Bridenthal, ‘Organized Rural Women and the Conservative Mobilization of the German Countryside in the Weimar Republic’, in L.E. Jones, J.N. Retallack (eds), Between Reform and Resistance. Studies in the History of German Conservatism from 1789 to 1945, Oxford, Berg, 1993. 2 See the tedious survey of the development of Italian farm education written by Enrico Fileni (National Director of the Cattedre Ambulanti during fascism) L’insegnamento agrario in Italia (Note retrospettive), Rome, Tip. Quintily, 1956. 3 This was reintroduced, however, in 1929 in some colleges. 4 Initially, the Education Ministry ignored professional training and left it to the National Economy Ministry which took over the ‘industrial and agricultural sections’ which had previously been part of the Technical Institutes (offering a route to university). Later these were merged with and replaced by the new ‘scuole di avviamento professionale’. 5 A. Serpieri, ‘Le Scuole Agrarie’, Giornale di agricoltura della domenica, 24 Aug 1930, p. 1. See also J. Charnitzky, Fascismo e scuola. La politica scolastica del regime (1922–1943), Florence, La Nuova Italia, pp. 231–2. 6 Charnitzky, Fascismo e scuola, p. 193. 7 Ibid., pp. 241–2n. 8 G. Contini, G.B. Ravenni, ‘Giovani, scolarizzazione e crisi della mezzadria: San Gersolè (1921-1950). La storia delle famiglie attraverso i diari scolastici e le fonti orali’, Annali Cervi, no. 9, 1987, p. 152. 9 On the origins and development of these institutions see G. Della Valentina, ‘Enti economici e controllo politico dell’agricoltura’, in M.L. Betri et al. (eds), Il fascismo in Lombardia. Politica, economia e società, Milan, Angeli, 1989. 10 M. Mariani, ‘L’istruction et la propaganda agricole’, in Ministère de l’agriculture e des forêts, Les Progrès de l’Agriculture Italienne en Régime Fasciste. Notes d’Illustration Presentées au XVI Congrès International d’Agriculture de Budapest 1934–XII, 1934. 11 E. Fileni, ‘Le développement des chaires ambulantes d’agriculture en italie’, in Actes du XIIIème Congrès International d’Agriculture, vol. 4, 1927, p. 335. 12 Mariani, ‘L’istruction et la propaganda agricole’, p. 158. 13 Undated, unsigned report ‘Istruzione professionale dei contadini’, ACS, PI, DG, Ist. Tec., Div III, b.60, fasc. ‘Scuole e corsi libere. Congressi e mostre’. 14 The journalist and novelist Ester Lombardo was born in Trapani in 1892 as Giovanna Mogavero. 15 E. Lombardo, ‘La donna nei campi’, La donna nei campi (hereafter DC), 1 Feb 1921, p. 8. 16 On this school see E. Lombardi, ‘La “Giuseppina Alfieri” di Firenze’, DC, 1 Mar 1921, no. 3, pp. 4–6; ACS, PI, DG, Ist. Tec., Div.III, b. 39, fasc. ‘Ist Agrario Femminile Alfieri Cavour’. 17 On this publication see M. Saracinelli, N. Totti, ‘L’Almanacco della donna italiana:

48

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18 19

20 21

22

23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30 31 32

33 34 35

dai movimenti femminili ai fasci (1920-1943)’, in M. Addis Saba (ed.), La corporazione delle donne, Florence, Vallecchi, 1988. C.V., ‘Scuole agrarie femminili e di Economia domestica’, Almanacco 1920, p. 281. Valvassori herself moved to Udine in 1927 and became one of the school’s teachers. The Udine school’s curriculum was less practical than others as it had no farmland attached. For details of its curriculum and some information on its history see Anon., La Sezione Agraria Femminile presso il R.Istituto Magistrale di Udine, Udine, Tip. Friulano, 1935; A. Josz, La donna nell’agricoltura, Lecture given to the Gaetana Agnesi Circle 24 May 1900, p. 7. Some Federterra organizers had been interested in the promotion of technical training for rural women, in braccianti areas such as Emilia Romagna at least, but I have found no specific trace of socialist initiatives of this type in the early 1920s. See, for example, the account of the work of the Cattedre Ambulanti given at the International Agricultural Congress in Budapest in 1934. The published version of this is illustrated by a number of photos, which show only men on the training courses. (Mariani, ‘L’istruction et la propagande agricole’.) Giornale, no. 2, 1 Feb 1928, p. 4. Female agricultural graduates were so unusual that they could be local front-page news. See N. Baldencio, ‘Una signorina laureata in Agraria. Esempio da seguire’, La Patria del Friuli, 18 Aug 1923, p. 1. The ‘signorina’ was Paola Zanardini. E. Lombardo, ‘La donna nei campi’, Almanacco, 1921, p. 144. On this school see A. Josz, ‘In terra di lavoro. La futura scuola agraria femminile di Atina’, DC, no. 21-2, 1920, p. 4; ‘La scuola agraria femminile di Atina (Caserta)’, Giornale, no. 3, 31 Jan 1922, p. 4. The teaching in the Florence and Niguarda schools (both only a short tram ride away from a city centre), for example, was mainly by part-timers whose main employment was elsewhere. On the school’s problems see the correspondence in ACS, PI, DG, Ist. Tec., Div.III, b.32, fasc. ‘Scuola femminile di agricoltura e di economia domestica di Atina’. ACS, PI, DG, Ist. Tec., Div.III, b.6 ‘Istituzione e fondazione di istituti di istruzione agraria 1936-39’, fasc. ‘Istituzioni e fondazioni di istruzione agraria. Circolare ai Regi Provv. agli Studi. 18 giugno 1938’; ibid., b.33bis, fasc. 23, sf.11bis, ‘Scuola pratica agraria e econ dom Bolzano 1926–1946’. Anon., ‘La Regina visita la prima Scuola ambulante di lavori agricoli e di economia domestica’, Giornale, no. 5, 15 Mar 1927. P.B.A., ‘La donna per l’agricoltura’, Giornale, no. 16–18, 1–15 Oct 1929, p. 1. R. Terruzzi, ‘Le donne italiane ai congressi internazionali’, Popolo d’Italia, 12 Sept 1929. There was also a similar initiative in Naples but I have been able to find out little about it. On its foundation see ‘Nuova associazione agraria femminile’, DC, no. 36–7, 10 Sept 1921, p. 4. Emilia Santillana had been President of the Sezione Femminile della Società Agricoltori Italiani (founded 1912) during the war. Its role was welfare and technical instruction. (‘La Sezione Femminile della S.A.I. e la Scuola Agraria di Giuliano’, Giornale, no. 13, 27 Mar 1920, p. 1.) On this organization see also ACS, PI, DG, Ist. Tec., Div.III, b.49, fasc. ‘Fascio nazionale femminile. Sezione agraria’. Undated report by E. Santillana and M.K. Parodi Orlando in ibid. Anon., ‘Il fascio nazionale femminile e la Sezione Agraria del Lazio’, DC, no. 3, 20 April 1919. In 1921 it was renamed the Associazione Agraria Femminile Nazionale when the Società degli Agricoltori Italiani was reborn as the Istituto Nazionale d’Agricoltori. Its new president was Donna Antonia Nitti.

49

LADIES IN THE FIELD

36 See, for example, Anon., ‘Il Congresso Femminile della Società Agricoltori Italiani’, DC, no. 9–10, May 1920, p. 7. 37 Almanacco, 1920, p. 268. 38 This was published as a supplement to the nationalistic and Nittian newspaper La terra. 39 Anon., ‘Un’apostolato necessario’, DC, 20 May 1919, p. 5. 40 On these questions (albeit relating to industrial and urban work) see B. Curli, Italiane al lavoro 1914–1920, Venice, Marsilio, 1998. 41 They were, in fact, already somewhat overlapping with, for example, Santillana on the Unione’s committee in early 1920. 42 On the birth of Vita femminile see E. Mondello, La nuova italiana. La donna nella stampa e nella cultura del ventennio, Rome, Riuniti, 1987, pp. 84–8. 43 On the UMC see A. Amoroso, ‘Le organizzazioni femminili nelle campagne durante il fascismo’, Storia in Lombardia, no. 1–2, 1989, pp. 305–16; R. Terruzzi, ‘L’Unione nazionale delle massaie della campagna’, Natura, no. 7, July 1931, p. 60. There was also a tiny analogous organization in Verona run by Contessa Nora Giusti del Giardino (see AMR, no. 2, 1933, p. 4.; P.B.A., ‘La donna nell’agricoltura’, Giornale, no. 3, 1 Feb 1933, p. 10). 44 ACM, ‘L’Unione della campagna di Milano’, AMR, no. 3, 1933, p. 2. 45 According to her obituary, Fontana Goggia had been involved in organizing volunteer nurses during the First World War. This had brought her into contact with peasant women and led her to setting up the organization (Domus rustica (hereafter DR) Sept 1936, p. 143). 46 ‘Unione Massaie della Campagne’, Bollettino del Comitato Bergamasco di Educazione ed Economia Domestica, no. 3–4, 1919, p. 6. 47 ‘Movimento agrario’, DC, 1 Feb 1921, p. 14. 48 From the start the Bullettino (founded 1867) aimed at a wider readership than the members of the Società. On the origins of the Società Agraria (founded 1862) see M. Malatesta, ‘La società agraria di Lombardia dalle origini all’età giolittiana’, La Società agraria di Lombardia. La storia, l’anima, Pavia, Grafia, 1998. 49 P.P. D’Attorre, ‘Ceto Padronale e classi lavoratrici. Due situazioni a confronto: Lombardia ed Emilia’, in AAVV, Agricoltura e forze sociali in Lombardia nella crisi degli anni trenta, Milan, Angeli, 1983, p. 115. 50 Statuto dell’Unione massaie della campagna, Milan, Tip. Pirola, 1924 in ASM, Gab. Pref., cat.39, b.969 ‘Partiti’, fasc. ‘Unione massaie della campagna’. These aims were essentially the same (just slightly reworded) as the original aims of the UMC drawn up in 1919 (these are listed in Globe Trotter, ‘Sotto altri cieli’, DC, no. 2, 20 Mar 1919). 51 ‘UMC’, Bullettino, no. 10, 9 Mar 1928, p. 2. 52 My information on her life comes from an interview with her daughter-in-law Olga Cernezzi in March 2000, from the Cernezzi family’s private archive and from the scant information in Anon., ‘UMC’, Bullettino, no. 46, 11 Nov 1932, p. 2. See also her obituary signed only Formigioni, ‘In Memoria Anita (sic) Cernezzi Moretti’, Bullettino, no. 15, 10 April 1959. 53 See ‘Il bosco della scuola’, DR, no. 8–9, 1934, p. 126. 54 In 1928, its funders included the Banca Popolare di Milano, the Banca Nazionale di Agricoltura, the Consorzio di Gallarate, the Banca Agricola Milanese, the Camera di Commercio, the Primo Sindacato Agrario Cooperativo di Milano, the Comizio Agrario, the Comune di Milano and the Comune di Somma Lombardo. (UMC, Bullettino, no. 51, 30 Dec 1927, p. 2.) 55 The rather informal manner in which they write about each other suggests a network of old friends and relatives. 56 R. Terruzzi, L’action morale et civile de l’Unione massaie della campagna (Rapport au Congrès International des Cercles de Fermières), Milan, Tip. Castiglioni, 1930, p. 8.

50

LADIES IN THE FIELD

57 See the reply to a letter asking if men could join published in the ‘Piccola Posta’ section of the Bullettino (UMC, Bullettino, no. 27, 1 July 1932, p. 2). 58 Unfortunately, the UMC archive, conserved by Cernezzi Moretti’s family, was destroyed by thieves in 1999. 59 ‘Una fonte di ricchezza nazionale. La pollicoltura’, Educazione ed economia domestica. Bollettino della Scuola di Bergamo, no. 1, 1932, p. 2. 60 The attempt to replace ‘traditional’ (largely astrologically based) calendars and almanacs with ‘modernizing’, technical ones (based on ‘science’ and ‘education’) had been pioneered by agricultural reformers in the previous century. (See G. Solari, ‘Popolo e contadini fra stampa educativa e stampa tradizionale. Almanacchi, lunari e calendari in Toscana nella prima metà dell’Ottocento’, Annali Cervi, no. 9, 1987, pp. 227–50.) 61 Terruzzi, ‘L’Unione nazionale delle massaie’. 62 For a detailed description of the almanac see R. Terruzzi, ‘L’action morale et civile’, pp. 6–8. 63 UMC, Relazione dell’opera svolta dalla Unione Massaie della Campagna nel 1933, Milan, no publisher, 1930, p. 11. 64 ACM, ‘L’azione della donna nella pollicoltura e la propaganda dell’Unione Naz. Massaie della campagna’, AMR, no. 10, 1933. 65 On the Bergamo school (founded in 1908) see E. Lombardo, ‘In visita per le scuole femminili (autunno 1920)’, DC, no. 21–22, Dec 1920, pp. 6–10. After 1935 the government withdrew recognition of its teacher training (which was now to be the monopoly of the Party College at San Gregorio in Celio in Rome) and they had to limit themselves to direct training. The Foundation produced a newsletter the Educazione ed economia domestica (later renamed Bollettino educazione ed economia domestica). See C. Innocenti, ‘Ideologia fascista e condizione femminile. La scuola di economia domestica a Bergamo’, Studi e ricerche di storia contemporanea, no. 22, 1984, pp. 5–25. 66 See, for example, Commissione Gibelli, Opera svolta nel 1925 a favore dei corsi di economia domestica nella provincia di Milano, Milan, Tip. Agraria, 1925. 67 This emerges in a number of items published in the Bullettino in late 1934 and early 1935. See, for example, ‘UMC’, Bullettino, no. 40, 5 Oct 1934, p. 2. 68 See ‘Rubrica delle Massaie’, Bullettino, no. 23, 7 June 1935, p. 2. 69 On women’s periodicals in this period see the pioneering work by E. Mondello, La nuova italiana; S. Soldani, S. Franchini (eds), Donne e giornalismo. Politica e cultura di genere nella stampa “femminile”, Milan, Angeli, forthcoming; H. Dittrich-Johansen, ‘La “donna nuova” di Mussolini tra evasione e consumismo’, Studi Storici, no. 3, 1995, pp. 811–43. For a useful discussion of some of the issues relating to the interpretation of women’s magazines, see M. Beetham, A Magazine of Her Own. Domesticity and Desire in the Women’s Magazine 1800–1914, London, Routledge, 1996. 70 It is not true, of course, that the women’s press of the time totally ignored the rural world. Many urban orientated publications included occasional articles on rural matters. 71 I am not trying to argue that peasant women read no other magazines, but rather that this was not the target readership. Some may have read, for example, Famiglia cristiana which had a circulation of 65,000 by 1939. (S. Portaccio, ‘La donna nella stampa popolare cattolica “Famiglia cristiana” 1931–1945’, Italia contemporanea, no. 143, 1981, p. 49n.) 72 Less than 20 students per annum was typical. Eventually the dearth of enthusiasm among the readers led Domus rustica to abandon the formal course in 1938. After this the questions were simply published and any readers who wanted to could send in replies.

51

LADIES IN THE FIELD

73 UMC, Bullettino, 23 Dec 1932, p. 2. 74 Like the Latin name of the magazine itself this is doubtless a classical reference, to Virgil’s Georgic IV. Such aspects, of course, reflected the educational background of Cernezzi Moretti and her collaborators and would have been unlikely to strike a chord with peasant readers. 75 DR, no. 1, 1933, p. 7. 76 Apart from her cookery writing in Domus rustica Giuseppina Albertini Verga was also the author of 100 modi di cucinare il coniglio (‘100 Ways to Cook Rabbit’), Milan, 1933. In 1934 she was a delegate at the International Domestic Science Congress in Berlin. Albertini Verga was the niece of one of the original UMC founders. Her husband (Cesare Albertini) became nominal Editor of Domus rustica in 1936. Like Cernezzi Moretti she lived in Milan but spent her summers in the countryside (Arosio). A photograph of her country residence printed in Domus rustica reveals that she was extremely wealthy (see ‘Il corso di economia domestica ad Arosio.’, DR, no. 9–10, 1933, p. 115). 77 A rare example is DR, no. 5, 1940 which includes a piece on the life of Saint Catherine of Siena. I do not know precisely what Cernezzi Moretti’s religious beliefs were in the 1930s but, according to her daughter-in-law, by the postwar period she was agnostic (possibly even atheist) and requested a non-religious funeral. (Interview with Olga Cernezzi.) 78 This assertion is based on my own interpretation of her published writings but it was also the view of her family, according to whom neither Annita nor her husband ever joined the PNF. Aldo suffered from this, even being forced out of a job at one point. (Ibid.) 79 ACM, ‘1918–1940’, DR, no. 7–8, 1940, p. 93. 80 See, for example, the report of the World Poultry Congress by ACM in DR, no. 9–10, 1933, pp. 101–2. 81 L’Ape Regina, ‘Il colore del grembiule’, DR, no. 4, 1933, pp. 40–1. 82 See Chapter 6 for a discussion of ‘rational farming’. 83 In 1938, for example, 1,000 copies were ordered by the Aosta Massaie Rurali Provincial Secretary. (Letter from Elisa Marcoz to the ‘Amministrazione “Domus rustica”’, Aosta, 26 Nov 1938, Arch. Cernezzi.) 84 Valle Monti, a former UMC organizer, succeeded her uncle Pietro Gibelli as President of the Gibelli Foundation on his death in 1938. 85 Handwritten letter from ACM to Luisa Valle Monti, Guanzate, 11 Sept 1940, ASSA Lombardia, sezione ‘Economia Domestica’, 4.3 ‘Varie’, faldone 1, fasc. ‘Guanzate’. 86 A programme for this event is conserved in ASM, Gab. Pref., b.39, fasc. ‘Unione delle massaie della campagna’. 87 This argument is put forward in, for example, A., ‘Istruzione agraria femminile’, Giornale, no. 23, 1 Dec 1932, p. 10.

52

3 ‘AN EXTRAORDINARY THING’ The National Fascist Federation of Massaie Rurali

Somewhat ironically, the hosting of the ‘Farmwomen’s International Trophy’, the UMC’s moment of crowning glory, was also ultimately associated with its downfall. It brought the organization’s work to the attention of the fascist hierarchs and this led to what was effectively a take-over. Initially this meant incorporation into the fascist farmworkers’ union1 at the beginning of 1933. When this was first announced at the union’s Confederal Congress, in 1933, those present greeted the initiative with some amusement. One delegate, Severini, during a debate on the union’s budget, referred to the new section as ‘an extraordinary thing’ and joked, with crude double-entendre, that: ‘It is true that some have called them “the well-endowed massaie rurali”. However, this is not how we should be considering this question which, at first sight, encourages laughter and even our appetites [Hilarity of the delegates].’ Doubtless many union organizers shared his astonishment and patronizing attitude but, as even this speaker went on to admit, the new section had the potential to bring the union ‘considerable political benefits’.2

Fascist unions By the late 1920s, after having assisted the squadristi in destroying the free labour movement, the fascist unions were granted a monopoly. All rival unions had been forced to disband. At this point, some fascists, in particular the regime’s capitalist backers, thought that the unions could be disbanded. Instead they were retained as a form of social control: their principal role became to provide a safety valve for discontent to help stifle or at least defuse ‘class conflict’. Their position, vis-à-vis employers, however, was weak and their powers deliberately reduced. They were stripped of the right to strike in 1926 and, in 1928, the national movement was split up with the so-called sbloccamento (unblocking).3 The unified National Confederation of Fascist Unions was broken into six smaller, weaker category sections, one of which was for agriculture – the National Confederation of Fascist Farming Unions (CNSFA). The only real concession that was made to the unions in this period was to grant them control of labour exchanges, a valuable aid to recruitment. 53

THE NATIONAL FASCIST FEDERATION OF MASSAIE RURALI

During the economic crisis caused by the ‘Quota 90’4 campaign and then the world economic depression the unions were mainly reduced to attempting to exert political pressure to lessen the worst wage cuts in collective contracts or to intervening in an individual rather than collective manner. In agriculture,5 they were unable or indeed at times unwilling to fight the worsening terms of sharecropping contracts, or wage cuts for farm labourers. As is well known, class conflict did not disappear and even erupted into actual strikes at times, such as the strikes by mondine. Although in some areas these unions recruited many members, few historians have seen this as evidence of the wholesale conversion of workers and peasants to fascism. Early peasant members were often won over by the hope of landownership but once all rival unions had been destroyed many probably signed up because it was better to have someone (even fascists) to negotiate collectively rather than attempt to negotiate alone. Others had no choice as they were forced to seek work through labour exchanges. Faced with serious economic difficulties in the period of the economic crisis, the unions often sought to dampen the potential resurgence of expressions of class conflict in the countryside by pitting different categories of peasants against one another.6 They were also able to play on the great sense of insecurity felt by all in such desperate times. Although, in the 1920s, their programme was mainly to advocate sbracciantizzazione, they did eventually have to resort to strategies pioneered by the pre-fascist unions. In some areas they imposed what were effectively forms of the imponibile di manodopera (albeit usually with reduced numbers per hectare) as a way of dealing with endemic unemployment since, in practice, the idea that all braccianti could become smallholders, or even sharecroppers, was simply not realistic.7 One way in which unions tried to forge a role for themselves at grassroots level in the 1930s was by promoting welfare initiatives. They were in a position to do this as, in some rural areas, their membership was far greater than other organizations of the regime. Welfare activities potentially offered them forms of clientelist power in small towns and villages.8 Although this was unlikely to result in the conversion to fascism of those who had fought the squadristi in the biennio rosso, it had greater potential for success in remoter areas and among groups that had hitherto received little attention. Thus the organization into which the UMC was merged was as much an agent of social control as it was a ‘trade union’. It seems clear that one important reason why the unions decided to set up the National Fascist Federation of Massaie Rurali (FNFMR) was their desire to achieve what they termed a ‘totalitarian recruitment’ of all ‘producers’ in each sector. Their existing structures catered mainly for waged farmworkers or, in the case of sharecroppers or smallholders, the heads of household. Although female union membership had been growing (see Table 3.1), as Table 3.2 demonstrates, in 1933 men still far outnumbered women in the unions (although, of course, there were also large numbers of sharecropping and smallholding women who ‘belonged’ via the 54

THE NATIONAL FASCIST FEDERATION OF MASSAIE RURALI

membership of the capoccia). A few female union members had cards as heads of household but the vast majority were waged workers. In 1931 2,500 female members were ‘direct cultivators’, 11,033 were sharecroppers, 52,513 were ‘specialized farm employees’ and 315,534 waged labourers. That year the regions with the largest numbers of women enrolled were Emilia with 90,794 union members, Lombardy with 84,899, Apulia with 54,650, Piedmont with 43,536, Veneto with 40,100 and Lazio with 12,208. Many of those in the Northern provinces were mondine whilst about 30,000 of the Apulian members worked with tobacco.9 Table 3.1 Numbers of women with individual membership of fascist farming unions 1929–33 Year

Women members

1929 1930 1931 1932 1933

275,792 338,478 382,064 415,120 559,066

Source: ‘Il Sindacalismo nei campi’, Giornale, no. 7, 1 April 1934.

Table 3.2 Membership of fascist agricultural unions in 1933 by category and by sex Category

Women

Men

Farm and forestry clerks ‘Direct cultivators’ Sharecroppers Farm labourers (salariati and braccianti avventizi) Specialized farm exployees Shepherds and other livestock workers Total

1,390 9,419 27,819

5,334 118,284 299,853

441,586 77,734

840,206 59,817

1,118 559,066

44,371 1,367,865

Source: ‘Tesserati dell’anno 1933 distinti per categoria’, LAF, no. 6, 18 Feb 1934, p. 1.

As demonstrated in Chapter 1, such waged workers represented only a fraction of the real numbers of farming women in this period. The FNFMR was designed to appeal to the rest, the millions of other women who were ‘economically active’ in agriculture but did not have individual union membership. As Luigi Razza (President of the National Confederation of Fascist Farmworkers’)10 put it: The protection of working women, through fair wage contracts, and through the provision of welfare assistance, are both things that we have done and continue to do for the most characteristic categories of 55

THE NATIONAL FASCIST FEDERATION OF MASSAIE RURALI

collective female agricultural employment which range from riceweeding to olive-picking, to tobacco processing. This is far from a small task, which the organization has carried out well. But it is particularly inside the peasant household itself that women have a role to play, as reggitrici and as sensible household managers. This is even more true in the Regime’s great efforts towards the colonization of reclaimed land, in which women have a good deal of moral influence.11 To mobilize such women, an organization tailored to their specific role in the rural economy and peasant household was required. In their recognition of this, it has to be admitted, the fascist unions displayed more creativity in their recruitment methods than the pre-fascist labour movement, although, as this chapter will demonstrate, their initial efforts were not particularly successful. The creation of the FNFMR did represent a new direction for the unions since otherwise, according to their press, their policy was that: ‘union recruitment should be done according to the jobs people do and not according to sex’.12 The thinking behind the new separate sex organization was based on the (not always tenable) idea that in smallholding and sharecropping households women had a work role that was exclusively female. It did, however, make the FNFMR anomalous given that all other union sections were defined, as Table 3.2 demonstrates, by professional or land tenure categories. Particularly appealing to the unions was the fact that the FNFMR offered the potential to increase their influence among smallholders, a previously unorganized intermediate group that the unions were competing with the employers’ organization to recruit.13 A union section which embraced such a diverse range of members is in itself worthy of note as it straddled the class divide of capital and labour. Whilst some of the target membership owned their own land (and might even employ others to assist them in tilling it) others were landless. It was possible for a union to presume to be able to cater to the interests of such a diverse group by defining their needs as only welfare and training. The foundation of the new union section for peasant women fitted well with the ‘welfare’ strategy pursued in the period of economic crisis and the primary role of the FNFMR was indeed frequently described as being precisely this, casting the members in the role of those who needed help. ‘Welfare’ help was to be given primarily through technical training and ‘moral elevation’ and this, it was hoped, would contribute to stemming urbanization. As will be argued later, however, some local sections interpreted ‘welfare assistance’ in a more traditional manner. Far less emphasis was placed, in this early period, on what was later to become a central plank of the organization’s ideology – the role of peasant women in the nation. The founding Regulations issued in February 1933 defined the organization’s aims in the following manner: a) to promote the general culture and protect the interests of massaie who live on the land and in rural towns and villages, so that they can 56

THE NATIONAL FASCIST FEDERATION OF MASSAIE RURALI

contribute to the moral, hygienic and economic progress of the family and so that they can make a valid, active contribution to National progress; b) to promote professional training, so that they can competently carry out the many tasks entrusted to them; c) to forge social links between massaie from different places in order to bring them together, spur them on and render women’s precious energies ever more profitable through precisely defined and continuous interventions; d) To make them appreciate all the advantages of life on the land, as a means of preventing ‘urbanization’ as far as possible. Apart from the ‘ruralization’ theme of the last clause, these are not, therefore, overtly political. A striking aspect of these Regulations is the fact that they reproduce, almost verbatim, the aims of the UMC, as laid out in their 1924 Regulations. There was, moreover, a great continuity of personnel and during this period a number of prominent UMC members, including Annita Cernezzi Moretti herself, were active in the new organization. Initially Cernezzi Moretti appears to have welcomed the foundation of the FNFMR as the much longed for government recognition of the importance of her heartfelt mission to promote farming and domestic science training for peasant women.14 She was happy to comply with the Federation’s request that the UMC assist with recruitment, and urged UMC activists to collaborate with the new enterprise: We have announced the foundation of this new Federation . . . and now our Unione must make it prosper. Of course: the Federation is everyone’s mother: but now we need to find her some daughters, which means Massaie Groups all over Italy, as they are now part of the Federation. Our Unione, a daughter who is already much older than her mother, is the only massaie organization which has worked actively and efficiently up until now, and now she must offer her help in this new task.15 This was, at least, her public view. The fact that she may have had more private reservations is suggested by the fact that the UMC did not declare itself immediately redundant. She did, nonetheless, together with certain other UMC stalwarts, co-operate actively with the new union-based Federation and they were responsible for much of the early organizational work in Northern areas. A significant contribution to the foundation of the FNFMR occurred when the entire membership of the UMC was given dual membership from March 1933 with the UMC paying the 1.50 lire fee to the national Federation on their behalf. This was simply announced to the members and effectively meant that they were not allowed to choose whether they wished to join or not. Overnight 57

THE NATIONAL FASCIST FEDERATION OF MASSAIE RURALI

this created a solid base for the Federation in Lombardy and Piedmont. Completely new members enrolled by UMC activists, however, did not get dual membership: they were asked only to pay 1.50 lire and received only the fascist newspaper, not Domus rustica or the Bullettino. This rather curious situation suggests that, at this point, Cernezzi Moretti was considering eventually dissolving the UMC. In April 1933, Cernezzi Moretti increased her level of commitment to the new organization by becoming FNFMR National VicePresident and in January 1934 she also took on the role of Inter-provincial Delegate for Lombardy. A certain amount of disentangling of the two organizations occurred when, at the beginning of 1934, the UMC withdrew free FNFMR membership for its own members, presumably because this would have eventually bankrupted it. Those who wished to belong to both now had to pay two subscriptions. In practice, however, the distinction between the activities of the two organizations was not always clear at local level particularly as, at this point, a number of UMC organizers (such as Maria Cerruti of Crocemosso near Vercelli, Giuseppina Cattaneo Adorno of Genoa16 and Giuseppina Albertini Verga of Milan) were working simultaneously for both in their areas. Probably the main reason why the UMC organizers co-operated willingly with the new Federation was the fact that Luigi Razza initially placed at its helm not a male union official but someone who had for many years had a certain amount of involvement with the UMC, the ‘sansepolcrista’ Regina Terruzzi. Indeed, some years later Terruzzi claimed that, in fact, the actual foundation of the FNFMR was more or less her own idea.17 If this is true it would slightly undermine the assertion by Victoria De Grazia that, ‘there is no evidence that the advice of female leaders was ever sought on any major issue regarding women . . . not in 1933 when it was decided to found the Massaie Rurali’.18

Regina Terruzzi Terruzzi was herself a most intriguing figure. Born into a modest family in 1862,19 she began her working life, aged twelve, as an apprentice embroideress but then, largely self-taught, she moved into teaching, becoming a primary school teacher by 1883. Gradually obtaining better and better jobs, in 1896 she became the director of the new Teresa Confalonieri Girls Technical School in Milan and by 1906 had secured a permanent post teaching literature at the Carlo Cattaneo Technical Institute also in Milan. During this time she was very politically active and had considerable involvement with the socialist20 and feminist21 movements. She also achieved a certain notoriety in the press as a teacher who had given birth to a son, Paolo, out of wedlock, in 1895. At one point she lost her teaching job in Milan because the conservative press had called for her dismissal on moral grounds. Later, at the Carlo Cattaneo Technical Institute, only the intervention of the socialist leader Turati saved her from a campaign against the employment of an unmarried mother.22 58

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During the First World War Terruzzi was won over to an interventionist position and then was drawn to the new fascist movement in its early, still radical, phase, becoming one of the tiny number of women who attended the founding meeting in Piazza San Sepolcro. She soon, however, like a number of other sansepolcristi, became disillusioned with aspects of the regime in power and fell out of favour with Mussolini. As Denise Detriagache has argued, with some justification: ‘Regina Terruzzi always stayed faithful to democratic principles: through her family and social origins she was deeply influenced by the Garibaldian Risorgimento tradition.’23 Her unpopularity with the regime’s leaders was compounded by the fact that her son Paolo, having joined the PNF early on, was thrown out of the Party after he linked up with the democratic opposition after the Matteotti crisis. He was readmitted in 1928 but never returned fully to favour.24 Although, it must be admitted, there were aspects of fascism that continued to appeal to her (the notion of class harmony, for example), others did not, and on a number of occasions she made herself unpopular with those in power by expressing her views most frankly. Both her published writings and archival documentation give the impression that she was a woman of considerable personal integrity, willing to take the risk of espousing unfashionable causes even under the regime. A robust and energetic woman who, in 1931, aptly referred to herself as the ‘mother-in-law of the fascists’,25 she wrote, in an affectionate, bossy and maternal tone, frequently to both Mussolini and his private secretary, on more than one occasion even giving advice on how to run the country. In 1932, for example, she offered Mussolini her opinion of the tone of fascist propaganda and in particular the cult of the Duce. The following extract from one letter well illustrates the degree of frankness she was prepared to adopt. The propagandists I have heard in various parts of the country have often irritated me and they fail to make me laugh. They have uncaring hearts and small brains, they start by praising the Head of the government (arm outstretched), they follow with a hymn to Benito Mussolini (arm outstretched) and then end with the adoration of the Duce (arm outstretched) – are all these endless salutations necessary?26 Two other examples of this are a letter in 1931 which protested about legislation limiting women’s right to work, emphasizing unmarried women’s need for employment27 and a letter she sent the Duce in May 1940, advising him of what themes he should emphasize in his war propaganda.28 She was even bold enough to speak her mind (albeit behind closed doors) quite plainly with the Head of the Government. This was most evident in an incident in 1932 when an audience she had with Mussolini became rather heated. During the audience29 she bluntly asked him why he did not now abolish the Party since the regime was completely in power. She even requested the closing down of the Special Tribunal (the court which tried anti-fascists).30 The disagreement 59

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became particularly problematic as it was leaked to the foreign press and this greatly soured her already difficult relationship with Party hierarchs, despite her repeated denials of having leaked the news herself. This incident makes her appointment to the post of President of the FNFMR, only a few months later, even more remarkable. Her political views may, however, have posed less of a problem for the person who appointed her, Luigi Razza. Razza and Terruzzi had a certain amount in common. Both were former socialists from fairly poor families (Razza’s father was a prison guard), sansepolcristi and autodidacts. It has to be said, furthermore, that there were few other potential candidates for the post with Terruzzi’s experience and contacts. Her previous interest in the role of farmwomen is testified by her attendance at a number of international farming conferences including those in Bucharest in 1929 (where she was Vice-President of the Women’s Section), in Prague in 1931 and in Rome in 1932. This interest, together with her long-standing commitment to popular education, also led her to a connection with the UMC. It seems likely that she first met Cernezzi Moretti when they were both teaching at the Cattaneo Technical Institute during the First World War. How such apparently different persons (one an aristocratic lady, the other a former embroideress) chose to collaborate may seem odd but they did have two things in common. First, both had considerable personal integrity and stubbornly refused to compromise their own views: neither, unlike many protagonists of the prefascist women’s movement, was ever really to sell out entirely to the fascist regime. Second, they shared a strong belief in the need to improve the lives of rural women. It is worth noting, furthermore, that, despite her modest origins, even Terruzzi did not come from a peasant background. Much of her knowledge about rural life was gleaned from short stays with relatives as a child: in one of her autobiographical writings she describes discovering the beauty of the Milanese countryside while staying there to recover from being ill after the death of her mother.31 In practice Terruzzi appears to have had more a patron’s position than a real involvement in the day-to-day running of the UMC. Her links with it began in the 1920s but the importance of her role was only fully recognized in July 1932 when she was appointed one of its Honorary Vice-Presidents. Her work with the new FNFMR, however, required much more hard work and a far greater level of practical commitment and time. It was a significant moment for this veteran campaigner since, after a prolonged period in the political wilderness, she found herself with her own desk and office in the farming union headquarters in Rome, with a new national organization to set up and a newspaper to found. This situation did not, however, last for long as she held the post of FNFMR President for barely twelve months. Already in October 1933 she was beginning to flag and rejected numerous requests from local organizers to visit and help them set things up.32 In December 1933, she resigned claiming that she found the travelling too tiring at her age. When she resigned, in a 60

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letter to Mussolini’s private secretary Sebastiani she wrote that ‘my frequent trips to Rome are no longer enough . . . the President of the Federation needs to live in the capital, and I . . . cannot live far from my son’.33 Although there may also have been other reasons for her resignation that she does not mention, this was plausible. The travel involved was a problem since at this point, over 70 years old and retired from teaching, she was living with her son in Nice. Her repeated attempts to get him transferred back to a post in Italy (he worked for a French branch of the Banca Commerciale Italiana) had met with no success.34

The National Fascist Federation of Massaie Rurali The FNFMR was launched in February 1933 with the distribution of an almanac (in reality the UMC almanac) which was sent out to local farm union branches for distribution to the wives and daughters of male union members.35 Those who signed up received individual membership cards which featured a picture of a woman carrying loaves of bread on a board balanced on her head, and the words ‘Alma Parens’ (life-giving mother). Bread, of course, was a symbol strongly associated with fascism because of the Battle for Wheat. Terruzzi herself spelled this out to readers in an article in July 1933, which included the following depiction of the symbolic properties of bread: bread which keeps the house safe from hunger, which strengthens the family with its yeast. Bread, the traditional toil of the Italic people, is consecrated by the Gospels in the last supper to make Christ’s divine Passion eternal in men’s memories. ‘Take, eat, this is my Body.’36 During Terruzzi’s presidency the new Federation established a national structure. Its officials were all women and comprised a Delegate in each Province, a Fiduciary in each comune, and a Secretary in each frazione. An intermediate level of authority was eventually added with a few Inter-provincial Delegates to co-ordinate activities regionally (Cattaneo Adorno and Cernezzi Moretti both held such positions). Many of the Fiduciaries and Secretaries appear to have been rural schoolteachers. In Palermo, for example, the provincial Delegate simply sent a letter to all local union leaders asking them to indicate ‘the teacher suitable to be appointed as organizer of the local groups’. In Ancona too, teachers filled these positions.37 The class composition of the higher ranks of organizers, like the UMC, seems to have been quite elevated. This can be seen, for example, in the fact that, by the end of July 1933, by which time Delegates had been appointed in 48 provinces, 14 of the women listed had noble titles and a further four were identified as graduates or 61

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teachers. There is no evidence that a single one of them was a peasant woman herself. The, at first sight, rather startling fact that this new ‘trade union’ was run by officials who included many aristocrats is in reality less surprising than it appears. In practice the fascist unions were rarely run by persons with a background in the employment category of the membership and by the early 1930s few union leaders came from peasant backgrounds. Increasingly the trend was towards highly educated persons, particularly graduates in agricultural science. Indeed the union bureaucracy became a source of secure employment for those with degrees or diplomas in agricultural science. One result of this increasingly productivist emphasis (and the concomitant move away from the sectorial defence of the interests of their members vis-à-vis landowners) was that the two sides of the corporative structure became more and more similar. As d’Attorre has argued: ‘The language used by local officials of the workers’ unions became increasingly similar to that of the Agrari’s representatives: this was an important introduction to the fact that, in reality, their roles were increasingly interchangeable.’38 In 1933, the 57 provincial leaders of the CNFSA were mainly fairly young men (the majority were under 35) who had been ‘fascists of the first hour’.39 They were, however, rarely squadristi leaders since many of these had, by this time, been purged from the party as ‘dissidents’ as part of the ‘normalization’ process.40 About half of them were graduates. This trend was further emphasized in January 1934 when Franco Angelini, an agricultural science graduate and the son of a large farmer, succeeded Razza as head of the farmworkers’ union.41 In contrast to the abolished free unions, fascist union leaders were not elected, but, appointed from above,42 they were responsible to the union hierarchy not to the members. Elections were held but generally speaking this meant offering one approved candidate to members who were then asked to ‘vote’. In the case of the FNFMR they do not even seem to have bothered with this formality and the first Delegates were simply appointed by local farming union leaders. I have found no evidence that the membership ever got a chance to vote their approval or not of their leaders (in contrast, of course, to the UMC whose Central Committee members had to stand for re-election by postal ballot every three years). The structure foresaw a good deal of autonomy for each province in defining what their activities were to be whereas the role of the President and the central office was limited to giving advice and producing the newspaper. Each provincial Delegate was essentially left on her own to devise ways of building up membership locally, encouraging activities appropriate to the area and finding ways of financing them. Perhaps not surprisingly, many of the new regional leaders were initially perplexed by the difficulties of the task and were unsure how to begin.43 This, undoubtedly, at least partly explains why the organization had such prosaic, stumbling beginnings. In its first year of functioning the FNFMR managed to recruit 30,000 62

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members.44 Although this was tiny compared with the potential membership, it represented a considerable increase on the numbers in the UMC, and is particularly impressive in view of just how little the organization could offer those who joined. Perhaps not surprisingly, recruitment proved far from easy. Hopes were often pinned on local teachers, particularly those who actually lived in rural villages rather than commuting from nearby urban areas, as the persons most likely to know how to sign local women up.45 Some of the recruitment was done by rather desperate methods and it looks as if few of the first members were really the smallholders and sharecroppers who were meant to form the bulk of the membership. Female members of the Fascist Union of Farm Secretaries and Forestry Clerks, for example, were enrolled en masse in July 1933 and later that year, in October, in Genoa at least, all Fasci Femminili organizers were signed up and given orders to go out and recruit. Furthermore, despite the aim of the organization to target non-waged workers, before long rice-weeders were being targeted in Pavia.46 This is perhaps less in contradiction to the original aims than may appear since many riceworkers had other types of peasant roles, more appropriate to the new organization, out of the weeding season. It doubtless also reflected a desire to transform these traditionally militant women into conservative farmers’ wives. Right from the start handouts were an important feature of recruitment strategies. As early as March 1933 a technique was being tried out in Torre Spaccata and Prima Porta (conveniently located for urban organizers just outside Rome) that was to be later followed elsewhere. Here local women were attracted to founding meetings by the promise of free bars of soap.47 In a similar vein, free seeds were offered to early subscribers to the newspaper.48 A further strategy was launched (one which was also to be later refined) when in July 1934 it was announced that the facilities of the National Mother and Child Organization (ONMI) would be offered free of charge to members.49 This idea proved ineffective since, as the UMC column in the Bullettino swiftly pointed out, such provisions, in the parts of Lombardy where the UMC was present at least, were already available to all poor women without the need for payment. Even where no real ONMI clinic existed, moreover, the local doctor usually offered free care to poor women.50 Similar to this was the fact that, by May 1934, the Federation announced that it was negotiating with the National Maternity Fund (a maternity leave savings scheme) to allow FNFMR members access to its clinics.51 Exactly what use this would have been is unclear, since the Fund had been created for industrial workers and its facilities were located mainly in Northern, urban areas.52 There is a rare glimpse of how a section was set up in a report from Piacenza in 1933. Noteworthy aspects of this account include the presentation of the UMC and the FNFMR as one and the same, the involvement of the Fasci Femminili and the targeting of younger women. Material incentives, here as elsewhere, seem to have been a vital element of the strategy. The report was 63

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written by Amelia Del Piano, Secretary of the Castelnuovo Fogliani section, officially founded in January 1933: In June the Secretary called a meeting for the Castelnuovo rural members and the Giovani Fasciste, so that she could explain the Unione’s proposed aims to them. During the meeting, ideas were exchanged and proposals formulated for individual and group activities. Once they had heard that they could probably earn something from their domestic activities, the massaie who are weavers and spinners, announced that they were quite happy to return to the distaff and loom. The Giovani Fasciste were enthusiastic about the rational rearing of farmyard animals, about learning how to weave, and the better off among them were also keen on raising silk worms next season. We have asked the Podestà [fascist mayor] of Alseno for a room to use for meetings. On the 11th of June we drew the names of two UMC members out of a hat: they won two beautiful Leghorn cockerels, donated by the UMC itself. The pair were exhibited in the centre of the village on the morning of the 11th (Sunday), in a comfortable iron cage with a notice on it stating their origins, race and why they were there. At noon the names of Clementina Davighi and Eugenia Confalonieri were drawn.53

L’azione delle massaie rurali Right from the start the new organization had a newspaper. Printed in black and white with a news-sheet rather than magazine format, including numerous photographs and drawings, the monthly L’azione delle massaie rurali, renamed La Massaia rurale in 1939,54 offered its readers a wealth of information on farming, childcare and domestic science. It presented technical information, ranging from how to clean a kitchen to how to build a rabbit hutch, in a lively and accessible form. Its regular features included household tips, a religious column, short stories, recipes, articles explaining farming and housework techniques, information on social legislation, lists of current market prices and a readers’ questions column. Published from February 1933, the newspaper was distributed automatically to all members. Initially it appeared as a supplement to the union newspaper Il lavoro agricolo fascista, which meant that it entered every household where union members lived. In January 1934, after less than a year of this transitional phase, however, it began to be printed separately and was received only by actual FNFMR members. In the first issue Luigi Razza outlined the intended role of the new organization. He summed up his essentially nostalgic vision in the following manner: ‘What we should aim for is a return to the ancient tradition of rural women who – with intelligence and loving care – administer the family’s subsidiary 64

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income, look after children and make the head of family’s day more peaceful.’ Under the care of the new section, he argued, peasant households could return to a happy and harmonious mythical past, cleansed of the pollution of urbanization, complete even with the smell of clean laundry and wholesome home-made bread: And when, on entering a peasant home, we have the joy of smelling the aroma of lavender from well laundered sheets which are wisely stored in big chests, as well as the smell of bread which has not been bought at the bakers but made by the women of the family, we feel the bitterness of . . . a type of evolution which is not progress. This struck us a few weeks ago when we met some women from peasant families . . . who did not know how to knead and work the flour for the Sunday meal because . . . they had always worked in factories or had been urban servants.55 Razza may have written this political sermon as its first editorial but, in 1933, L’azione delle massaie rurali was very much Terruzzi’s paper. She was an experienced writer (albeit with a somewhat wordy and sentimental style). Her numerous publications include pamphlets, press articles, school textbooks, political and historical writings and various autobiographical works.56 She became a frequent contributor to the new newspaper. Her welcome to her new readership which appeared in the same issue was very different from Razza’s and does give the impression that she understood something of her readers’ harsh, difficult lives.57 Typical is the following passage: At the end of the day, when everyone is already asleep, you go to bed dissatisfied; the pleasure of the work that is done is spoilt by the list of things which still need doing. There are only 24 hours in the day: if there were 36 or 48 then you would not regret having to sleep for seven hours to get your strength back. This first article is emblematic of the fact that, in the early days, the newspaper as a whole was far less patronizing than it was to become in later years. In these early issues, various women from the UMC contributed to the new journal. Giuseppina Cattaneo Adorno had her own monthly column of seasonal farming and domestic science advice entitled ‘I lavori del mese’ (Tasks for the month) whilst Annita Cernezzi Moretti featured as a sort of technical ‘agony aunt’. She answered readers’ queries under the somewhat misleading but charming pseudonym Mamma Reggiora (reggiora is a variant of reggitrice). In this column, unlike the similar column in Domus rustica, only the answers were published, rather than the actual readers’ letters. Numerous other writings by Cernezzi Moretti were published too, including extracts from her book L’ora della meditazione as well as articles by her on the UMC and on poultry farming. 65

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Terruzzi, Cernezzi Moretti and Cattaneo Adorno (and to a lesser extent ‘Melisenda’) between them were responsible for a noteworthy percentage of the copy in this first year of publication. In this period, despite the fact that the newspaper was under the aegis of the farming unions and despite the presence of a male editor, the magazine had many female contributors and was largely produced by Terruzzi and her UMC friends. Technical themes were foremost and fascist propaganda was not particularly prominent. It was, of course, not absent but propagandistic messages emerge in only a minor part of the copy. ‘Ruralization’ themes are significant, in the sense that the magazine aimed to improve life on the land so that peasants would stay there. Franco Angelini, who effectively replaced Terruzzi when she resigned as FNFMR leader, later claimed that after Terruzzi’s departure the newspaper became more technical58 but, in reality, it was precisely at this point that the propaganda content began to rise. One example of this was the new monthly childcare column ‘Per voi mamme’ written by Rachele Ferrari del Latte, which first appeared in February 1934. Ferrari del Latte had impeccable fascist credentials. Widow of ‘fascist of the first hour’ Guido del Latte and daughter of a Milanese artist who was also an early fascist, she had long been involved in the Fasci Femminili. Employed as a teacher from 1907, after patriotic activism in the First World War and then becoming a Fiume legionnaire, she joined the PNF in November 1923. For six years, she was a member of the Provincial FF leadership in Milan. From 1930, she began what was to become her effective career for many years, as a full-time professional political organizer, when she took leave from teaching to become the salaried provincial leader of the Milanese girls’ groups. In 1932, she moved to a post at PNF headquarters in Rome, working in the Fasci Femminili office as well as being in charge of the National Fascist Association of Families of those Fallen, Mutilated, Injured in the Revolution. Later, in December 1938, she was promoted to become a National Inspectress. Del Latte was, therefore, a paid official. After the death of her father she had become the breadwinner for her family with a mother and two elderly aunts to support. By 1934 she was already an experienced writer. She had written numerous pamphlets, two history books and, in the early 1920s, had worked at the Stefani fascist press agency.59 Del Latte’s column was a foretaste of the far more propagandistic tone the magazine was soon to adopt. She exhorted mothers, amongst other things, to enrol their children in the fascist youth organizations, to love the patria and to stay on the land. Her writings reveal a profound ignorance of rural life. In May 1934, for example, she advised her peasant readers in the following, entirely inappropriate manner: when, during the holidays, our children ask for permission and money to go to the local cinema or theatre, let us, instead, take them out ourselves, for a lovely walk to the nearest picturesque village, so that they 66

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can really admire the beauties of their Motherland and learn to know all its faces and so love it even more.60 In the first year, however, it was Terruzzi herself who penned much of the nontechnical material. She had a far better grasp of the realities of peasant women’s lives and was too blunt and honest to stoop to mere propaganda. Her contributions ranged from purely recreational stories with no clear moral or political message to didactic dialogues. She often used religious references and imagery to put over her point and some of her stories read almost like sermons, such as an article published in September 1933 entitled ‘Simpatia Umana’ (Human Sympathy),61 about the beauty of assisting strangers by, for example, the offer of a drink of water. Although one thread that permeates many of her writings is the idea that people need to be satisfied with what they have got – peasants should stay on the land and be content – some of her stories are contradictory. The fictional dialogue she published in the second issue, for example, which featured peasant women discussing whether or not to move to a city,62 is interesting because it is rather inconclusive. As such it probably seemed more realistic than the bombastic and simplistic iron certainties of fascist propaganda. Some of her stories and articles contain political references but these are rarely foregrounded. The broader themes of fascist politics (which were to eventually permeate the entire newspaper) are not mentioned in this period and at times she even puts words into the mouths of her story characters which may have alarmed some of the hierarchs. A good example of this is a fictional dialogue where the origins of the fascio littorio (the fascist symbol of the bundle of rods and an axe63) are discussed by a group of village women washing laundry. During this dialogue she allows one peasant to say that she thinks the littorio has a rope round it because: ‘the rope is to tie up people who don’t agree with them, the sticks are to beat them, and the axe . . .’64 This idea is then refuted by another fictional character but the fact that she airs this idea reveals a daring frankness in print that most had lost by 1933. This sort of literary technique won her little support among those in power (on the copy she sent to Mussolini, someone drew attention to this particular story by marking it with a large ‘x’).65 The moment when she really aroused their ire (attracting more annotated crosses) was when she used the journal to promote a cause close to her heart – the plight of the unmarried mother and her offspring.66 As an unwed mother herself, Terruzzi had a personal interest in campaigning for this decidedly unfashionable cause although it still required considerable bravery to do so. In the April 1934 issue she published a story about a young woman who has just given birth to a baby girl in a snowy field and is forced to take refuge in a barn to save the infant’s life. The moral of the tale is the redeeming power of maternal love and the unmarried mother is presented as entirely blameless, the victim of a difficult background and of her employer’s lust. The story is full of 67

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religious imagery and is even headed with an illustration of the Virgin Mother and Child.67 In the next issue Terruzzi’s front-page editorial drew attention to the story and appealed to Federation members to be compassionate towards unmarried mothers and their children. She outlined, furthermore, her proposals for legal reform which would end the humiliation suffered by the illegitimate of having this fact recorded on their papers. This short plea for justice, against what she described as ‘medieval prejudices’ was accompanied by the text of a letter she had sent to Mussolini describing how she would like to have the law reformed in the new Civil Code.68 She also sent him another letter in May, which she did not publish, with the copies of the journal itself. In this letter she claimed that her initiative had been well received and ‘From all over Italy people are sending me letters of support. Their encouragement, praise and proposals show just how much recognition Your Excellency would receive if you were kind enough to order or promote measures aimed at improving the lives of those born out of wedlock.’69 Mussolini did not ignore her request, nor attempt to silence her, but forwarded her proposal to the Justice Ministry, which declared it impractical.70 But the outraged comments scrawled on the correspondence (some probably by Mussolini and others by members of his personal secretariat) suggest a less welcoming attitude to her intervention.71 The worst of these was a note (probably by Sebastiani) saying: ‘who knows if the National Government will work out how to resolve the extremely delicate question of how to create a special award to honour really meritorious women (which does not degenerate into an order of high class prostitutes)?’72 In the light of her outspoken and combative nature, it is possible that some fascist hierarchs were, in fact, somewhat relieved when, having completed the groundwork of setting up the organization, she stepped down.73 This was eventually, however, to have dramatic consequences for the organization itself. During Terruzzi’s presidency there were many similarities between the FNFMR and its prototype the UMC. The future was very different. When, in January 1934, Franco Angelini took over, the newspaper was detached from the Lavoro agricolo fascista, a necessary step to make it worthwhile for the wives of farm union members to take out membership. Terruzzi did not, however, immediately cease all involvement. She took on the title of ‘Honorary MR President’. After her resignation, a new structure, announced in February 1934, established a system whereby each Delegate (now renamed Provincial Secretary) was assisted by a local committee. At central level the President was replaced by a Commissioner (Angelini himself) and an all-female Central Committee. The Committee members were a mixture of UMC activists, local FNFMR leaders and representatives of various Fascist organizations. They were Regina Terruzzi, Annita Cernezzi Moretti, Angiola Moretti (who, since 1930, had been employed by the Party as Inspectress of the three PNF women’s colleges), Maria Castellani (Head of ANFAL – National Fascist Association of Women Artists and Graduates), Rachele Ferrari del Latte and Bianca Fabbri (wife of ONMI Commissioner Sileno Fabbri and former member of the Milan 68

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FF Provincial Directory). There were also a number of FNFMR local leaders: Giuseppina Cattaneo Adorno (Genoa), Nora Giusti di Giardino (Verona), De Villa, Bianca Viviani della Robbia (Florence),74 Marina Saletti (Grosseto), Giuseppina Gramignani (Avellino), Myriam Riccio (Sassari), Lia Marassi dePazzi (Fiume), Carolina Valvassori (by now living in Udine), Maria Nembrini Gozzaga (Terni) and Maria Manelli Franceschini (Pavia).75

Activities of the FNFMR When, in the summer of 1934, one of the FNFMR’s key organizers, Marchioness Giuseppina Cattaneo Adorno, attended the Fifth International Domestic Science Congress in Berlin, her talk was illustrated with a charming model of ‘a typical fascist Massaie Rurali centre, complete with didactic furnishings (radio, library, etc.) and provided with machinery and tools (sewing machine, knitting machine, etc.) which are essential to provide for the needs of the poorest massaie’.76 In reality, this was still largely fantasy. Only a handful of sections had their own headquarters and most of these were far less well equipped. This reflected a general picture of very little activity at all. Although the model for the FNFMR was, quite explicitly, the UMC,77 at first the new organization was far less active than its predecessor, particularly considering its much greater size, and cannot be said to have been fulfilling the grandiose aims set out in its founding Regulations. There are only scattered reports of FNFMR activities, mainly limited to recruitment, which appear in the pages of its press. An occasional competition was held: in September 1933, for example, one was held in Olgiata for ‘massaie who have kept their homes and cared for their children best’. Prizes were in the shape of: ‘cutlery and earthenware crockery, saucepans, and holiday camp places for children’.78 The Piacenza local group obtained a subsidy from the local farmers’ union to take a few members to Rome to visit the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution in November. There are also occasional instructive talks in various areas but apart from this, very little seems to have been going on at all. By 1934 activities were increasing a little but only a very few sections were properly functioning. Some training courses had started: in May 1934, for example, the Lavoro agricolo fascista reported on childcare courses in Treviso, and in June on the distribution of silkworm eggs and a silk production competition for members in Cremona and on farming courses in Turin and Cosenza. Nonetheless, overall this amounts to a pathetically small level of activity and the impression is of an organization that was very much feeling its way in this period. In practice, the most consistent activity of the new organization was the publication of the newspaper. Very occasionally activities were proposed which seemed to reflect the fact that this was supposed to be a trade union. One isolated (possibly unique) example was in Cagliari (Sardinia) where, in 1934, local organizers were ordered to find out if any of their members were being paid less than the legal 69

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contractual rate of 0.50 centesimi an hour for field work and to report offending landowners.79 Another slightly different example was an article of January 1934, which argued that the Federation should intervene in local markets where massaie went to sell produce such as eggs and chickens. The types of problem to be tackled were the role of middlemen and the imposition of taxes on market stalls.80 Indeed, in Venice, the local Federation began to intervene directly by buying up eggs from members.81 It is highly likely that the two main reasons for this dearth of activity were the lack of expertise or commitment of some of the organizers and the fact that the organization lacked proper funding. Although Terruzzi was given an office in Rome, I have found no evidence that she was ever paid anything for her work.82 Nor did the central office allocate any funds at all to local federations. Local organizers (themselves unpaid) had to find all of their own finance.83 One problem was that the price of membership had been set at such a low level (presumably to encourage recruitment) that it covered little more than the cost of producing the newspaper. In the first year members paid a mere 1.50 lire per annum, for which they got, free of charge, both the monthly newspaper and the almanac. This was a very economical rate compared with other categories of farm union membership, which cost 1 lira for the central union Federation plus an extra sum to the category Federation. Sharecroppers, for example, paid 5 lire (for men) or 3 lire (women). The FNFMR rate was also very cheap compared to UMC membership, which, in 1933, was (for peasant members) over four times this amount. Additional funding was soon sought for the FNFMR by introducing, in June 1933, the tried and tested UMC method of a sliding scale. New membership categories were created. ‘Founder members’ paid 50 lire and ‘supporting members’ paid 10 whilst ordinary membership stayed at 1.50. This basically meant that the cost of local activities was to be underwritten by wealthy patrons since only 1.50 lire of the higher rates had to be sent to Rome. The rest was used to fund local initiatives. Accounts had to be kept by local branches of the farmworkers’ union. This system was further refined, with even higher top rates, in April 1934, establishing the following complex gradations of categories. (It is worth noting that this list makes it quite explicit that landowners were to be amongst those recruited.) Massaie paid 1.50 lire, ‘experts’ paid 5, landowners 10, ‘supporters’ 50, ‘meritorious’ paid 100 and ‘founders’ a 1,000 lire one-off payment.84 These were only minima and local federations could also ask for top-up fees from those who were willing to contribute more, up to certain levels. This system essentially meant that the organization, at local level, was being run as a kind of charity. This bleak funding situation explains why the newspaper spent so much time praising the valiant efforts of the provincial secretaries even when they seemed to have achieved virtually nothing. It was necessary to keep encouraging them as it was so difficult for them to achieve anything whatsoever. Even the handouts, which were deemed essential to effective recruitment, needed to be 70

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found somehow, preferably without paying for them. This is clear from one ‘Mamma Reggiora’ column (in February 1934) where Cernezzi Moretti appealed to readers who had spare silkworm eggs to send them to her so she could give them out. Many sections had to resort to extremely traditional methods of charitable fundraising such as fairs. The Piacenza section described above, for example, was founded with the proceeds (100 lire) of a ‘party organized by the Giovani Fasciste’.85 In Cagliari (Sardinia) local section organizers were urged, in April 1934, to collect funds in the following manner: ‘Go begging for money or donations in kind – organize, if you can, lotteries, and benefit performances and dances, handing over all the money for the massaie and reporting what you have done to the Provincial Delegate.’86 They were told, furthermore, to use the money raised to buy vegetable seeds to distribute to needy families and to pay for help for pregnant peasant women or those in need of medical care and too poor to fund it themselves. In addition to fundraising, the Cagliari ladies were to busy themselves with home visiting to investigate the worthiness of those requesting assistance. The only activity which appeared to really fulfil the supposedly technical aims of the national programme outlined in their ten-point programme were regular meetings in which the organizers would read aloud to the assembled peasant women from the newspaper. Despite the fact that the organization had existed for well over a year when this was written, there were no plans at all for a real training programme in Cagliari. Cagliari was, perhaps, an extreme, (albeit far from unique) case. Not much was going on elsewhere in the South and islands either but some Northern sections were functioning much better by this time. In the Northern border province of Fiume, for example, things had got off to a far better start. By April 1934, their report to Rome claimed that in some villages they were already holding weekly or fortnightly meetings in which they provided farm training and explanations of the newspaper for those whose native language was not Italian. They were also handing out free ‘improved stock poultry’ to ‘the most deserving members’ and had even managed to buy a sewing machine for the use of poor members in one village. The level of activity in Fiume was, however, fairly unusual and nationally, by the summer of 1934, some 18 months after its foundation, the FNFMR was still far from fulfilling its aims. The class composition of its organizers and the basis of its funding made it operate like a rather inactive charity. Perhaps with time the farming union could have learned lessons from this early phase and improved the organization’s functioning but they never got the chance. In October 1934 they lost control.

Notes 1 There is a rich historiography on the fascist unions although it is mainly on industry. See, for example, A. De Bernardi, Operai e nazione. Sindacati operai e stato nell’Italia fascista, Milan, Angeli, 1993; A. Aquarone, ‘La politica sindacale del fascismo’, in

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2 3 4 5

6 7 8

9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16

A. Aquarone, M. Vernassa (eds), Il regime fascista, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1974; A. Pepe, ‘Il Sindacato Fascista’, in A. Del Boca, M. Legnani, M.G. Rossi (eds), Il regime fascista. storia e storiografia, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1995. On agricultural unions see C. Schmidt, The Plough and the Sword, New York, Columbia University Press, 1938, ch. 6. ‘Il Congresso Confederale’ (Rome 2 June 1933), in Cnsfa, L’Azione Sindacale del Fascismo nell’Agricoltura, Atti delle Assemblee Nazionali delle Federazioni, del Congresso Confederale e del Consiglio Nazionale, Rome, Tip. Il lavoro fascista, 1933. On the sbloccamento see, for example, A. Aquarone, L’organizzazione dello stato totalitario, Turin, Einaudi, 1965, pp. 146–7. The ‘Quota 90’ campaign, launched August 1926, aimed to stabilize the lira at the 1922 parity of 90 against sterling. This politically motivated rate threw many sectors of the economy into crisis as it entailed savage deflation. The historiography on fascist farming unions is mostly devoted to their role in the rise of fascism. For a series of interesting reflections on the 1930s, see P.P. D’Attorre, ‘Un aspetto del fascismo nelle campagne bolognesi: il sindacato negli anni della grande crisi’, Annali Cervi, no. 7, 1985, pp. 205–39. See also D’Attorre, ‘Ceto padronale e classi lavoratrici. Due situazioni a confronto: Lombardia ed Emilia’, in AAVV, Agricoltura e forze sociali in Lombardia nella crisi degli anni trenta, Milan, Angeli, 1983; M. Lodevici, ‘Il potere sull’aia. Le campagne forlivesi tra mito della ruralità e modernizzazione’, Memoria e ricerca, no. 2, 1993, pp. 25–59; I. Granata, ‘Conflitti sociali e patti agrari nel basso milanese (1923-1939)’, AAVV, Agricoltura e forze sociali in Lombardia nella crisi degli anni trenta, Milan, Angeli, 1983. See, for example, d’Attorre, ‘Un aspetto’, pp. 227–8 on how the unions in Bologna province played on latent tensions between sharecroppers and day labourers. See, on this point, G. Crainz, Padania. Il mondo dei braccianti dall’Ottocento alla fuga dalla campagne, Rome, Donzelli, 1994, pp. 199–203. D’Attorre summed this strategy up well in the following words: ‘As far as landowners’ power permitted it, they aimed to monopolize control of the labour market and of welfare activities which form the basis of the patronage system of small towns, solid and fruitful’ (D’Attorre, ‘Un aspetto’, p. 213). ‘Lavoratrici dei campi’, Giornale, no. 21, 1 Nov 1932, p. 10. Born in Calabria in 1892, Luigi Razza was intelligent and ambitious. A former syndicalist with a law degree and a background in journalism (working on Il popolo d’Italia from 1914 to 1919) he became a sansepolcrista and took part in the March on Rome. In the 1920s he held various Party and union positions and went on to become President of the CNSFA from 9 December 1928 until 31 December 1933. Like Edmondo Rossoni, he believed that the Corporate State should discipline employers as well as workers and, in the 1920s, had even led strikes in Milan. He became a member of the Fascist Grand Council in 1929. He also held various other positions including becoming Minister of Public Works in January 1934 but his career was cut short when he died in a mysterious air crash, possibly the result of deliberate sabotage, near Cairo in August 1935. See ‘Luigi Razza’, in M.Missori, Gerarchie e statuti del PNF, Roma, Bonacci, 1986; SPD–CO 210.692; ACS, SPD–CR, b.90, fasc. ‘Luigi Razza’; V. Capelli, Il fascismo in periferia. Il caso della Calabria, Rome, Riuniti, 1992, pp. 23–5. L. Razza, ‘Massaie rurali’, AMR, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 1. Supplement to Il lavoro agricolo fascista (hereafter LAF), no. 7. ‘Fattoresse’, LAF, no. 10–11, 18-25 March 1934, p. 3. On this recruitment struggle see d’Attorre, ‘Un aspetto’, pp. 221–3. ‘UMC’, Bullettino, 6 Jan 1933, p. 2. ACM, ‘UMC’, Bullettino, 3 March 1933, p. 2. Marchioness Giuseppina Cattaneo Adorno di Rorà is almost certainly the author of FF di Genova. Sez. Massaie Rurali, La Massaia Rurale Genovese in Regime Sanzionista,

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17

18 19

20

21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31 32

Genoa, 1935 in which she describes herself as having been, for the last three years, Hygiene Director of the Fabbriche children’s ‘Sun Camp’ in Genova-Voltri. She attended an international farming conference in Prague with Terruzzi and was a delegate at the International Domestic Science Congress in Berlin. In a letter to Mussolini in 1937 (the day of the huge rally of fascist women in Rome) she stated that: ‘today . . . I had the satisfaction of hearing you speak so well to the massaie rurali, who I was the first to draw to your attention.’ (Typed letter from RT to Mussolini, Florence, 20 June 1937, ACS, SPD-CO, 509.509.) De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women, p. 268. As the next chapter demonstrates, however, the transfer of the Massaie Rurali into the Party seems to have taken place contrary to the wishes of the organization’s most important female leaders. The story of Terruzzi’s early life is recounted in her autobiographical work Infanzia dell’Ottocento, Florence, Sansoni, 1938. She had a reasonably happy childhood until the death of her parents. The daughter of a Milanese café manager she led a lowermiddle-class urban life. Because she had many brothers and sisters she was forced to take a lot of responsibility from early on. Terruzzi was a reformist socialist not a Marxist. A pacifist and a democrat she was particularly interested in education and in workers’ self-help. On her ideology see D. Detriagache, ‘Du socialisme au fascisme naissant: formation et itinéraire de Regina Terruzzi’, in R. Thalmann (ed.), Femmes et fascismes, Paris, Tièrce, 1986, p. 51. On Terruzzi, see also Detriagache, ‘Il fascismo femminile da San Sepolcro all’affare Matteotti (1919–1925)’, Storia contemporanea, vol. 14, no. 2, 1983, pp. 211–51; D. Banfi Malaguzzi, ‘Attività femminile italiana’, Almanacco, 1935, pp. 188–9. See also ‘Regina Terruzzi’, in R. Farina (ed.), Dizionario biografico delle donne lombarde 568–1968, Milan, Baldini & Castoldi, 1995, pp. 1066–8. (Although it must be noted that this dictionary entry contains a number of inaccuracies, stating, for example, that Domus rustica folded after three years and that Terruzzi was the founder of the Unione delle massaie rurali (sic) in 1930.) There is a good historiography on the pre-fascist women’s movement. See, for example, A. Buttafuoco, Questioni di cittadinanza. Donne e diritti sociali nell’Italia Liberale, Siena, Protagon, 1997; M. Casalini, La signora del socialismo. Vita di Anna Kuliscioff, Rome, Riuniti, 1987. Detriagache, ‘Du socialisme’, pp. 45–6, 50. Ibid., p. 60. On Paolo Terruzzi see the curriculum vitae in ACS, SPD–CO, 193.374, fasc. ‘Paolo Terruzzi’. See ‘Regina Terruzzi’, in Dizionario biografico, p. 1067. Handwritten letter from R. Terruzzi dated 18 June 1932, ACS, SPD–CO, 509.509. Handwritten letter from R. Terruzzi to Mussolini, 16 Feb 1931 in ibid. Handwritten letter by R. Terruzzi sent from Florence 10 May 1940 in ibid. This was not merely a conversation that got out of hand. Terruzzi went to Rome explicitly to raise these issues with Mussolini. The fact that she recognized the danger of her mission was explicit in the letter requesting an audience in which she stated: ‘I need to speak to Your Excellency about many, that is about a number of things, of which two weigh heavily on my heart. I have long hesitated . . . there is also the Special Tribunal to consider, but the fear of dying with the regret of not having tried has finally given me the courage.’ (Handwritten letter from R. Terruzzi in Milan, 3 June 1932 in ibid.) Various items of correspondence about this incident (including Terruzzi’s denials of having alerted the foreign press) are conserved in ibid. R. Terruzzi, La mia giovinezza, Florence, Vallecchi, 1943, ch. 3. Regina Terruzzi, ‘“Andare al popolo”. Alle dirigenti della F.N.F.M.R.’, AMR, no. 8, 1 Oct 1933.

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33 Typed letter sent from Nice on 13 Dec 1933, ACS, SPD–CO, 509.509. 34 Terruzzi wrote directly to Mussolini or his private secretary on numerous occasions pleading with him to intervene in the matter of Paolo’s transfer to a job in Italy, and even attempted to use the threat of her resignation from the Presidency of the FNFMR to put pressure on him. See, for example, the handwritten letter of 11 Sept 1932 in which she begs Mussolini’s secretary to help her in the following, somewhat melodramatic manner: ‘You can promise the Duce that, if I return, I will play deaf, mute and blind, even with Him. For better or for worse, I will hand in my passport immediately, and, meditatively, I will prepare myself for eternal rest.’ (Ibid.) Paolo was eventually transferred back to Italy in December 1934 and she was able to move back to Florence. After this she continued to try to make use of her personal connection with Mussolini to promote her son’s career. 35 LAF, no. 7, 12 Feb 1933, p. 2. 36 R. Terruzzi, ‘“Alma Parens” o “Madre benefica”’, AMR, no. 6 (but actually 5), 2 July 1933, p. 1. 37 ‘Federazione massaie rurali’, LAF, no. 5, 11 Feb 1934, p. 2. 38 D’Attorre, ‘Un aspetto’, p. 211. 39 Ibid., p. 207. 40 On ‘normalization’ see A. Lyttleton, The Seizure of Power. Fascism in Italy 1919–1929, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973. 41 Born in 1898 in Rome, after initially supporting the Catholic Popular Party, Franco Angelini joined the fascist movement in 1920, helped found the fascist farming experts’ union and went on to hold various roles in the fascist farming unions in the 1920s. He obtained a number of other positions including becoming a member of the Permanent National Wheat Committee, of the Fascist Grand Council and of the Central Corporative Committee. In January 1934 he succeeded Razza as head of the farming unions. In his role as Technical Director of a sizeable farm in the Agro Romano he proved himself a modernizer ready to introduce ‘rational farming methods’. On Angelini see his curriculum vitae in ACS, PNF, SC, b.1, fasc. ‘Franco Angelini’. See also ACS, SPD–CO, 515.061, fasc. ‘Franco Angelini. Consigliere Nazionale’. 42 On union officials see, for example, the classic contemporary anti-fascist work G. Salvemini, Under the Axe of Fascism, London, Victor Gollancz, 1936, especially chs 6 and 7. 43 R. Terruzzi, ‘“Andare al popolo”. Alle dirigenti della F.N.F.M.R.’ AMR, no. 8, 1 Oct 1933, p. 1. 44 ‘Potenziamento’, AMR, no. 10, Oct 1934, p. 1. 45 On this see, for example, R. Terruzzi, ‘Saluto alle maestre rurali’, AMR, no. 9, 29 Oct 1933, p. 1. 46 AMR, no. 6, 30 July 1933, p. 1. 47 AMR, no. 2, 12 March 1933, p. 1. 48 LAF, 2 April 1933, p. 1. 49 On ONMI see A. Bresci, ‘L’Opera nazionale maternità ed infanzia nel ventennio fascista’, Italia contemporanea, no. 192, 1993, pp. 421–42; S. Onger, ‘Il latte e la retoricia: l’Opera nazionale maternità e infanzia a Brescia (1927–1939)’, Storia in Lombardia, 1989, pp. 437–77. 50 The official announcement of ‘free ONMI care’ is reported in the Bullettino of 6 July 1934, no. 27, p. 2 whereas the issue of 3 August 1934 (no.31, p. 2) points out the fact that this was already free. 51 ‘Attività della Federazione’, AMR, no. 5, 1934, p. 1. 52 In October 1933, for example, of the 87,851 insured women who attended the Fund’s clinics a quarter (22,563) did so in Milan. See M. Casalini, La protezione e l’assicurazione della maternita e la difesa della prima infanzia, Rome, 1934, p. 83.

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53 ‘Dalle Sezioni’, DR, no. 3, 1934, p. 41. The report is dated December 1933. 54 On this newspaper see my ‘“Domus rustica” e “L’azione delle massaie rurali”: due riviste per contadine negli anni del fascismo’, in S. Soldani, S. Franchini (eds), Donne e giornalismo. Politica e cultura di genere nella stampa “femminile”, Milan, Angeli, forthcoming. 55 L. Razza, ‘Massaie rurali’, AMR, no. 1, 12 Feb 1933. p. 1. 56 Terruzzi’s publications include: Commento popolare della divina commedia, Milan, Istituto Editoriale Italiano, 1912; Peregrinazioni, Milan, Vallardi, 1921; Crociera sentimentale, Milan, Tip. Il Popolo d’Italia, 1936; Infanzia dell’Ottocento, Florence, Sansoni, 1939; Adoloscenza dell’Ottocento, Florence, Vallecchi, 1940. 57 R. Terruzzi, ‘Saluto’, AMR, no. 1, 12 Feb 1933, p. 1. 58 ‘Il Regolamento per le massaie rurali, deliberato dal Direttorio del PNF’, AMR, no. 10, 1934, p. 1. 59 This biographical information on Ferrari del Latte comes from ACS, SPD-CO, 548.001. She made a reasonable living from these posts. In 1940, for example, she was getting 1,696 lire per month as an Inspectress, 1,304 lire from the Education Ministry and 600 lire from paid employment at La donna fascista (PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.10, fasc. ‘Clara Franceschini’). 60 R. Ferrari del Latte, ‘Per voi mamme’, AMR, no. 5, 1934, p. 5. 61 AMR, no. 7, 1933, p. 1. 62 AMR, no. 2, 12 March 1933, p. 4. 63 On the fascio littorio see S. Falaschi Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle. The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini’s Italy, California University Press, pp. 95–9. 64 AMR, no. 4, 21 May 1933, p. 4. 65 ACS, SPD–CO, 139.950. 66 On the plight of illegitimate children and their mothers and debates about reform see M.S. Quine, ‘From Malthus to Mussolini: the Italian Eugenics Movement and Fascist Population Policy 1890–1938’, Ph.D. thesis, UCL, 1990, part III. 67 Regina Terruzzi, ‘Era la vera luce che illumina . . .’, AMR, no. 4, April 1934, p. 6. This was far from the first time Terruzzi had written about this question. See, for example, Terruzzi, ‘Madri naturali’, Giornale, no. 7, 15–30 April 1925. 68 Regina Terruzzi, ‘Per i figli’, AMR, no. 5, May 1934, p. 1. The essence of her proposal was that illegitimate children could have registered on their documents invented names for parents, or the name of the one parent who had recognized them plus one invented one. The purpose of this was to avoid the shame of illegitimacy suffered on every occasion when documents had to be presented, from school onwards. 69 Letter from RT to Mussolini, Nice, 11 May 1934. ACS, SPD–CO, 139.950. 70 See the correspondence in ACS, SPD–CO, 509.817, sf 3/1 ‘figli illegittimi’. 71 Others included: ‘wouldn’t she be better off spending her time on something other than illegitimate children?’; ‘It’s easy to write well-received articles on that particular topic!’; ‘what these poor women need, is to not be fooled by the press’ (ACS, SPD–CO, 139.950). 72 Ibid. After the failure of this attempt Terruzzi continued to lobby Mussolini for the rights of illegitimate children, sending him letters and messages on this topic during the late 1930s. (See ACS, SPD–CO, 509.817, sf 3/1 ‘figli illegittimi’.) 73 This did not include Luigi Razza who seems to have wanted her to continue. This emerges from a letter (probably to Mussolini’s private secretary), dated 22 Dec 1933 in which she confirmed her resignation (after failing yet again to obtain a transfer for her son): ‘yesterday Hon. Razza gave orders to the printer to cancel my resignation. I am flattered, but it does not remove my problems . . . the distance and the weight of my age.’ (Typed letter, ACS, SPD–CO, 509.509.) 74 Viviani della Robbia was also Adviser to ANFAL’s Agricultural Group and the

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75 76 77

78 79 80 81 82

83

84 85 86

author of various books for children and adults such as L’Amore alla terra. She was awarded the ‘Star of Work for Rural Merit’ (‘Donne nel giornalismo e nelle arti’, Almanacco, 1941, p. 341). ‘Federazione massaie rurali’, LAF, no. 6, 18 Feb 1934, p. 2. LAF, no. 22, 30 Aug 1934, p. 3. In issue two of the new organization’s newspaper, for example, an article on suggested activities for local sections candidly suggested that organizers look at what the UMC had done to get ideas. (‘Per l’organizzazione delle donne massaie.’, AMR, no. 2, 12 March 1933, p. 2.) AMR, no. 7, Sept 1933, p. 1. ‘Nelle Sezioni e nei Gruppi’, AMR, no. 4, 1934, p. 1. C.M., ‘I piccoli mercati settimanali di uova e pollame’, AMR, no. 1, 1934, p. 1. ‘Problemi organizzativi. Dalle relazioni delle Delegate Provinciali’, AMR, no. 1, 1934, p. 1. In a curriculum vitae for Regina Terruzzi (probably compiled in 1940) conserved in the archive of Mussolini’s secretariat she included the following note: ‘N.B. I wish to point out that I have never received any material recompense or compensation of any kind, for my extra-scholastic activities. My son has always paid for travel expenses etc.’ (ACS, SPD–CO, 509.509.) This was in contrast to other organizers of the farmworkers’ union who were paid. This was achieved by high membership charges locally. For example, in 1927, in Castelfranco (Bologna), membership dues were an astonishing 4 to 6 lire per month and the local union secretary was paid 7,400 lire per annum (D’Attorre, ‘Un’aspetto’, p. 212). ‘Norme per il tesseramento delle Massaie Rurali Italiane’, AMR, no. 4, April 1934, p. 1. ‘Dalle Sezioni’, DR, no. 3, 1934, p. 41. The report is dated December 1933. ‘Nelle Sezioni e nei Gruppi’, AMR, no. 4, April 1934, p. 1.

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4 ‘GOING TO THE PEOPLE’ The Massaie Rurali section of the Fasci Femminili

In late 1934, only 18 months after its foundation, the FNFMR was transferred wholesale into the PNF itself, becoming a special section of the Fasci Femminili. The provincial and local sections were dissolved and the Provincial Secretaries instructed to report directly to their local Fascio Femminile for orders. In this new context the organization grew rapidly and by the fall of fascism its membership numbered nearly three million. The take-over may have been facilitated by the fact that Terruzzi was temporarily out of the way, having set off in September 1934 to visit her sick sister in Brazil, a trip which involved a lengthy sea voyage.1 Her connection with the organization did not completely vanish at this point. By the end of 1934 she was back in Nice. After receiving the news that she could return to Italy as her son had succeeded in getting his job transferred there, she wrote to Mussolini that ‘once again, I will devote all the energy I have at my age (72) to the Massaie Rurali’.2 She was not, however, allowed to fulfil this promise. Although she continued to be Honorary President during 1935, she never regained any real power in the organization she had created. This did not prevent her from attempting to interfere. She wrote, for example, to Mussolini in February 1936 to request that the Massaie Rurali be represented in the Corporative structure.3 Had she been around at the time of the actual transfer it seems certain that Terruzzi would have opposed it and attempted to exploit her political connections to prevent it. Her attitude seems clear from a message she left for Mussolini’s private secretary in July 1935, asking him to arrange an audience with the Duce, as she wished to discuss a number of questions with him. One of these was the idea that: ‘The Massaie would like to be part of the unions’. The memo about her message mentions that this was far from the first time that she had raised the matter.4 The new organization’s regulations appeared to suggest that Terruzzi was worrying needlessly for, on paper, the new section differed little from its predecessor. Article two declared its aims to be essentially those of the FNFMR, namely: a) to promote educational propaganda for massaie rurali from the 77

‘GOING TO THE PEOPLE’

countryside and from rural towns and villages, and to place particular emphasis on moral, social and technical assistance; b) to promote professional training for massaie rurali, to enable them to carry out the tasks entrusted to them competently and with a modern approach, with reference, in particular, to growing vegetables, raising farmyard animals, handicrafts and small household industries, creating for this purpose domestic science and childcare courses; c) to improve the furnishings and standards of hygiene in rural homes; d) to make them appreciate all the advantages of life on the land, as a means of opposing the harmful trend towards urbanization.5 As this makes clear, technical training was to continue, although now the words ‘with a modern approach’ were added, reflecting a greater emphasis on ‘rational farming’ (see Chapter 6). The last clause also made the ‘ruralizing’ aspect slightly more explicit, but overall the aims were little changed except for the removal of the clause about ‘forging social links between massaie’ and its replacement with the clause on the care of the home. Continuity can also be seen in the fact that some of the FNFMR provincial leaders were, in practice, also Fasci Femminili leaders. They simply continued in the same role as initially the FF Provincial Fiduciaries ran the new Massaie sections. This was the case, for example, of Countess Vendramina Marcello Brandolini of Venice, Mercedes Raselli Bolasco (Treviso), Baroness Teresita Mensinger (Perugia) and Laura Marani Argnani (Reggio Emilia).6 Yet much of this continuity was more apparent than real. After the transfer, the primary purpose of the new organization, in the minds of the PNF hierarchy, became quite different. The emphasis moved from farm training to propaganda, political mobilization and nation building. Its core purpose became to complete the work of politically mobilizing all sections of the population by enrolling them in the Party. The continuity of the organizers was also fairly transitory. By 1940 few Massaie Rurali provincial secretaries had a background in the FNFMR.7

‘Going to the People’ – the political project In the columns of the organization’s newspaper, no real explanation for the move was offered, presenting it simply as the need to place the organization in a more suitable location given its nature. According to the Azione delle massaie rurali: In practice, however, the association’s aims are clearly welfare and technical-professional training: for this reason – albeit retaining links 78

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with the great family of farmworkers – it is logical that the association itself should not be in a union-type organization, but should gravitate into the Party’s orbit.8 This would not seem implausible were it not for the fact that the unions themselves were also focusing on welfare and training in this period. Similarly improbable is the argument put forward by historian Luigi Arbizzani who suggests that the real motive for the transfer was that the fascists feared that peasant women, gathered in unions, might develop a sense of solidarity and begin to make economic and social demands.9 I have found no evidence for this view and it seems unlikely given the actual nature of the FNFMR. Nor do the Fasci Femminili themselves seem to have lobbied for control. Given that, at this point, they had no real leadership or central structure, such lobbying would have had to be done mainly through their press. In 1933 and 1934, during the FNFMR period, there was only a very slight increase in articles on rural topics in the pages of their newspaper the Giornale della donna. Some of these are simply romanticized accounts of happy harvest scenes10 although a few did look at more practical issues and there were occasional calls for middle-class women to get involved. In February 1933, for example, the paper’s editor wrote: ‘How persuasive, how helpful, educated and intelligent women could be, if they would spread propaganda and advice to peasant women, if they showed more interest in their work, proving that they really love agriculture, the life and strength of our Nation!’11 Such articles, however, did not press for the donne fasciste themselves to take on this task, although some did occasionally encourage them to play a part in specific rural campaigns such as the promotion of silk farming.12 Rurally based activities were also suggested for the girls’ groups.13 At this point, however, women who were interested in such questions could get involved in the FNFMR and, for most FF members, rural areas were still simply the setting for children’s summer camps, the place they went to assist riceworkers once a year or where they took their own holidays. With only a few isolated exceptions (such as the involvement of certain Roman Fasci Femminili in some FNFMR training initiatives)14 the vast majority of their activities remained urban. It must be concluded, therefore, that this new task was simply imposed on the Fasci Femminili, not actively sought by them. The announcement of its foundation in the Giornale della donna (only on page 2 because the front page was taken up by the birth of a royal baby) was the first mention of the new section.15 The explanation for the transfer must be sought elsewhere. One contributory factor may have been the fact that, after a long struggle between the landowners’ organizations and the unions to recruit smallholders, the question had been resolved by moving all who belonged to either organization into what was effectively an autonomous federation,16 albeit under the aegis of the landowners’ confederation, on 9 April 1934. This created a potentially anomalous situation since it meant that, in smallholding families, women were supposed to 79

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join the labour unions while the head of household belonged to the employers’ organization.17 Far more important than this bureaucratic anomaly was, of course, the broader context of Starace’s reform of the Fascist Party. In the 1920s PNF membership had been limited largely to active supporters of the regime. Indeed, between 1925 and 1932, membership was closed to new adult members, except (from 1926) for those moving up from the youth organizations annually with the so-called leva fascista.18 This was in order to stem the opportunistic rush to join by those who wanted to jump on to the bandwagon once the regime was established in power and to reserve the benefits of membership for those who had proved their loyalty during the early days. At the same time, some of these selfsame activists were purged to eliminate potential internal opposition to Mussolini. By the 1930s, however, there was no longer any real threat to his power from within the Party ranks and, indeed, following the process of ‘normalization’, the Party itself did not have a great deal of power. Under Achille Starace, PNF Secretary from December 1931 until October 1939, the PNF took a new direction. Historians have concurred in their criticisms of Starace, seeing him as unintelligent and unimaginative. De Felice, for example, depicted him as: ‘a man lacking in intelligence, with a narrow-mindedly militaristic, and not at all political, outlook, which led him to mistake the outer form, the appearance of things, for their substance’.19 The reform for which he is most famous, the opening up of the PNF to millions of new members and its transformation into a truly mass organization, is generally deemed to be little more than his carrying out the orders of Mussolini, to whom he gave total, unswerving and uncritical loyalty. Under Starace the Party also became increasingly choreographic. This was the era of the great rallies, rituals and marches of the regime. It was also the period of the height of the cult of the Duce20 as epitomized by the absurd slogan ‘Mussolini is always right’. The 1930s was also the period in which the Party became increasingly bureaucratic, with innumerable orders and directives about the most minor details raining down on Provincial Federations. All this stifled new thinking and brought the regime into disrepute, for Starace’s fanaticism and obsession with petty details were seen as a joke by many. The reopening of the gates of the Party in October 1932 (on the tenth anniversary of the March on Rome)21 and the launching of the new policy of ‘going to the people’,22 led to a huge recruitment drive for both the Party and its ancillary organizations. Although, in its early years, fascism had attracted many with true political commitment, after Starace’s reforms, the Party ranks increasingly encompassed many who lacked such deep-rooted loyalties. Although the mass mobilization was supposedly the means by which Italians would be reforged anew, in practice the meaning of Party membership became progressively diluted and the passion and spiritual commitment of the early years was replaced by a situation where outward adherence became more important than true belief. This diminished meaning of the Party card in the new situation 80

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is fundamental to understanding the role and significance of the Massaie Rurali section. By 1934 a range of Party sections or ancillary organizations embraced many categories of adults and there were various youth sections classified according to age and gender.23 This was not, however, enough for Starace, whose grand design envisaged that eventually every single Italian from every region, every age group, every class and each gender would find a niche somewhere in the Party. Some sections of the population still eluded recruitment and he aimed to gradually mop them up by the creation of new organizations and sections. The incorporation of the FNFMR into the heart of the PNF, as part of this project, had great potential to swell Party membership numerically, as its target group was enormous. The fact that Starace’s mass mobilizing aspirations extended even to such previously largely apolitical sections of the population serves only to confirm the all-embracing intentions of his project. The Massaie Rurali differed from certain other fascist mass organizations, such as the OND, whose primary aim was to co-opt for the regime potentially hostile groups, in particular, the working class. The section for peasant women, by contrast, attempted to bring politics to those who had previously largely remained extraneous to the clash of political ideas. The desire to mobilize the female peasantry was further stimulated by the fact that some observers in this period believed that women were important to stemming urbanization. It was they, more than men, who desired the comforts of city life. As mothers, it was argued, they could influence their children to stay on the land.24 Starace concurred with this and saw peasant women as full of ‘ruralizing’ potential. As the core of the rural family, he felt that they could be a key to preventing the desertion of the land for towns and cities and become a means of bringing propaganda into the heart of every peasant home. The new section, he hoped, would enable the Party to ‘penetrate’ into every nook and cranny of rural Italy. He spelled out this ambitious and undoubtedly somewhat unrealistic aim in a report to the Fascist Grand Council in 1935. In his view: The importance of this organization, particularly from a political point of view, is obvious. With the Massaie Rurali sections, even in the countryside we can achieve a capillary network, which will enable us to reach into every farmhouse and cottage.25 Henceforth, the technical activity was to be little more than an enticement to win members over to the organization’s political mission and expose them to a political message. This was stated quite explicitly (although not publicly) some years later, in 1940, by Party chief Mario Mazzetti. As he noted in a letter to Vincenzo Lai (Head of the Farmworkers Union), rejecting a union bid to retake control of the Massaie, in the view of the Party hierarchs, the fundamental purpose of the Massaie section was not farm training at all but: 81

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to bring fascist propaganda into the most peripheral areas through the housewife who is the core of the rural family. The most important concept is, therefore, political organization. The economic activities are only complementary and should always be thought of in relation to the principal aim. The Duce, in the orders he recently gave to the National Directory, insisted, as regards the decentralization of the Party, that the Massaie Rurali must stay in the Fasci Femminili as a reward for the activities they have organized and the important results achieved.26

Structure Despite this new political direction, the corporative organizations retained an important role after the transfer and created a special Massaie Rurali Office in the farmworkers’ union headquarters in Rome. The division of labour between them and the Party, and the hierarchical structure of the new organization, were laid out in the founding regulations: Art 3 – Technical assistance to the massaie rurali is the responsibility of the Fascist Farmworkers’ Confederation according to the directives issued by the PNF Secretary. Art 4 – In each Fasci Femminili Provincial Delegation a Massaie Rurali Provincial Section will be set up. It will be run by the Fiduciary and one of her collaborators, assisted by a Committee, chaired by the Federal Vice-Secretary. These provincial committees contained corporative representatives (one from the farmworkers’ union and one from the employers union), the director of the Cattedra Ambulante of the provincial capital city as well as representatives of the Handicrafts Board, of ANFAL (National Fascist Association of Women Artists and Degree Holders) and of ONMI. This structure was mirrored at the lower level. In each local Fascio Femminile (by now there was one attached to every Fascio di Combattimento27) a Massaie section was founded, run by the FF Secretary and one of her collaborators. Here too, there was a Committee, again chaired by a man – the Secretary of the local Fascio di Combattimento, containing local representatives of the farmworkers’ and farmers’ unions, one from the Handicrafts Agency and one from ONMI. The regulations also stated that: Art 6 – The Massaie Rurali sections are administered by the Fasci Femminili. Art 8 – Federal Secretaries will be responsible for co-ordinating, in each province, the activities of organizations with similar aims.28 82

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This basic structure was built upon. Although initially the FF Provincial Fiduciaries were in charge, in 1935 specialized officials (Massaie Rurali Provincial Secretaries) were appointed.29 In January 1937, new organizational strata were added. Now each Fascio Femminile had to have its own Massaie Rurali section, each with its own Secretary. In addition to this, with the aim of reaching remoter areas, in villages and hamlets too small to have their own Fascio Femminile, groups were created called the ‘Massaie Rurali Nuclei’ (run by a ‘Nucleus Leader’). They were subordinate to the Secretary of the nearest Massaie section.30 The foundation of the new section also had an impact on the structure of the Giovani Italiane and Giovani Fasciste groups. By 1935 their specialized subgroups included one for ‘young rural housewives’. Although the 1936 regulations allowed members to belong to more than one of these subgroups, so that peasant girls and young women could, for example, also join sports or cultural groups, if they were available locally, eventually class distinctions became more formalized as membership grew. Mirroring the situation in the adult Fasci Femminili, those from peasant families began to pay a different membership subscription than those destined to become donne fasciste and their membership cards were stamped ‘rural’.31 By September 1938, orders were issued that those in the ‘young rural housewives groups’ would graduate automatically into the Massaie Rurali at the age of 21 (or earlier upon marriage) and that, furthermore, many of their activities would simply consist in sharing those organized for the adult massaie.32 As the organization expanded the administrative load increased. Already some of this was being dealt with by Rachele Ferrari del Latte but gradually more help was needed. One solution would have been to give the organization another President but, instead, what were effectively paid administrators were appointed from the FF faithful. The first of these, Tina Marino, FF Provincial Fiduciary from Ravenna, was employed to work in the Massaie Rurali office in Party Headquarters from January 1936. Marino, however, did not last long. She left after less than a year as she was offered a permanent position teaching in a grammar school. Her attempts to stay in Rome, by requesting a secondment from her teaching post to Party duties, failed. The fact that Party hierarchs refused to pull the necessary political strings on her behalf suggests that they were less than happy with her performance.33 She was soon replaced by a highly experienced political activist – Clara Franceschini. Franceschini, who had been FF Provincial Fiduciary in Pavia34 for some 12 years, had dedicated much of her adult life to the Party. Born in 1900 in Marzabotto (Bologna) she joined the Party on 17 June 1921 and was actively involved in founding the first Fasci Femminili in Pavia. As Provincial Fiduciary from 1925 she had been involved in various Party welfare initiatives35 (she was, for example, ONMI Provincial Vice-President for many years) but, in particular, with one which well prepared her to work with the Massaie Rurali, the annual assistance to riceworkers. Trained as a teacher, at the time she began 83

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work in Rome she held a paid position as Director of the Pavia children’s summer camps. Paid employment was vital to her as, unlike many female hierarchs, Franceschini came from a modest background and her earnings were needed to support some of her family, including her elderly parents.36 Franceschini was appointed as Head of the Massaie Rurali Office in December 1936. The following month she also became a Party Inspectress,37 making her one of the first two to be appointed to this new position (together with social work and nursing expert Itta Stelluti Scala Frascara). The role of the Inspectresses was not to make policy but to supervise and co-ordinate the work of the Provincial Fiduciaries, ensuring that national policy was implemented locally. Once in Rome she was soon given new responsibilities. She was put in charge of the training programmes to prepare women for ‘life in the empire’ as well as SOLD (the section for women workers) when it was set up in October 1937. From October 1938 she was also receiving a monthly pay-cheque from the industrial workers’ confederation.38 Franceschini was clearly an able organizer and politically reliable. According to De Grazia,39 in 1938, she was even named as the first woman to serve in the Party Directory, although this appointment never actually took place. Her ability to really shape the Massaie Rurali, however, was certainly limited by the fact that she had little help (until January 1938, she was assisted for all the Massaie and SOLD work by only a single clerical worker40) and by the fact that, unlike Terruzzi who had been President of the organization, she was, despite her political credentials, little more than a paid administrator carrying out orders. It does seem likely, nonetheless, that Franceschini was at least unofficially consulted on some policy matters and this was formalized when Starace gave her a place on the new Massaie Rurali Technical Committee, set up in February 1938 to provide much needed national co-ordination. The Committee’s job was, each year, to draw up: ‘a practical programme of all the various technical, economic and welfare activities of the Massaie Rurali sections, guiding them and strengthening the massaie’s contribution to national autarky’.41 Apart from Franceschini, only a handful of other women were to sit on the Committee – one other Party Inspectress, a domestic science teacher and one or two other FF representatives. In fact the first Committee had only three female members. The required ‘domestic science teacher’ was Anna Garin42 whilst Marziola Pignatari took her seat for the Fasci Femminili. The choice of Pignatari, who was simply a clerical worker in the FF office, rather than a prominent Provincial Fiduciary, suggests a desire to limit women’s political influence on the Committee.43 Angiola Moretti joined in April 1938. Moretti was still in charge of the Party Women’s Colleges, one of which had just become the training centre for Massaie technical leaders (see Chapter 7). Most of the Committee, however, was male, a mixture of ‘technical experts’ and political representatives. In 1938 these included, amongst others, Franco Angelini and Mario Muzzarini (Presidents of the two farming corporative bodies), Carlo Bergamaschi (Head of ONMI), a party inspector, ministerial 84

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representatives, delegates from relevant technical organizations such as the head of the fascist veterinarians’ union and ‘experts’ such as Italy’s leading poultry specialist Federico Clementi.44 In June 1940 Franceschini was confirmed as in charge of the Massaie Rurali, to be helped by Inspectress Laura Marani Argnani who was given responsibility for: ‘controlling the activities of the Massaie Rurali sections and rural autarkic activities’.45 Soon after this, however, there was a further shake-up that temporarily displaced Franceschini as the most important female figure in the organization. This job was given to Countess Laura Calvi Roncalli, Fasci Femminili Fiduciary in Bergamo, who had recently risen to National Inspectress rank.46 Calvi Roncalli’s other tasks were defined as ‘economic and autarkic activities (working with the relevant organizations and institutions); the exploitation of national produce; the fight against urbanization, the education and training of fascist rural families’. In this reshuffle, Angiola Moretti (National Inspectress since December 1938) was confirmed in her role as supervisor of the Party Colleges.47 Franceschini was entrusted with the ‘protection of the race; liaison with ONMI and ECA; training of maternal home visitors; women’s training for life in the colonies’. The new connection with ONMI was effectively a promotion as it brought with it a large monthly pay-cheque.48 Calvi Roncalli did not, however, last long in the job. In January 1941 she broke her arm in a car accident whilst returning from inspecting the Aosta Fasci Femminili and so Franceschini was, once again, put in charge of the Massaie.

Funding According to the founding regulations (Art 6): ‘Expenditure will be met by income from membership subscriptions and from contributions from local and farming organizations.’49 This, however, was not unproblematic. Initially the idea of raising the cost of membership to improve the funding available for activities to 2 lire per annum was considered but not implemented50 and the subscription remained pegged at the extremely low level of 1.50 lire per annum right up until 1943. Of this, 0.70 lire went back to Party Headquarters, which then gave 0.50 of it to the farmworkers’ union towards the cost of producing the newspaper. This left a mere 0.80 lire to fund local activities. This very cheap membership card compared very favourably with the 6–12 lire necessary to join the Fasci Femminili. The price clearly facilitated Massaie recruitment but it meant that money, throughout the whole period of the organization’s life, was always short. One small source of income was the profit made by Party Headquarters on sales of chickenfeed to members. These sums (359,969 lire in 1938) were distributed among the provincial federations. Headquarters also made small contributions to national competition prizes, spent a little on clerical work and made the occasional subsidy to local federations. There was also some funding from Ministries and other bodies, such as the prizes for the childcare 85

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competitions which were financed by the maternity organization ONMI. In most cases, however, it was up to local federations and groups to locate their own sources of funding. This could mean, in practice, simply transferring monies from elsewhere in the Federations’ budgets,51 something that was facilitated by the fact that Massaie Rurali accounts were simply integrated into the overall FF budget. On occasion monies could be raised by levying the donne fasciste. A circular sent out to the various Fasci Femminili of the Province of Perugia in 1938 typifies this situation. Under the heading ‘Finance’, it suggests that: ‘Whenever the Fascio’s financial needs require it, Secretaries can ask better off members to make a special donation.’52 In October 1940, however, national orders forbade this extra, somewhat unpredictable, fundraising method. Donne fasciste were now to pay only the set membership rate although by then public sector employees were charged a hefty 0.4 per cent of their annual salaries.53 Certain Federations resolved the problem by spending virtually nothing and restricting Massaie activities to those which attracted finance from other organizations or which could be carried out by volunteer Fasci Femminili labour. In 1939–40 the Agrigento Federation, for example, spent a mere 9,746 lire on the Massaie Rurali out of a total annual expenditure of 254,198 lire.54 Admittedly Agrigento was far from the most active province but accounts of many other provincial federations show a not dissimilar situation.55 The precarious funding situation created a good deal of work for the organizers particularly as they were already carrying out a range of other activities with meagre finances.56 The foundation of the Massaie meant that the donne fasciste had to devote time to persuading teachers to give lessons free of charge or to encouraging local firms to demonstrate their political allegiance by donating goods for prizes or offering discounts to members. Frequently they simply resorted to traditional charity-style methods. In 1935, for example, a lottery was held in Mantua to raise money for the local section.57 In 1936, in Reggio Emilia: ‘All the Fasci in the Province have organized lotteries, lucky dips, performances, dances, concerts’ and the FF of the provincial capital raised 20,000 lire from a single lucky dip.58

Organizers and peasants: class hierarchies reinforced The new arrangements placed the Massaie Rurali clearly under the control of the donne fasciste. Previous to this the Fasci Femminili had contained few peasant women and were hardly suitable in their existing form to recruit them in large numbers. A special section was created, as it would have been unthinkable to simply distribute Fasci Femminili membership cards to all FNFMR members. The recruitment of large numbers of poor peasants to the welfare-orientated middle-class Fasci Femminili would have threatened its very nature: the donne fasciste were meant to minister to and supervise the poor – not be the poor themselves. The inherent inequality between the different parts of the Fasci Femminili was not, of course, explicitly spelled out in Massaie propaganda. 86

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Where it was commented upon it tended to be in terms of presenting the peasant women as needy persons requiring the kind ministrations of the middle-class ladies. Frequently patronizing terms like ‘these humble and hardworking women of the fields’ were used.59 According to one local Fascio Femminile newspaper in early 1943, as far as the Massaie Rurali were concerned: ‘PNF membership makes them proud, especially if it is made clear to them that there is no difference between them and the donne fasciste.’60 This, however, was totally untrue. Fascism, for all its rhetoric about the end of class conflict, mobilized women in a manner that quite clearly reinforced rather than diminished class divisions. It was, of course, a core role of the donne fasciste to make ‘class co-operation’ appear to function for, in much propaganda, it was their work which was primarily featured in lists of the ‘achievements of the regime’. Their activities, such as the running of children’s holiday camps, the provision of facilities for poor mothers and so on, was supposed to ‘spread the feeling that the Party is watching over and interested and concerned with the living conditions of humble people so that, as far as possible, their poverty and discomfort can be alleviated’.61 The running of the Massaie Rurali was, however, a very new type of enterprise for the majority of Fasci Femminili members. Apart from a few who had been involved in the UMC or the FNFMR, or those, like Clara Franceschini, who had dealt annually with riceworkers, most had little or no experience of peasants and certainly knew nothing of rabbit breeding and vegetable growing. The only peasant women they knew personally were their own domestic servants. By retaining collaboration with the fascist corporative bodies, however, the rural ignorance of many of the lady organizers was not seen as problematic. The unions, together with the Cattedre Ambulanti, were to provide the farm training, whilst the Fasci Femminili would concentrate on organizational and political matters. Their job was to ensure that the new section fulfilled its primary role, that of forging a sense of belonging to nation and regime amongst the rural masses. Although Starace’s project meant that the Massaie became full Party members, the role of the peasant women themselves in the organization was always fairly passive. Admittedly, in some areas at least, Massaie members could rise to become ‘nucleus leaders’. In Leghorn, for example, lists of local organizers in PNF archives (relating to semi-urban areas fringing the provincial capital) for 1942 show that the nucleus leaders here were massaie not donne fasciste.62 Exactly what this meant is, however, unclear since massaie could sometimes include farm stewards or even landowners (see Chapter 9). In the case of riceworkers the ‘prime mondine’ all became nucleus leaders.63 According to the regulations of the Fasci Femminili, the nucleus leaders ‘do propaganda and welfare work in all the smallest rural villages’.64 The Leghorn documents afford a rare insight into the role of these figures. Here at least, they seem to have carried out quite a lot of the day-to-day work of the organization such as recruitment and advertising competitions. In the A. Mussolini District 87

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Group: ‘The Nucleus Leaders bring newspapers and orders to the members, they collect rabbit skins’65 and in Valle Benedetta: ‘The Massaie Rurali Nucleus Leaders have distributed bran and bird-seed to the members.’66 Another report (undated but clearly during the Second World War) praised a nucleus leader who ‘has been active in distributing chicken-feed vouchers. She has collaborated with the Section Secretary with the successful organization of the Montenero rally, collected sugar from the massaie to distribute to the wounded and visited the “vegetable gardens of war” in her capacity as a member of the special Committee set up to do this. She has proposed 8 new members.’67 Ordinary members rarely rose any higher than this, effectively the lowest rung of the pecking order of Fasci Femminili officials. At provincial level the FF Provincial Fiduciary gave orders to the Massaie Rurali Provincial Secretary who in turn was in charge of the Secretaries of the Massaie Rurali sections. In the local context the Section Secretaries were also under the command of the local FF Secretaries. The nucleus leaders came at the very bottom of this chain of command.68 In Leghorn ordinary members failed to move even the one tiny step up to become Section Secretaries. These were all recruited from the ranks of the donne fasciste. It is possible, however, that this was not so everywhere. There is evidence for this in some application forms from massaie rurali requesting cut-price sewing machines which are conserved in the Central Archives. Amongst these are a handful who had held organizational positions. Some of them, like Augusta Mantovan from Venice and Filomena Pastore of Benevento, were nucleus leaders but there are also forms from two Massaie members (Eugenia Micheletti from Vercelli and Antonietta Giorini of Treviso) who gave their rank as Massaie Rurali Secretaries.69 Again, what this means exactly is unclear, given that middle-class women in rural areas might have dual Massaie and FF membership. Fragmentary evidence relating to other areas seems to suggest that it was unusual for peasant women to rise to local Secretary rank. In a description of training courses in Varese for Massaie Rurali Secretaries, published in Domus rustica in 1940, for example, it was made clear that the trainees themselves were not peasants. They were described as ‘hierarchs, who are directly in contact with working massaie’.70 It also seems significant that in the didactic dialogues published in many issues of L’azione della massaia rurale the fictional leader of the local section, ‘Signora Rosa’, is not depicted as a peasant. She runs a pharmacy. Undoubtedly some of the local leaders were of much higher social standing than this, including women from landowning families. Many local organizers were, in practice, teachers and it is probable that the vast majority of local Section Secretaries were, as in the FNFMR period, primary school teachers or other similar figures who were of slightly higher social status than the local peasantry. In Reggio Emilia, for example, nearly all local organizers were primary school teachers.71 This was probably true elsewhere too. A good number of local training courses were run by the Massaie organization specifically for such teachers. In the late 1930s, for example, a special 88

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three-month lecture course in animal husbandry was held at Turin University for rural primary school teachers to train them for work with the Massaie. Another example is a training course run for ‘Massaie Rurali leaders’ in Aquila (Abruzzo) which was attended by ‘40 village primary teachers’.72 Of course, to simply define primary teachers as middle-class is slightly misleading. Mussolini’s mother, for example, an icon of fascist propaganda and generally represented as a kind of peasant, was in fact a primary teacher. Definitive studies have not yet been carried out on the social origins of primary school teachers under fascism but Marcello Dei’s research has suggested that many were of urban, lowermiddle-class origin.73 A few children from peasant families were beginning to appear in teacher training colleges by this period74 although these were more likely to be male. Dei’s study shows that female primary teachers tended to be of a slightly higher social origin than their male counterparts. The higher hierarchical levels were generally more unequivocally middle- or upper-class. A light-hearted description of the provincial secretaries on a summer training course in 1938 portrays them as of varied ages and professional backgrounds, including both married and unmarried women: we were a varied crowd: there were some very young women who were already true activists, young mothers, women in the afternoon of their busy day, comrades who work in farming, teaching, the professions or the domestic hearth and even sport. And there were women ‘with white hair and weary hearts’ . . .75 In terms of social class, however, they were far less diverse. As far as can be discovered from the rather scanty documentation which has survived, all the provincial secretaries were middle- or upper-class, mostly secondary school teachers and probably urban. This fact emerges from formal reports sent back to Party Headquarters from the provincial federations (all from 1940), which include the names and sometimes also the professions of local hierarchs.76 Admittedly it is impossible to classify the many Massaie Rurali provincial secretaries who are simply listed as ‘housewives’ but where professions are indicated, they are all middle-class forms of employment. Overall, the social origins of the Massaie Rurali provincial secretaries seem to have differed little from that of other Fasci Femminili hierarchs. The most common profession listed is that of school teacher (in Pisa, Piacenza, Gorizia and Pescara in 1940, for example). These were mainly middle school or secondary teachers but it was possible, very occasionally, for a primary school teacher to rise to this position, such as Maria Pugliese, who was Taranto Provincial Secretary in 1940.77 Even some of those listed as housewives were probably former teachers like the Leghorn Massaie Rurali Provincial Secretary in 1939 who, although described as a housewife and mother of four children, also had a teacher training certificate.78 Many had political or farming connections like the Pavia Massaie Provincial Secretary Ida Branchini. She came from the family of the local prominent 89

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agricultural expert Arnaldo Branchini who was the director of the Pavia Cattedra Ambulante as well as editor of the local farming paper L’Alba agricola. Ida Branchini’s connections were further reinforced by the fact that her husband Mario Bisi was a local fascist hierarch.79 Some like Anna Carnevalini, MR Secretary in Viterbo in 1940, were landowners or simply, like Maria Gavazzi of Pistoia, described as ‘well-to-do’. Wealthy aristocrats were not absent: Vicenza’s Massaie Secretary, Lucrezia Borghia, was a Countess and her counterpart in Rome, Clarice Incisa della Rocchetta was so rich that, in 1937, she was able to donate the staggering sum of 100,000 lire to her local Federation.80 These often stark class differences between the two groups, the middle- and upper-class organizers and the poor members, doubtless created many tensions, and the patronizing manner of the lady organizers (which is quite clear from many of their writings) must have offended many. As Chiara Saraceno has noted: The attempts by the fascist ‘ladies’ to indoctrinate working women on the best ways to rationalize housework and on how to have a lovely home must have seemed similarly ridiculous and insulting. An elderly riceworker I interviewed some time ago still had bitter memories of this.81 Such attitudes often emerge in FF writings on the topic. To give but one example, in ‘Letters to Maria’, published in the Fasci Femminili newspaper, the urban middle-class author speaks of how lucky peasant women are to live on the land and refers to the Massaie Rurali organizers as ‘good, maternal leaders’.82 Such eulogies of the glories of rural life, however, rarely included the idea that the donne fasciste themselves should try to return to live on the land.83 Differing uniforms served to reinforce this hierarchical situation. On public occasions the donne fasciste donned smart, dark, severely tailored woollen suits in winter or pale safari suits in summer with only a small badge to indicate their rural role. The peasant women, on the other hand, usually wore, for photoshoots and ceremonial occasions, regional costumes of various types. From July 1937 (in time for the first great Party rally for women in Rome) they too got ‘uniforms’. These were simply ivory-coloured headscarves made of a mix of rayon and jute. Often worn as neckerchiefs, they were decorated with a trellis border (initially green but soon changed to red because deemed too drab at demonstrations84), ears of wheat, flowers (including poppies to reinforce the cornfield motif), the fascio littorio and the word ‘Duce’ printed repeatedly in large letters. In December 1938 a metal badge was added, designed to be worn on ordinary clothing. The cheapness of this ‘uniform’ (the scarf cost only 3.70 lire in 1937 and the badge a mere 0.75 lire compared with 50 lire for the Fascio Femminile badge alone) may have helped recruitment but the differing uniforms were a sharp visual reminder that there was more than one way to join the Party. As Salvatici has noted, in published images of the organization: 90

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Plate 2 A massaia rurale displaying the kerchief. (ACS, MRF, b.90)

Where you see massaie rurali beside fascist home visitors and Fasci Femminili officials, the contrast is blatant. With their gloves, their little hats and stiff in their black uniforms, the organizers stand out among the confused groups of peasant women, whose steady, orderly and disciplined leadership, they represent.85 In the Massaie Rurali section the donne fasciste played an active role and the founding of the new section had a considerable impact on them. This can be seen in their press. By the late 1930s, in the pages of their newspaper (which, by now, had been transformed largely into a dull mouthpiece of the regime, 91

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stuffed with pure propaganda and meekly accepting a series of clearly misogynous laws) pictures of Paris fashions gave way to photographs of farm life and rural ‘prolific mothers’ and there were increasing numbers of writings praising the healthiness and virtues of rural life. Female beauty was now represented as the beauty of a strong, healthy peasant woman, who had no need of elegant clothes and make-up.86 Reports of Massaie activities appeared with increasing frequency. All this reflected a real shift in Fasci Femminili activities which now broadened to include managing the accounts for the distribution of chickenfeed, organizing excursions and exhibitions, inspecting homes and henhouses, fundraising, establishing section units for rabbits and chickens, teaching domestic science courses and undergoing training themselves. These increased responsibilities87 kept them very busy and moved them more clearly into the heart of fascist policy. Tina Marino summed this up in 1936: whilst making the massaie rurali into active members of the household economy, we have expanded the sphere of activities of not only rural women but also urban women, who find themselves, in this new social task entrusted to them, continuously engaged in activities related to the nation’s real needs. The Duce, in calling on women to be more socially aware, has given us new horizons, new duties.88 It does need to be emphasized, nonetheless, that although these middle- and upper-class women organized those below them, in practice they themselves had little power to decide what was to be done. Although the Party had decided to make extensive use of their labour, mere women were not given real policymaking power. The Provincial Fiduciaries had the power to choose the secretaries of the Fasci under them but they themselves were appointed by, and answerable to, the male hierarchs.89 Their programme of activities was established in Rome. The level of control that was imposed even in minor issues can be seen in the fact that the Fasci Femminili were not even given a say in the designing of the Massaie Rurali headscarf.90 Clara Franceschini, undoubtedly the most important female figure in the organization, never had anything like the real decision-making power of Terruzzi during her brief tenure as FNFMR President. The subordinate status of the female hierarchs is epitomized by their inferior pay. Until late 1940 even the FF Provincial Fiduciaries were unpaid. This meant that where women had to earn a living they effectively had to do two jobs at once.91 When the Party did begin to pay them, they got far less than men. At this time a Federale (the male head of the PNF at provincial level) earned 3,000 lire per month basic pay with increments of 500 lire for each year they had been in post. His female equivalent, the Provincial Fiduciary, earned only 1,000 lire per month basic pay with 250 lire extra for each year of service. Even the expenses they could claim for travel were lower. Moreover, where the 92

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Fiduciaries were teachers, seconded from their normal jobs (as was the case of many of them) the Party only topped up their salaries. Thus a Federal Secretary of a large province with six years’ experience would earn 8,000 lire per month, compared with only 3,500 for his female counterpart.92 In addition the men could top up their salaries with monies received for various other posts held or, not infrequently, from simple corruption. Corruption was not unknown among Fasci Femminili hierarchs93 but evidence of it is rare, although whether this represents a more moral attitude or simply less opportunity is unclear. The lack of power and status of the female hierarchs was not, however, simply a product of the gender prejudices of those in power. In the Staracean era, the PNF was construed as a kind of huge army blindly and faithfully carrying out orders, in which there was little room for initiative or innovative suggestions from the ranks. The Party, organized into a finely graded pecking order, was supposed to simply enact, without discussion or hesitation, the myriad and often petty instructions which emanated from Rome, in the shape of the frequently issued fogli di disposizioni and fogli d’ordini (‘sheets of directives’ and ‘sheets of orders’). In this situation it is clear why there was no place for someone like the opinionated, outspoken Regina Terruzzi and it is hardly surprising that her request for a place on the new Central Committee in 1938 was simply ignored.94 The rigidly hierarchical nature of the organization can be seen, for example, in a ‘diary’ of a Massaie Rurali section displayed in the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution.95 The ‘diary’, which contains nothing remotely personal, is the official account of the activities of this section (not identified but clearly somewhere near Lubliana in newly conquered territory). It simply dryly relates a series of meetings, most of which consist of little more than a higher up hierarch giving orders to those below.96 Unofficially, of course, there may have been far more room for local initiative than this highly sanitized report suggests, particularly given the need for creativity in raising funds locally. At the end of the 1930s, fascist women did begin to get more of a national leadership role again in the shape of the new Inspectresses and eventually the dictates of war, which burdened them with many tasks in the organization of the ‘home front’, led to an increase in their role, including, for the first time, a seat on provincial directories.97 Even so, when, in 1940, a single head was appointed to co-ordinate the activities of the women’s organizations at national level, the job went to a man, PNF Inspector Count Alessandro Frontoni.98 In early 1941 the Inspectresses began to meet as a Central FF Committee. Its role was to: ‘co-ordinate and drive forward the numerous activities which the Fasci Femminili are involved in, particularly at the present time, when all the Nation’s energies are needed to make their own contribution to our victory in the war’.99 The limits to its autonomy were, however, clear. It was chaired by the (male) Party Secretary and a number of other men sat on it. At the same time (from February 1941) each province created analogous committees to coordinate FF activities. 93

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Such changes meant, therefore, that the Fasci Femminili did slightly increase their influence during the late 1930s and early 1940s. No such transition can be seen for the peasant women. The nature of membership for the mass of members, the peasant women themselves, meant that they continued essentially to be receivers: receivers of welfare, of handouts, of training, of advice and of orders. They also received a good deal of propaganda that was delivered to them in a mixture of media, both old and new.

Notes 1 On this trip see R. Terruzzi, Crociera sentimentale da Trieste a Buenos Aires, Milan, Tip. Popolo d’Italia, 1936. 2 Typed letter from RT to Benito Mussolini, 5 Dec 1934, Nice, ACS, SPD–CO, 509.509, fasc. ‘Regina Terruzzi’. 3 See the typed letter from Osvaldo Sebastiani to RT, 27 Feb 1936 (in ibid.) which acknowledges her request. 4 Handwritten, unsigned note to Sebastiani dated 18 July 1935 in ibid. 5 ‘Il Regolamento per le Massaie Rurali, deliberato dal Direttorio del PNF’, AMR, no. 10, 1934, p. 1. 6 A list of the FF Fiduciaries appears in Almanacco, 1934, pp. 330–2. 7 There were exceptions. The MR Provincial Secretary for Genoa, Luisa Breda, for example, had been a local FNFMR organizer. The names of MR provincial secretaries in 1940 may be found in reports of inspections on PNF provincial federations conserved in ACS, PNF, SPEP. 8 ‘Il Regolamento per le Massaie Rurali’. 9 L. Arbizzani, ‘Le lavoratrici delle campagne durante il fascismo e la Resistenza nella Valle Padana’, Annali Cervi, no. 13, 1991, pp. 225–6. 10 See, for example, Anon., ‘Rigogliosa estate italiana’, Giornale, no. 15–16, 1–15 Aug 1933, p. 3, which included two pictures of young women with straw and wheat, a romantic harvest account by Catholic writer Maria Guidi and a similarly romanticized piece on Lombard agriculture by the Pavian Fiume veteran Maria Luisa Perduca. (On Maria Guidi, who in the postwar period became a Christian Democrat deputy, see E.S., ‘Protagoniste femminili del primo novecento’, Problemi del socialismo, no. 4, 1976, p. 246.) 11 P.B.A. (Paola Benedettini Alferazzi), ‘La donna nell’agricoltura’, Giornale, no. 3, 1 Feb 1933, p. 10. 12 See, for example, L. Giacomini, ‘Valorizzare la bachicoltura’, Giornale, no. 14, 15 July 1933, p. 4. 13 See M. Guidi, ‘Bonifica integrale’, Giornale, no. 23, 1 Dec 1933. 14 I. Stelluti Scala, ‘La donna e l’agricoltura’, Giornale, no. 6, 15 March 1934, p. 4. 15 ‘Le Sezioni “Massaie Rurali” nei Fasci Femminili’, Giornale, no. 19, 1 Oct 1934, p. 2. According to Laura Marani Argnani, Mussolini had already urged FF provincial fiduciaries, when he addressed them in Palazzo Venezia in April 1933, to help recruitment for the Massaie Rurali but this did not seem to lead to much interest at this point. (L. Marani Argnani, Le Massaie Rurali, Reggio Emilia, Pedrini, 1939, p. 3.) It is possible, however, that she misremembered the date and that this incident actually took place the following year. If so, this suggests that plans for the transfer were already in place by April 1934. 16 P.P. D’Attorre, ‘Un aspetto del fascismo nelle campagne bolognesi: il sindacato negli anni della grande crisi’, Annali Cervi, no. 7, 1985, pp. 221–2. See also Attilio Cervi, Relazione al Consiglio Nazionale del 29 aprile 1937-XIV del Segretario della

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17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24

25

26 27 28 29

30 31

Federazione, Rome, Fed. Naz. Fascista Proprietari e Affittuari Coltivatori Diretti, 1936. In this speech Cervi presented the decision as reflecting the superior social status of the ‘direct cultivators’ who, he argued, although actual tillers of the earth, had bettered themselves compared with landless labourers (p. 5). The transfer of the ‘direct cultivators’ did create problems for some members who ended up having to take out union membership too in order to get seasonal work. (Attilio Cervi, Relazione, p. 47.) A. Aquarone, L’organizzazione dello stato totalitario, Turin, Einaudi, 1965, p. 65. R. De Felice, Mussolini il Duce, vol. 1, Gli anni del consenso. 1929–1936, Turin, Einaudi, 1974, p. 216. See also S. Setta, ‘Achille Starace’, in F. Cordova (ed.), Uomini e volti del fascismo, Rome, Bulzoni, 1980. See, for example, L. Passerini, Mussolini immaginario, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1991; S. Falaschi-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle. The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini’s Italy, California University Press, 1997, ch. 2. On the background to this decision see, for example, P. Pombeni, Demagogia e tirannide. Uno studio sulla forma-partito del fascismo, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1984, pp. 231–9. This was more the official than actual date as recruitment had effectively begun the previous year. FO 81 26 May 1931 stressed ‘the need to boost the Fasci Femminili organization as much as possible’ and the need for ‘an active propaganda campaign to recruit a greater number of members to its ranks’. Mussolini used this phrase, subsequently frequently repeated, in a speech in Naples on 25 October 1931. ‘In domestic politics the watchword is this: go resolutely towards the people.’ (Scritti e discorsi, vol. 7, Milan, Hoepli, 1934, p. 317.) On the youth organizations see T.H. Koon, Believe, Obey, Fight: Political Socialization of Youth in Fascist Italy 1922–1943, Chapel Hill, North Carolina University Press, 1985. See, for example, A. Marescalchi, ‘Il ritorno alla terra e il compito della madre. II’, Giornale, no. 4, 15 Feb 1934, p. 5; A. Felici Ottaviani, ‘Massaie rurali’, Almanacco, 1936, p. 313. The latter argued that the Massaie Rurali was founded to make life seem better for women on the land ‘because they, more than men, suffered from the primitive inconveniences of their houses and of the boundless isolation’. This attitude did not go unchallenged. In 1935 a reader’s letter published in DF (no.17, 31 Aug 1935, p. 9) maintained that it was untrue that women led men to leave the land. Men, she believed, rarely listen to women and, ‘too often, men blame us women for their own mistakes’. A. Starace, ‘Relazione del Segretario PNF alla sessione invernale del Gran consiglio del fascismo, 14–15–16 febbraio 1935’, ACS, SPD–CR, b.31, fasc.13, p. 18. Marked ‘Riservata’. This notion of the Massaie’s mission often appears in reports about their activities. For example, the organization’s aim in Messina was described as ‘penetrating into poor families’. (ACS, SPEP, b.5, fasc. ‘Messina. Rapporto situazione politica 19–11–XVIII’, p. 10.) Letter from Mario Mazzetti to Vincenzo Laj, President of the Fascist Farmworkers Confederation, 22 Jan 1940, ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.125, fasc. 96/i. This was introduced with the 1932 Party Statute. See Aquarone, L’organizzazione dello stato totalitario, pp. 518–29. ‘Il Regolamento per le Massaie Rurali’. In Treviso, for example, the order to appoint the new officials was sent out to local FF in September 1935. They were chosen by the FF Fiduciaries together with the (male) Fascio Secretary. (Fed. Prov. FF Treviso, circular no. 80, 5 Sept 1935, in AST, PNF Conegliano, b.12, fasc. ‘PNF circolari Federazione Anno XXIII’.) ‘L’inquadramento dei Fasci femminili del PNF’, AMR, no. 1, 1937, p. 1. FD 974 5 Feb 1938. Giovani Italiane and Giovani Fasciste from working-class families now paid 2.50 lire (their cards were stamped ‘worker’) and those from peasant families 1.75 lire.

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32 See ‘Notiziario del Partito’ (hereafter ‘Notiziario’), AMR, no. 4, 1935, p. 1 and FD 1148 8 Sept 1938. 33 In September 1937 she married Gaetano Gibertini of Bologna. On Quintina (Tina) Marino, see PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.35, fasc. ‘Tina Marino’. 34 On the PNF in Pavia (albeit with virtually no information about Franceschini herself) see E. Signori, ‘Il Partito nazionale fascista a Pavia’, in M.L. Betri et al. (eds), Il Fascismo in Lombardia, Milan, Angeli, 1989, p. 87. 35 Her work in Party welfare was rewarded by a Gold Medal, a Silver Medal and an ONB special diploma of merit. (ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.10, fasc. ‘Clara Franceschini’.) 36 It was largely this which made her drive a hard bargain with the Party, insisting, for example, that they allow her to keep her well-paid job as holiday camp director and, furthermore, that they allow her to take extra days off in order to visit her family. Despite this, almost as soon as she had received her first pay-cheque she asked to be relieved of responsibility for the Massaie Rurali arguing that the money (1,560 lire) was not enough to offset the extra expense of living in a hotel in Rome. Instead she wished to retain the position of Inspectress but return to live in Pavia. This, however, was not accepted and she remained in post although she did continue to attempt to increase her salary (with little success). Her pay was supposedly 600 lire for her role as Inspectress and 900 for her Massaie work. (ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.10, fasc.‘Clara Franceschini’.) 37 See FD 713, 13 Jan 1937. 38 I am not certain what this was for but it was probably related to her work with the SOLD. 39 V. De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women. Italy 1922–1945, Berkeley, California University Press, 1992, p. 265. 40 Note from Franceschini dated 31 Jan 1938 in ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.10, fasc. ‘Clara Franceschini’. At this point an extra clerk was appointed and the office later did expand. In April 1940, for example, a Sant’Alessio graduate was transferred to the Central Office from her position as technical leader. (See ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.11, fasc. ‘Ida Guardamagna. Dirigente tecnica Massaie Rurali distaccata presso aa.ss.’) 41 FD 988 11 Feb 1938 reprinted in ‘Notiziario’, AMR, no. 3, 1938, p. 1. 42 Anna Garin was the author of Esempi di lezioni di economia domestica e di igiene domestica alle massaie rurali della Toscana, Florence, PNF, 1935. 43 Born in Monteleone di Calabro in 1904 to a middle-class family (her father was a judge), after completing a degree in Arts, Pignatari was Angiola Moretti’s secretary and typist from July 1927. After a brief break in the winter of 1928–9 to work as a teacher, she returned to the same post and, after Moretti stopped working there, she remained as a clerk in the FF office. There is little evidence that she was a committed fascist. Her PNF membership dated from July 1927 and there were no Party members in her family at this point. Her personnel file is full of disciplinary notes, which suggests a less than passionate dedication to her job. (ACS, DN, SV, Ser II, b.39, fasc.‘Pignatari Marzia’.) Eventually, however, she seems to have been converted enough to be a propagandist. On various occasions she gave speeches to the FF and published La partecipazione delle donne fasciste alla vita dell’impero, Rome, Fratelli Palombi, 1937. 44 The full list of those entitled to sit on the Committee was included in the 1939 revised Regulations. They were: ‘the President of the Fascist Farmers Confederation; the President of the Fascist Farmworkers’ Confederation; the ONMI Commissioner: a Party Inspectress; the Inspectress of the Party women’s colleges: the Vice-president of the Animal Husbandry Corporation; the Director General for Demography and Race from the Home Office; the Director General for Agriculture, the Director

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45 46 47 48

49 50

51 52 53

54 55 56

57 58 59 60 61 62

General of Production Planning and the Head of Animal Husbandry Services all from the Ministry of Agriculture; the Sectional Agricultural Inspector; a domestic science teacher; the Director of the Roman Poultry Centre; the Director of the National Rabbit-farming Institute in Alessandria; the Secretary General of the National Handicrafts Board; the National Secretary of the Fascist Union of Veterinarians; the Editor of La massaia rurale and one or two FF representatives as well as ‘other persons qualified to collaborate efficiently’. (PNF, Fasci femminili. Sezione massaie rurali. Operaie e lavoranti a domicilio. Regolamenti, Rome, Ist Poligrafico dello Stato, XVII E.F.) In 1940 they were joined by the Director for Animal Husbandry from the National Federation of Agricultural Producers’ Consortia. FD 159 30 June XVIII. On Marani Argnani see ch. 9. FD 182 23 Aug 1940. She was an Inspectress until 25 May 1943. Calvi Roncalli was so wealthy that, in 1942, she was able to donate her entire salary as Inspectress to charity. (ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.39, fasc. ‘Laura Calvi Roncalli’.) FD 182 23 Aug 1940. By this time Franceschini was beginning to earn really well (for a woman). From May 1940 ONMI paid her 3,500 lire per month. She also continued to earn L.1,500 from her holiday camp job as well as L.550 from the Party. (ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.10, fasc. ‘Clara Franceschini’.) ‘Il Regolamento per le Massaie Rurali’. The order to raise the cost came in PNF Circular 305, 10 Nov 1934, ‘Disposizioni concernanti il tesseramento ed il finanziamento delle Federazioni dei Fasci di combattimento e delle Organizzazioni dipendenti per l’anno XIII’. Only days later, however, it was reversed with Circular 307, 15 Nov. (ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.405, fasc. ’Sezione Massaie rurali’.) See the PNF central accounts for 1935–6 and 1936–7 in ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.264, fasc. ‘Varie e contributi’. Circular 105, 16 Mar 1938 from Perugia PNF Federation to the FF Secretaries. In ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.405. Circular 3/F/879, 1 Oct 1940 from Giovanni Montefusco (Head of PNF Administration Services) and Inspector A. Frontoni to the FF Provincial Fiduciaries, in ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.430, fasc. ‘Federazioni provinciali dei Fasci Femminili’. ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.799, fasc. ‘Ispezioni’. See, for example, the accounts for Bolzano in 1942 in ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.917. See, for example, the series of letters begging for extra funds the Massa Carrara FF Provincial Fiduciary sent to Mussolini almost annually in the mid-1930s, in which she noted, amongst lists of activities, that: ‘The organizational work is particularly intense because of the foundation of the Massaie Rurali groups.’ (Letter from Teresa Canesi Attuoni, 18 Jan 1937, ACS, SPD–CO, 509.311.) ‘Attività nelle provincie’ (hereafter ‘Attività’), AMR, no. 8, 1935, p. 2. L. Marani, ‘Relazione attività 1 semestre anno XIV. 30 aprile 1936’, ASRE, Gab Pref, b.52, fasc. 16 ‘Fascio femminile, Prof.sa Laura Marani’. N.C., ‘Massaie rurali’, DF, no. 4, 15 Feb 1936, p. 5. MMM, ‘Massaie rurali’, A Nessuno Seconde. Donne bergamasche in linea! Bollettino mensile della Federazione dei FF di Bergamo, no. 2, 1 Feb 1943, p. 1. FO 81 26 May 1931. Documents include references to the nucleus leaders of Ardenza, Vallebenedetta and of the A. Mussolini District Group all as ‘massaie’. The MR section secretaries for Antignano and for the Dino Leoni District Group are both listed as ‘fascists’. (ASL, PNF, b.58, fasc. ‘Fed FF Livorno. Nomine e dispense di Fiduciarie e collaboratrici 1937-1942’, sf. ‘Fed FF. Nomine a “Collaboratrice” 1942’.)

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63 Anon., ‘Tra manifestationi di devozione al Duce le mondine raggiungono i campi di monda’, La mondina, no. 2, 1938, p. 4 64 Article 19, PNF, Fasci femminili, Sezione Massaie rurali, Sezione operaie e lavoranti a domicilio. Regolamenti, Rome, Ist Poligrafico delle Stato, 1939–40, p. 10. 65 Report from A. Mussolini District Group, in ASL, PNF, b.58, fasc. ‘Fasci femminili 1927–43’. 66 ACL, PNF, b.58, fasc. ‘Fed FF Livorno. Nomine e dispense di Fiduciarie e collaboratori’. 67 Letter from the Secretary of the N. Giovanucci District Groups to the Area Inspectress, in ASL, PNF, b.58, fasc. ‘Fasci femminili 1927-43’. I have omitted names deliberately due to ‘privacy legislation’. 68 The pecking order for the female hierarchs at provincial and local level is set out in Art.5 of their regulations (Fasci femminili, Sezione Massaie rurali, Sezione operaie e lavoranti a domicilio. Regolamenti, p. 6). See also the diagram in ACS, MRF, b.90, f.151, sf.109. 69 ACS, PNF, DN, Ser II, b.105, fasc. ‘Corrispondenza e fatture relative all’assegnazione di macchine Necchi alle “Massaie rurali”’. 70 ‘Notizie ed Esempi’, DR, no. 3, 1940, p. 64. 71 A. Zavaroni, ‘La donna del fascio I. La donna che comprese il buon cuore del Duce’, L’Almanacco, no. 32, 1999, pp. 35–79. 72 ‘Attività’, AMR, no. 10, 1937, p. 2. 73 M. Dei, Colletto bianco, grembiule nero. Gli insegnanti elementari italiani tra l’inizio del secolo e il secondo dopoguerra, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1994, ch. 1. On female primary school teachers in the previous period see: S. Soldani, ‘Nascita della maestra elementare’, in S. Soldani, G. Turi(eds), Fare gli italiani. Scuola e cultura nell’Italia contemporanea, vol. 1 La nascita dello Stato nazionale, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1993; S. Soldani, ‘Maestre d’Italia’, in A. Groppi (ed.), Il lavoro delle donne, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1996. 74 See, for example, the analysis of the students at the Reggio Emilia college in the early twentieth century, in A. Petrucci, G. Giovanelli, Storia dell’Istituto ‘Matilde di Canossa’ (1860–2000), Reggio Emilia, Camellini, 1999, p. 96. 75 G. Cattaneo Adorno, ‘Lettera alla massaie’, AMR, no. 8, 1938, p. 3. See also the dreadful poem about this course by Pia Benini Falconi (Leghorn MR Provincial Secretary) which also describes the women as fairly varied in age, marital status, etc. (DR, no. 11, 1938, p. 203). 76 These are report forms of the Party’s ‘Disciplinary Office’ conserved in ACS, PNF, SPEP. 77 ACS, PNF, SPEP, b.23, fasc. ‘Taranto. Situazione gerarchica’. 78 ACL, PNF, b.58, fasc. ‘Fascio Fed FF, Cartelle personali A–Z’. 79 Signori, ‘Il Partito nazionale fascista a Pavia’, p. 87n. 80 ‘Notiziario’, AMR, no. 12, 1937, p. 2. Together with her husband, the aristocratic Incisa della Rocchetta, who was a lady-in-waiting to the Queen, also gave various other donations to Party organizations. See ACS, SPD–CO, 190.999, ‘Incisa della Rocchetta Mario e moglie Clarice di Roma’. 81 C. Saraceno, ‘Percorsi di vita femminile nella classe operaia’, Memoria, no. 2, 1981, p. 74. 82 DF, no. 30, 1941, p. 11. 83 For a rare example see the article by Laura Calvi Roncalli in which she urges the readers of La donna fascista to think about moving into the countryside. (‘Campagna e città’, DF, no. 21, 1940, p. 8.) 84 Circular 551 A, 4 August 1937. 85 S. Salvatici, ‘Modelli femminili e immagine della donna nella propaganda fascista con particolare riferimento alle fonti fotografiche’, tesi di laurea, Univ. di Firenze, 1992, p. 142.

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86 Ibid., pp. 190–9. 87 Such responsibilities could even have legal consequences. The Aquila Provincial Fiduciary, who mistakenly allowed a hand-woven carpet, on loan for an exhibition in 1937, to be sold, was successfully sued by the massaia who owned it. (See ACS, PNF, SV, Ser II, b.833, fasc. ‘Vertenza giudiziaria MR Tollis Emilia.) 88 T.M., ‘L’organizzazione fascista delle Massaie rurali alla fine dell’anno XIV’, AMR, no. 11, 1936, p. 1. 89 See the text of ‘Il Regolamento dei Fasci Femminili’, in Giornale, no. 3, 1933, p. 1. 90 The uniforms of the Party organizations were jointly designed by no less than Mussolini and Starace themselves. (See Setta, ‘Achille Starace’, p. 467.) In FD 726, 26 Jan 1937 Starace gave the following order: ‘The Fiduciaries of the FF Federations must stop taking initiatives relating to the Massaie Rurali kerchief and badge.’ 91 For example, Alina Manucci, Apuania Provincial Fiduciary in 1942, continued to work as a Headmistress until the payments were introduced. (ACS, PNF, DN, Ser II, b.836, fasc. ‘Pratica personale Fid FF Apuania’.) 92 This data is all taken from ‘Pratica personale Fid Prov dei FF’, ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.820. 93 See, for example, the report (dated July 1941) by PNF Inspector Bottari on the Taranto FF, which notes various malpractices such as the use for other ends (often ‘unnecessary expenses’) of funds collected for parcels to be sent to frontline soldiers and the selling of eggs supposedly collected for distribution in hospitals. (ACS, PNF, SPEP, b.23, fasc. ‘Taranto’.) 94 Typed letter from R. Terruzzi to Mussolini’s secretary, dated 14 Feb 1938, ACS, SPD-CO, 509.509. 95 The exhibition, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the March on Rome, was opened in a blaze of publicity on 28 October 1932 and ran for two years. It was staged twice after this, reopening on 23 September 1937 and again on 28 October 1942. The materials relating to the Massaie Rurali in this exhibition, mostly photographic, are undated but quite clearly destined for the third Mostra. On the Exhibition see M. Stone, ‘Staging Fascism: the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 28, 1993, pp. 215–43; E. Gentile, Il culto del littorio, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1993, ch. 5. 96 ‘Diario Sezione Massaie Rurali a.XIX’, ACS, MRF, b.91, fasc. 151, sf.11. 97 Signori, ‘Il Partito nazionale fascista a Pavia’, p. 87. 98 FD 181 22 Aug 1940. 99 ‘Notiziario’, MR, no. 2, 1941, p. 1.

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5 ‘INTO EVERY FARMHOUSE AND COTTAGE’ Propaganda in print

An analysis of the publications produced for the massaie rurali offers a useful insight into the political message the Party hoped to bring to rural women. Propaganda materials included pamphlets, calendars and almanacs. The most widely distributed propaganda material, however, was the newspaper, which continued to be received automatically by each member, usually through her local group.

The newspaper After the transfer into the PNF, the newspaper remained the responsibility of the farmworkers’ union1 but its content changed. It continued to describe itself as a technical publication (‘Technical Organ of the Massaie Rurali section of the PNF’) but the propaganda content escalated, first slowly, then in a vertiginous manner. It changed from a fairly lively but largely technical publication with some propaganda in 1933 and 1934 to a vehicle for a crescendo of propagandistic excess. Initially Cernezzi Moretti and Terruzzi were occasional contributors. Indeed in November 1935 the paper was still willing to publish a typically outspoken lead article by Terruzzi entitled ‘Education for Maternity’ which, despite its title, was actually a call for sex education for girls. More information, Terruzzi argued, would make them better mothers.2 This, however, was the last time the paper published anything so controversial. The future lay with nauseating floods of propaganda. As in the FNFMR period, AMR had a four-page broadsheet format. The front page was devoted mainly to political commentary. Page two included the informative if repetitive and dull regular feature on ‘Activities in the Provinces’ which listed local activities in a factual, congratulatory manner, as well as announcing future campaigns and events. This presented everything in an enthusiastic tone without discussion of problems or contradictions. Similarly unimaginatively presented was a section entitled ‘Party News’, which consisted largely in reprinting verbatim directives from Rome which local leaders were to follow. The third page, filled with technical articles and instructions for a whole host of useful tasks, ranging from how to dry fruit to how to combat poultry 100

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diseases, was potentially of greater interest to readers. The back page usually offered a useful list of market prices, a story and sometimes a didactic dialogue. The religious column ‘Spiritual Life’ disappeared after July 1934 and, although religious references were not absent, they were no longer a particular feature. Every issue contained many illustrations. The front page usually sported a picture of Mussolini (such as the annual picture of him harvesting the first wheat) or a photograph of massaie at a political event. On other pages, too, there were numerous photographs, usually depicting competition prizewinners, ‘prolific mothers’, Massaie events, stalls at exhibitions and so on. Almost everything included at least some propaganda. One of its principal, frequently repeated, messages was the virtues of the rural lifestyle and, in particular, the praiseworthy ‘fecundity’ of peasant women. The newspaper also spent much time stressing the achievements of the regime in favour of the peasantry in general and for rural women in particular. Much emphasis was placed on the importance of the massaia rurale’s role in bolstering up the rural family. She, it was argued, could stem the rural–urban shift by influencing her children to stay on the land. To cite but one typical example, the front-page lead article in the January 1937 issue put this in the following terms: You must love your lives and appreciate them fully, including educating your children to love the land. That way you are doing what is best for them. Believe me: if your son seems bright and quite intelligent, it would be best not to stop him loving farming, with loving intelligence you should get him interested in your life . . . make sure that he stays rural. And girls? Urbanization would probably destroy their happiness. Because it is only in the fruitful lifestyle of a farming household that a woman can be man’s ideal companion, sharing with him the ups and downs of work. Only there can she feel the strength and indestructibility of the family, bonded by common interests. It is enough to be a mother yourself to understand that motherhood is where women’s greatest joy is to be found. Anyway, for intelligent girls there is plenty of work in the countryside too. Here they can find many ways, and there will be many more, to earn an honest living.3 Another pervasive theme was patriotism and the massaie’s duty to and contribution to the nation. This surfaced repeatedly in numerous issues but with increasing intensity from the autumn of 1935 when, after Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, the League of Nations imposed economic sanctions. In this period (sanctions began on 18 November 1935) the newspaper became a strident weapon in the battle to mobilize the nation behind a common cause – economic self-sufficiency. Like women of other classes, the massaie were called upon to take part in the famous Giornata della Fede (a phrase with the dual meaning of ‘Wedding Ring 101

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Plate 3 Anti-sanctions propaganda in L’azione delle massaie rurali, no. 12, 1935, p. 1.

Day’ and ‘Day of Faith’).4 In grandiose public ceremonies, they handed over their wedding rings to be melted down for the war effort, receiving in exchange a plain, steel one. The role of rural women was, however, far from exhausted by these heavily symbolic occasions, when women appeared to have been joined in matrimony with the nation itself. In the battle for autarky all women were seen as important given their control of household consumption5 but none so more than the female peasantry who were both consumers and producers. As the newspaper put it: ‘Rural women, parsimonious, active, know their duty: save as much as possible, produce as much as possible.’6 At the core of this propaganda was the idea that the massaie had a pivotal role in defeating the enemy. In February 1936, for example, Tina Marino addressed readers in the following manner: the Massaia Rurale, whether she is a mother, a bride or the sister of a Soldier, is proud of this mission to which she must direct all her energy, because it is particularly to you, o Massaie Rurali, that the Duce has entrusted the important task of civil resistance . . . Massaie Rurali, to work! Be proud of the fact that you, humble and modest workers, are one of the most significant forces in the final victory because we will be victorious. The Duce is leading us! Massaie Rurali of Italy ‘TO US’!7

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All this led to an emphasis on their national economic and political importance. In March 1936, for example, the paper argued that: Italy will win not only because of the valour of our soldiers, but also because we women have all enlisted in the great economic battle. All Massaie Rurali cry with one voice that our men will not die in vain on the fiery soil of Africa. The blood of our soldiers will not be shed in vain, as it was on other occasions, because we will know how to defend what has been won, we mothers, brides and sisters, just as a mother knows how to defend her own child.8 Another example of this was in May 1936, when ‘victory’ in Ethiopia was announced. The role of the massaie was lauded in the following manner: ‘You, far from the least important, have participated with fascist fervour in the struggle. In your life of labour to increase national wealth and economic independence you must continue in the same direction and with the same spirit.’9 Great efforts were made to stress the idea that, in following the advice of the organization, women could benefit themselves at the same time as benefiting the nation. Typical of this was a slogan displayed in the National Agricultural Exhibition held in Bologna in the summer of 1935 which read ‘WHEN A MASSAIA RURALE RAISES RABBITS SHE IS HELPING BOTH HER OWN FAMILY AND THE NATION.’10 Once launched, the autarky campaign outlived the actual ending of the sanctions on 15 July 1936. It continued largely unabated as it had proved such a useful mobilization tool and autarky remained a core theme of Massaie propaganda. Much of this propaganda was written by female writers. None of them, unsurprisingly, were actual peasants themselves. After the withdrawal of Terruzzi and Cernezzi Moretti various new women came to the fore. The editors were always male but they rarely actually wrote for the paper11 and most male contributors were farming experts who stuck to technical subjects. Some writers stayed on from the earlier period. Guglielmina Ronconi,12 for example, a fairly regular contributor in the FNFMR period, continued to write for a while, mainly on political topics, until not long before her death in early 1936. Another element of continuity was Giuseppina Cattaneo Adorno, a Genoese Marchioness who had been deeply involved in both the UMC and the FNFMR. Despite the fact that she was a titled lady she had considerable domestic science expertise and enough technical farming knowledge to be the regular author of the ‘Tasks for the Month’ column (which covered seasonal information on farming and housework) during more or less the entire run of the paper. She also produced the patronizing didactic dialogues that, from May 1935 onwards, appeared sporadically on the back page. These featured a group of young massaie (‘Gina the young bride and some of her young friends’) who gathered together to listen to technical advice (mainly on domestic science) from their local Massaie secretary. 103

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Most of the other female contributors stuck to political topics. At first Tina Marino wrote most of the front-page lead articles but, after her sudden departure, Rachele Ferrari del Latte and Clara Franceschini became firmly established as the paper’s core political commentators. Del Latte had long been involved in journalistic writing. This specialism was officially recognized when, in 1941, her tasks as Inspectress were defined as ‘Culture: propaganda and press (in cooperation with the Fascist Cultural Institute, with the women’s GUF and with the Party Press Office).’13 Franceschini was also an experienced writer. In her years in Pavia, she had had a good deal of practice in writing for rural women as editor and contributor to the fascist broadsheet La mondina. From November 1934 Ferrari Del Latte had her own regular front-page column entitled ‘L’occhio sul mondo’ (‘Eye on the World’). This included reports on political events such as the annual celebrations of the anniversary of the March on Rome, and ‘news’ deemed of particular interest to the readership such as accounts of prize-giving ceremonies for the Battle for Wheat. There was also information on various fascist campaigns and enthusiastic accounts of the regime’s ‘achievements’ such as land reclamation, the extension of social insurance, the ‘improved’ lives of rice-weeders, the fight against tuberculosis and the wonders of holiday camps for poor children. From 1936 she covered increasing amounts of ‘news’ (often of extremely dubious factual accuracy) about foreign policy and Italy’s role in the series of wars it was fighting. The propagandistic content further escalated when the regular front-page lead articles were taken over by Clara Franceschini in February 1937. Franceschini, more than any other, was to become the ‘voice of the regime’ for the massaie rurali. Her articles for the paper ranged over a series of propagandistic themes from motherhood to foreign policy. Although herself unmarried and childless, she extolled maternity as rural women’s ‘sacred mission’ and their ‘most noble patriotic and social role’. In her view: ‘Any massaia who has earned the right to be called a good mother and a wise reggitrice of her own family, should be proud of it, and everyone will look at her as if she had a medal for heroism pinned to her chest.’14 She also stressed gender difference and the complementarity of male and female roles: If men give the podere the strength of their arms and their calm common sense, which is the best guarantee of the smooth running of every farming activity, women, and in particular, the reggitrici, watch over them with careful shrewdness, spur them on, advise them and comfort them. It is from this merging of aims, this harmony in work, that the efficiency of our farms and the prosperity of rural families stem.15 Her enthusiasm for propaganda seemingly knew no bounds and she faithfully endorsed successive fascist campaigns as soon as they were launched. In September 1938, for example, her front page article ‘Difendere e migliorare la 104

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razza’ (Protecting and improving the race) ‘explained’ and defended the new race laws as well as praising new legislation against female employment, which targeted white-collar workers, as a laudable contribution to the demographic campaign. Her articles were drenched in the devotional language of the cult of the Duce. Mussolini appears as a godlike figure who benevolently understands all peasant women’s needs and wishes. The massaie themselves are depicted as a vast army at his orders working resolutely and silently for the good of the nation. Behind such dreadful rhetoric lay an intriguing proposition – the novel idea that rural women were at the heart of government policy. This can be seen, for example, in Franceschini’s 1939 article ‘Race, Autarky, Empire’, three things in which, she argued, the massaie were deeply involved. They were important for racial policy as producers of children, for autarky as household managers and producers and for the Empire as colonizers of conquered land.16 Many of her other writings include the idea of the importance of the massaie to the nation. In 1939, for example, she wrote that: This year, once again, our Massaie have given farming activities all their most ardent and active contribution. After learning some useful technical notions, in courses taught in the relevant seasons, and after having improved their capabilities in this way, they have devoted themselves to the joyous toil of the fields with energy and resolution, without ever forgetting the important aim of all of their activity: national economic autarky.17 As the Second World War approached, her writings became increasingly inflammatory and divorced from reality. In early 1939, for example, she claimed that Italian soldiers had been: ‘victorious in all wars, in all eras and epochs they have known how to cover pages with glory’.18 By 1940, therefore, the paper had already been on a virtual ‘war footing’ for some time but Italy’s entry into the Second World War massively increased this trend. The June 1940 issue heralded the outbreak of hostilities with photographs of Mussolini and the King wearing soldiers’ helmets. The entire front page was given over to Mussolini’s speech announcing Italy’s intervention. This signalled the beginning of a period when Franceschini’s front-page column indulged in some of its worst propagandistic excesses. The column became, more than ever, a crescendo of distortions and lies about the victories of the Italian armies and the justness of the war. She began with a typical article entitled ‘Verso più alti destini’ (Towards higher destinies) which was basically a sloganistic tirade against the treacherousness of the Allies, presenting Italy’s intervention as necessary so that it no longer had to be a prisoner of the Mediterranean.19 Her commentaries included such appalling misrepresentations as: ‘International Jewry, which has found a final refuge for its criminal acts in England, has rejected calls inspired by a sense of humanity and generosity and 105

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has preferred to continue the fight, heedless of the extreme consequences which this will mean.’20 She repeatedly stressed the importance of peasant women to the war effort, comparing their role to the role of actual soldiers. Even in these circumstances, Italian women will respond to the Motherland’s call with faith and decisiveness. Ahead of everyone, the massaie rurali, strong and tenacious workers, have been given an important task, one that forms part of the defence of the Nation. Like soldiers who are serving the Motherland even when they are guarding a drum of petrol, in the same way our massaie rurali know that they are making a precious contribution to the Nation’s war effort. They are contributing to the improvement and the increase of autarkic production that, especially in agriculture, is extremely important, even if it might seem quite modest.21 In September 1940, when Laura Calvi Roncalli took over responsibility for the Massaie Rurali, her new duties included writing these lead articles. She started in a similar vein to Franceschini with an editorial on the theme of how the warmongering English were now huddled in their bomb shelters being taught a lesson by the valiant Italians. She also stressed the importance of the massaie in the war effort for: it is not only soldiers who fight wars: women too play a very important role and, among women, the massaie rurali are the front-line troops . . . We need to remember that we are all fascist women, even if we wear nice, big head-squares and colourful aprons instead of safari suits, and as such, we are all the Duce’s soldiers defending the economic front . . .22 After this, however, the aristocratic Roncalli seems to have run out of steam and she struggled dismally with her new task. More halting in her rhetoric, she proved a poor replacement for Franceschini’s confident prose and her January 1941 editorial, which included an exhortation to the massaie to contribute to the war effort by not gossiping in cafés and bars, betrayed a woeful ignorance of the lives of her supposed readership.23 The hierarchs may, therefore, have been relieved when Calvi Roncalli stepped down, preferring the experienced Franceschini, although the extremeness of her language, rather than converting them to the cause, may have simply perplexed her inexperienced readers. It is difficult, for example, to imagine what peasant women would have made of her invective against the ‘JudaicMasonic plutocracies’ in May 1941.24 There may have been similar problems with the garbled and triumphalist presentation of the events of war in Ferrari del Latte’s regular ‘Tempo di guerra’ (‘War-time’) which replaced ‘L’occhio sul 106

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mondo’ in 1940. Here all the news was good and even defeats were dismissed as minor setbacks in the march towards inevitable victory. This may, of course, have backfired, since victory was presented as being so easily attainable that readers may not have felt the need to make sacrifices. There was little incentive to eschew whatever possible personal gains could be reaped from the situation. In practice, the requisitioning and rationing system worked very badly in wartime Italy with many peasants preferring to sell their produce on the black market rather than hand it over to government stockpiles. This accounts for the increasingly menacing tones adopted in the columns of La massaia rurale (as AMR had been renamed in 1939) in exhorting peasant women to comply with the stockpiling system. In October 1941, for example, Franceschini’s editorial portrayed as treason the failure to produce as much as possible and take everything to the official stockpiles, stressing that: ‘There are forms of desertion worse than those that occur faced with the enemy. The Motherland can be betrayed by a simple act of disobedience.’25 This more threatening approach was also due to the fact that, with the outbreak of war, the need to produce more had become an urgent necessity, rather than essentially politically driven. Now the massaie began to be urged to actually make sacrifices, although it was stressed that, whatever their sacrifice, it was smaller than that of soldiers so that they had no cause to complain. One major theme of ‘War-time’ was welfare. Indeed representations of welfare acted as surrogate representations of the war itself. Photographs of actual battlefields were strikingly absent and ‘war photography’ was limited to pictures of wounded soldiers in hospital gratefully receiving food from smiling massaie or rows of massaie waving their kerchiefs at troops departing on trains. Many column inches were devoted to the role of the donne fasciste making up parcels of clothing and food for the front. Propaganda was by no means limited to the front-page political commentaries of Marino, Del Latte and Franceschini. Even the back-page fiction column steadily became more propagandistic as well as duller and more repetitive. Already in the FNFMR after Terruzzi’s departure some of the stories were becoming more politically orientated. Although in the first couple of years after the Party take-over many stories continued to be published which were essentially simply entertainment, by the late 1930s things had changed. Compared with Terruzzi’s more daring and realistic tales, most of the more propagandistic stories were truly plodding stuff, with crass heavy-handed story-lines and featuring characters who were unconvincing, cardboard cut-out figures. Some ranged over a variety of different fascist campaigns. One story by ‘Donna Paola’ (pseudonym of the Lombard novelist and journalist Paola Baronchelli Grosson, a former feminist and interventionist), for example, features a sharecropping family who are lamenting the fact that their only male heir is in America. Then he returns to tell them how much he has suffered in his life as an immigrant. The story does, however, have a ‘happy ending’ as not only does the son then tell them that he is now headed for Abyssinia – in other words 107

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to emigrate but to ‘Italian land’ – but he also leaves his own son with them to raise.26 Another example is a dialogue aimed at ‘explaining’ the School Charter to the readers. The dialogue, which gives an extremely misleading view of the terms of the Charter, implying that its intentions were social levelling, puts in the mouth of one female character the crude message that peasants were not supposed to think for themselves. ‘With the example the Duce gives us, it would be impossible to do anything differently. At heart, our duty is to obey with all the goodwill we can muster and He will take care of everything else.’27 The idea that the peasant readers were considered stupid is also suggested by the fact that the magazine saw no problem in constantly reusing more or less the same story. The vast majority of the stories were simply repetitive reworkings of a single basic plot, a warning that life on the land was infinitely preferable to the ‘urban mirage’. The story line was about a girl who longed to move to the city. She went to town, against her parents’ wishes and there found only unhappiness.28 Some of the versions end with the despairing country girls weeping into their urban kitchen sinks, whilst others, like ‘Lontananza’ (‘Distance’) by children’s writer Rina Breda Paltrinieri, published in July 1936, had happy (always rural) endings. In this case, it ended with a return home, marriage to a hearty peasant boy and a golden future cultivating autarkic broom plants. Intriguingly, one of the versions of this much-recycled plot was, it was claimed, written by an actual massaia rurale. Giuseppina Romanaini Cardella’s ‘La regina dei campi’ (‘Queen of the fields’) covers the same familiar ground of a dissatisfied country lass who is lured to the city against the wishes of her parents. There she suffers and eventually returns to the land. Propaganda pervaded many other parts of the paper too. Even the primarily technical ‘Tasks for the Month’ frequently placed its practical advice in a political context. In September 1936, for example, the column included the following: The sanctions have ended with a resounding fascist victory, one which is no less fine than the victory which gave Italy an Empire; but the lesson they taught us lingers on. The massaie rurali, proud of the tasks which fascism has given them in society and in the national economy, need to take every care when harvesting produce destined to be sold, and, making use of the advice in the MR Agenda and in the newspaper, they should keep more of this produce for household consumption.29 The inclusion of propaganda themes in such technical sections had undoubtedly greater potential to influence the readership than the bombastic rhetoric of the front page. Filled as it was with useful practical information, this was probably one of the most widely read columns. Propaganda also cropped up in even the most unlikely sections of the paper. One good example is an omelette recipe published in late 1935. Within this 108

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simple recipe a host of fascist campaigns were neatly encapsulated. The ingredients of the omelette – eggs, tomatoes, and garden greens (all seen as deeply imbued with autarkic and rural significance since they could be produced on the smallholding by the rural housewife herself) were to be assembled to create a ‘patriotic omelette’ in the three colours of the Italian flag. This dish was recommended to be served by way of celebration to sons returning from military service. The recipe-writer (‘an Arezzo massaia’) claimed that this tricolour omelette: ‘bears witness to the fact that Italian women do not forget the motherland even when making omelettes and . . . shows that without leaving home and hearth their hands are working and their hearts beating for the nation’.30 Thus women could carry out their roles as patriots, mothers of the nation and standard-bearers of autarky without going more than a few steps from their kitchen doors to gather ingredients. What the readers thought of such crude propaganda is, of course, another matter. By the early 1940s literally millions of peasant women were receiving this publication but to receive a magazine and to actually read it are far from the same thing and the extent to which it was successful in reaching out to its readers is hard to tell. Of course there were peasant women who read novels and magazines31 in this period and it is possible that some may have read this publication cover to cover, enthused by the novelty of something aimed specifically at them and their lifestyle. According to the Provincial Fiduciary of Reggio Emilia, one massaia said to her (in December 1934) that: ‘I feel as if I’ve become an important person when I hear the postman calling me, to deliver it.’32 In the 1930s many peasant women were, however, still illiterate. Literacy varied from region to region. In certain areas it was very low33 among the rural masses, particularly among women, and even those who were literate often could not read particularly well as they had attended school only briefly and intermittently. Some members listened to the magazine rather than reading it as it was read aloud to them during weekly section meetings.34 In other cases a member of their family might read it out to them. The woman quoted above from Reggio Emilia did not, in fact, read her own magazine but: ‘In the evening . . . after dinner, I get my son who goes to school to read out loud from it; and we all listen and we learn lots of little things.’35 It is likely that the percentage of unread copies did in fact increase with time. This was partly because, as membership numbers swelled, they probably included more illiterate women but also because, although initially L’azione delle massaie rurali did have quite an appealing format, in the later period, when propaganda spiralled alarmingly, many readers may have been simply repelled by it. The massaia quoted above may have become less keen to bother her son in subsequent years. The paper also got progressively duller: the typeface shrank and the text became increasingly dense. The inclusion of the boring and repetitive reports of local activities in ‘Activities in the Provinces’ and the verbatim publishing of party orders in ‘Party News’ reveal a dearth of imagination among those who produced it. 109

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Plate 4 The distribution of La massaia rurale newspaper in an Arezzo section in May 1942. (ACS, MRF, b.90)

It may be that, in practice, it was assumed that mainly only the organizers would actually read it and this was probably largely the case. Many peasant readers may have just looked at the illustrations or simply cut out articles which seemed of practical use such as recipes, farming tips or diagrams showing how to build a rabbit hutch, paying little attention to the political or moral writings. Doubtless, in reality, many copies were immediately consigned to one of the thousand uses of waste paper in peasant households (such as lighting fires or repairing boots) and some peasant families may have welcomed the arrival of the monthly issue for this reason and this reason alone.

Pamphlets and other occasional publications Far less widely distributed than the newspaper were a range of occasional booklets and pamphlets produced sometimes by the central organization but more often by local sections. The Pistoia Federation even managed to produce its own newspaper, which appeared sporadically in 1937 and 1938 but this seems to have been the only area to do this.36 Some of the pamphlets were clearly aimed more at organizers than at ordinary members but most were, at least in theory, to be read by members. Some were linked to local training programmes such as a special course handbook for technical lessons simply entitled ‘Lessons for Massaie Rurali’37 produced in Vercelli. The vast majority of the pamphlets at least pretended to be technical (and a few were almost entirely technical38) but most also included large quantities of propaganda. 110

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The propaganda themes of these publications are basically identical to those in the newspaper. They include the beauty of life on the land, the need to be content with one’s allotted place in life, the importance of the massaie’s maternal and familial role, her contribution to autarky and, eventually, to the war effort. There is also repeated stress on the idea that their efforts can help both the nation and the massaie themselves. Mostly the propaganda is presented in the form of political introductions to the more technical material. For example, For You Massaia Custodian of the Hearth, produced by the Turin FF in 1938, included a wealth of technical information on various topics but was also filled with some very heavy-handed propaganda. It contained numerous quotes from Mussolini and strongly emphasized themes such as the need for the massaie to bring up their children with religious belief and a sense of duty to the nation. Traditional class and gender roles and acceptance of one’s station in society are stressed, including such exhortations as: Know how to instil a sense of duty in your sons, and you must convince the girls in particular by your words and example that they can only become wives and mothers and that every other lifestyle is false.39

The almanac and calendar The organization’s almanac was another publication that was not very widely distributed. The 1936 edition, for example, sold a mere 20,000 copies.40 Massaie almanacs cost, in 1935, 1 lira for members and 2.50 lire for non-members, rising to 1 lira and 5 in 1936, and 1.20 lire in 1942, and it may be that the main purchasers were donne fasciste dutifully demonstrating their zeal by buying copies. Some were used as competition prizes. Almanacs and calendars, of course, were centuries-old forms of ‘popular literature’ with a place in many peasant homes. They would have been an instantly recognizable form to massaie members, even those who were illiterate. In some households they might even be the only reading matter.41 By this period almanacs were often conservative and Catholic in their outlook and more likely to be found in smallholding and sharecropping than in braccianti households.42 The production of an almanac containing a wealth of important technical information had been successfully pioneered by the UMC, and the PNF itself published a number of almanacs and calendars. The Liberal government had paid little attention to calendars as an instrument of forging national identity, instituting only the Festa dello Statuto (Constitution Day) which was not much celebrated in rural areas.43 The fascists were more energetic in this respect, adding various new national days. These commemorated Italy’s entry into and ‘victory’ in the First World War (24 May and 4 November), the foundation of the Fasci (23 March), the ‘Birth of Rome’/Festival of Work (21 April) and the March on Rome (28 October). The Agenda della massaia rurale listed all of these, together with the saint for each day, 111

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religious festivals, the anniversary of the Lateran Pacts, royal birthdays, the anniversaries of the deaths of various kings and the ‘discovery of America’. Despite the recalculation of the calendar for the ‘Fascist Era’ (whereby each year began with the date of the so-called ‘Fascist Revolution’ – 28 October)44 the Agenda started in January. The 1935 version contained roughly 100 pages of prose, including a review of the various PNF organizations containing a tedious maze of statistics and many pages of information on hygiene, insurance, domestic science and farming. Overall, apart from the theme of ‘what the regime is doing for the peasantry’, it was not overly propagandistic and it is possible to imagine women keeping one on the kitchen shelf to refer to for useful information, ranging from how to combat parasites in the kitchen garden, to cheese-making methods.45 Soon, however, like the newspaper, the propaganda content rose. The front cover of the 1937 edition featured a massaia, babe in arms, gazing adoringly into Mussolini’s eyes. Inside, the format was similar but flooded with anti-sanctions material and the same sort of propaganda themes as featured in the newspaper in this period (not surprising given that largely the same people produced it, including Marino, Ferrari del Latte and Cattaneo Adorno).46 Much space was devoted to imperialism, dwelling on ‘the wealth of Ethiopia’ and its prospects for colonization by racially superior Italians destined to waken the inferior Africans from their ‘millennial torpor’.47 The remaining space was filled with the standard Massaie fare of farming and domestic science with an emphasis on autarkic aspects such as chickens, rabbits, silk and broom and a section of practical advice for those heading for the colonies. Eventually the book-sized Agenda was replaced by a wall-calendar,48 which, requiring less paper, was cheaper to produce and enjoyed a far wider distribution. The 1943 calendar had a print-run of 500,00049 and the publisher even received 643,299 advance bookings for the following year’s edition including 1,000 copies for the PNF National Directory.50 This edition,51 priced at 2.45 lire, combined technical information with moral and political material. Each month had a quote from Mussolini and many pages were sprinkled with autarkic or propagandistic themes. The page for April seems to suggest anxiety that women were becoming too important in the war situation since it sternly warned that: It is men who control and manage farms. It is they who look after the land, its produce and sales. It is they who decide when to sow and when to buy and sell livestock. But beside their knowledge there is women’s knowledge: no less but different, women are made to complement men. Intriguingly, a draft 1944 calendar was created (although presumably never produced).52 This, quaintly rebaptized the ‘Lunario della massaia rurale’, had far 112

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more of a folklore flavour than its predecessor. It included many ‘traditional’ calendar features such as horoscope images,53 listings of saints’ days and religious festivals, although here fascist festivals, such as the March on Rome and the Foundation of the Fasci, somewhat symbolically ousted the relevant saint on the day on which they occurred. It also contained proverbs, sunset and sunrise times and lots of illustrations. Perhaps reflecting the increasing desperation of the war effort54 propaganda was less prominent and this edition was dominated by seasonal technical information together with many exhortations to produce more and more food. Propaganda was not totally absent. Under tasks suitable for ‘Winter’, for example, was included the advice that ‘in the evenings you should tell your children heroic stories about our brave soldiers’ and the February page stated that: ‘Big families are a blessing in the countryside. As soon as little boys can stand they begin to follow in their father’s steps. And you can make little girls into massaie just like you.’ Overall, however, this version of the calendar reflects political uncertainty. Its front cover depicting the sun and the moon and the name ‘lunario’ both suggest a fallback on the picturesque, in contrast to the previous year’s cover. This had included astrological signs but also the optimistic slogan ‘We will win!’ beside a picture of a returning soldier greeting his wife and child. Hung on kitchen walls these colourful calendars may have achieved greater visibility in peasant homes than the newspaper but, of course, literacy was an issue here too. The extent to which simply listing these days could really shape peasant consciousness is, furthermore, doubtful. Peasant diaries relating to this period, conserved in the National Diaries Archive, for example, rarely note the new fascist holidays, instead giving prominence to religious and semi-religious festivals associated with village processions and, importantly for a poorly fed section of the population, special food and drink.55

Delivering the message It may be, therefore, that the medium of print was far from the best means of reaching out to this section of the population, particularly if so poorly presented. The organization did not, however, simply bombard its members with such material, expecting them to drink up the propaganda and dutifully follow its instructions. Even the newspaper leavened its heavy political sections with much technical information and overall, propaganda was delivered as part of a much more appealing package that included the lure of a number of unprecedented opportunities for a hitherto neglected section of the population. These included a large training programme.

Notes 1 This changed on 28 October 1941 when it was transferred to the PNF. (ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser I, b.287, fasc. ‘La Massaia Rurale’.) 2 R. Terruzzi, ‘Educazione alla Maternità’, AMR, no. 11, 1935, p. 1.

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3 Anon., ‘Non diserteremo’, AMR, no. 1, 1937, p. 1. 4 On this ceremony see, for example, S. Falaschi Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle. The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini’s Italy, California University Press, 1997, pp. 180–1. 5 See, for example, ‘Mobilitazione femminile contro le sanzioni. Il rapporto delle fiduciarie a Palazzo Littorio’, DF, 15 Nov 1935, p. 1. 6 ‘La donna per la difesa contro le sanzioni’, AMR, no. 10, 1935, p. 1. 7 T. Marino, ‘Massaie rurali a Noi!’, AMR, no. 2, 1936, p. 1. 8 R. Ferrari del Latte, ‘L’occhio sul mondo’, AMR, no. 3, 1936, p. 1. 9 Anon., untitled, AMR, no. 5, 1936, p. 1. 10 AMR, no. 6, 1935, p. 1. 11 The editor was nominally the CNFSA President. The managing editor, who did the real work, was Giulio Scafati, head of the Massaie Rurali office in the farming union headquarters. 12 Ronconi, a teacher from Turin who had been four times awarded a Gold Medal for her educational work, had a long-standing interest in agricultural questions. (See her obituary: Anon., ‘Guglielmina Ronconi’, AMR, no. 4, 1936, p. 4.) This is the same Ronconi who spoke at the 1927 International Agricultural Congress quoted in Chapter 1. 13 From 1940 she was also the Editorial Secretary of La donna fascista. 14 C. Franceschini, ‘Casa nostra’, AMR, no. 9, 1937, p. 1. 15 C.F., ‘Perseverare’, AMR, no. 7, 1938, p. 1. 16 C.F., ‘Razza, Autarchia, Impero’, MR, no. 8, 1939, p. 1. 17 C.F., ‘Rassegna’, AMR, no. 7, 1939, p. 1. 18 C.F., ‘La parola del Duce’, AMR, no. 2, 1939, p. 1. 19 C.F., ‘Verso più alti destini’, MR, no. 6, 1940, p. 2. 20 C.F., ‘Verso la vittoria’, MR, no. 8, 1940, p. 1 21 C. Franceschini, ‘Duce e popolo’, AMR, no. 9, 1939, p. 1. 22 L.C.R., ‘Fede e Passione. Lavoro e Sacrificio’, MR, no. 10, 1940, p. 1. 23 L. Calvi Roncalli, ‘All’altezza del compito’, MR, no. 1, 1941, p. 1. 24 C.F., ‘Tutto per la vittoria’, MR, no. 4, 1941, p. 1. 25 C.F., ‘Essere all’altezza dei doveri dell’ora’, MR, no. 10, 1941, p. 1. Ferrari del Latte also took up this theme in her column in this issue. 26 AMR, no. 3, 1937, p. 4. 27 R. Breda Paltrinieri, ‘La Carta della Scuola’, AMR, no. 3, 1939, p. 4. 28 An early example of this was Pino, ‘Non è tutto oro’, AMR, no. 3, 1934, p. 4. Another virtually identical example is ‘Farfalle’, AMR, no. 6, 1936, p. 4. 29 GCA, ‘I lavori del mese’, AMR, no. 9, 1936, p. 3. 30 Recipe by ‘Una massaia aretina’, in AMR, no. 11, 1935, p. 4. 31 According to one GUF member, rural women were particularly fond of Italian (rather than foreign) novels and liked, in particular, historical themes. For lack of alternatives, however, some just read school books. (M.R. Baccoli, ‘Che cosa si legge?’, DF, 30 Oct 1942, p. 9.) 32 Quoted by Laura Marani Argnani in the newspaper Il solco fascista, 12 Dec, 1934, cited by A. Zavaroni, ‘La donna del fascio II. Le iniziative sociali del fascismo femminile reggiano’, L’Almanacco, no. 34/5, 2000, p. 88n. 33 In 1931 the national illiteracy rate among persons aged six years or over was 20.9 per cent. Among women, however, this was 24 per cent. The level varied regionally and was generally highest in the South and Islands. In Calabria, the region with the worst levels, 56 per cent of females were classified as illiterate (compared with 39 per cent of Calabrian men). In Lombardy, on the other hand, a mere 5 per cent of females were classified as illiterate (and only 4 per cent of Lombard males). (Figures from J. Charnitzky, Fascismo e scuola. La politica scolastica del regime (1922–1943), Florence, Nuova Italia, 1996, p. 499.) On the situation of Calabrian women see V.

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34 35 36

37 38 39

40 41 42

43

44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51

Capelli, ‘Immagine e presenza pubblica della donna in Calabria’, in P. Corti (ed.), Le donne nelle campagne italiane del Novecento: Annali Cervi, no. 13, 1991, pp. 177–91. This happened, for example, in Perugia in 1935. Anon., ‘Massaie rurali’, DF, 20 July 1935, p. 1. Quoted by Marani Argnani, cited by Zavaroni, ‘La donna del fascio II’, p. 88n. There appear to have been only seven issues of the Bollettino delle Massaie Rurali della Provincia di Pistoia (August 1937–June 1938). Its themes were similar to the national paper except that it had a more Catholic tone. The editorial of the first issue, written by MR Provincial Secretary Maria Antonietta Gavazzi, includes a long tirade against blasphemy and the moral dangers of young girls reading certain novels and magazines. ‘Relazione al Prefetto dell’Unione Prov dei Lavoratori dell’Agricoltura di Maggio 1935’, ASV, Gab Pref, Ser I, b.22. See, for example, L’essicazione della frutta, Rome, Tip. PNF, 1941; PNF, Sezione Massaie Rurali FF di Rovereto (Trentino), Nozioni di pollicoltura domestica e riassunti di lezioni alle Massaie Rurali, Rovereto, Tip. Mercurio, 1936. I. Lupo Cantoni, Per te massaia custode del focolare, Turin, 1938, p. 9. Other examples include Federazione FF di Torino, Conversazioni di economia domestica alle massaie rurali della provincia di Torino, 1937; PNF, Federazione Provinciale FF di Novara. Sezione provinciale Massaie Rurali, Come migliorare e intensificare l’allevamento del pollaio, Novara, 1940; FF Pisa, Nozioni pratiche di pollicoltura ad uso delle massaie rurali della Provincia di Pisa, Pisa, Tip. Pellegrini, 1935. Agenda della massaia rurale 1937, 1937, p. 7. This was true of the homes of some retired sharecroppers I interviewed. (Interviews with Isotta Falaschi and Lina Barachini, Province of Pisa, 25 March 2000.) This was the case, for example, of the Pescatore reggiano, the most successful and longstanding peasant almanac in Reggio Emilia in this period. Produced by Catholics, the Pescatore adapted to the regime, added a little propaganda and began to include public information such as national holidays and bureaucratic deadlines (when to pay taxes, etc.). Other almanacs which included higher levels of propaganda sold less well. (See M. Fincardi, ‘Col favore delle stagioni e degli astri. L’ideologia degli almanacchi reggiani rivolti ai contadini. 1919–1946’, L’almanacco, no. 25, 1995, pp. 31–45.) This was partly because the Festa, held on a Sunday in June, often clashed with the religious feast of Corpus Domini (See M. Dondi, ‘Mondi e tradizioni rurali dal fascismo agli anni ’50: la parziale nazionalizzazione delle campagne. Traccia di un possibile percorso interpretivo’, Annali Cervi, no. 17/18, 1995–6, p. 292.) On the creation of the ‘fascist year’ see E. Gentile, Il culto del littorio, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1998, pp. 100–1. The diary was produced by Aldo Buffa, Mario Casalini (ONMI expert), Azio Cerlini, Federico Clementi, the National Silk Organization, Maria Larghi, Alessandro Maiocco, Maria Perrotti, Pia Revicini Scafati, Onorato Traverso, Antonio Zappi Recordati. The others were Evelina Campana, Mario Casalini, Federico Clementi, Tito Corbella, Angelo Del Lungo, Giorgio Hinna, Francesco Maiocco, Italo Neri, Giuliano Ongaro, Pia Ravicini Scafati, Amelia Tonon. Agenda della massaia rurale 1937, p. 12. It is hard to be certain exactly when this happened or whether in some years both forms were produced as, despite extensive searching, I have found only two copies of the Agenda and two draft versions of the calendar. ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.277, fasc. ‘Domus’. ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.264, fasc. ‘Organizzazioni femminili: Massaie rurali’. A draft copy is conserved in ibid.

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52 The draft is conserved in ACS, DN, SV, Ser II, b.277, fasc. ‘Domus’. 53 These features are doubtless related to the nostalgic revival of interest in ‘folklore’ and folk customs in the late 1930s (see Chapter 8). 54 Presumably this draft was made in early 1943 but it might possibly have been produced later in the year – for the Republic of Salò. 55 M. Dondi, ‘Mondi e tradizioni rurali’, p. 296.

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6 ‘WOMEN WITH A HUNDRED ARMS’ The training programme

With the resources and authority of the Party behind it, the Sezione Massaie Rurali rapidly became considerably more active than its predecessor. By 1935 many provinces were already reporting a busy mix of activities,1 although the South still lagged behind. The organization developed a range of activities for its members but technical training always formed the bulk of its programme. Much of this training was, at least in theory, in so-called ‘rational agriculture’ techniques.

Rational agriculture The term ‘rational agriculture’ was used to denote the application of Taylorism to farming, whereby traditional techniques were replaced with supposedly ‘modern, scientific’ ones. Taylor’s ideas were, of course, originally devised for industry but attempts were made to apply his basic concepts to other sectors. Despite the backward-looking nature of many fascist policies, some technocratic fascists embraced Taylorism with great enthusiasm. Such ideas appealed as they fitted well with the fascist corporative dream of ‘overcoming class conflict’ by offering the idea of a ‘technical’ (and by implication impartial) solution to the distribution of resources. The regime even set up the Italian National Agency for Scientific Management (ENIOS) which produced a variety of specialist publications aimed at disseminating such ideas. One of its magazines L’Agricoltura razionale (published from 1929 and later renamed Nuova vita rurale) covered almost all types of farming and contained a huge amount of news from abroad.2 Although in the 1920s a few Italian factories were already experimenting with ‘scientific’ American methods,3 by 1927, according to Attilio Fontana, the foremost Italian advocate of ‘rational farming’ methods, no one had yet tried these out in agriculture.4 Eventually however, some Italian farmers did attempt to put such ideas into practice. In particular some large tenant farmers in the North increased mechanization and introduced new seed strains and breeds of livestock.5 This was compatible with compartecipazione and the employment of braccianti since both gave landowners considerable control over the farming 117

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methods of those who actually tilled the soil. In other areas, however, methods changed little. Many Massaie Rurali publications were filled with the language of ‘rational farming’. In practice, however, this was often no more than a modernizing gloss and the vast majority of methods promoted by the organization contrasted with the technologically advanced farming techniques glowingly depicted in the pages of the ENIOS magazine. Although some of the ‘rational’ ideas in L’agricoltura razionale found their way into the Massaie newspaper (such as new designs for beehives6) much was totally inappropriate, for most Italian farms lacked the capital and other basic prerequisites like electricity for the introduction of the foreign examples described by the ENIOS publication. For Mussolini’s rural housewives, farm improvement was to come not through electrification or mechanization but in learning how to do traditional tasks better with no upset to the traditional status quo in rural communities. The massaie were indeed exhorted to use new strains of seeds and livestock breeds, but this was all to be done in the context of small farms and accordingly a huge amount of energy was wasted on the development of so-called autarkic crops. Economies of scale were not promoted, indeed they were often actively discouraged. Although increased interaction with the market was encouraged in certain ways, frequently simple subsistence farming was the explicit goal. The training aims could be summed up as to give a modern air to farming but without challenging the predominance of small, often inefficient units or traditional gender roles on the land. The authority of men over women in farm and family decisions was stressed and women got training in what was seen to be their role and this only. Until the Second World War, when the focus of the training altered somewhat, there were no courses on ‘male farming roles’ such as ploughing. Women were taught childcare, cookery and the ‘lighter side’ of agriculture and were urged to obey their husbands. Training was carried out by various means, including lectures, visits to model farms, demonstration henhouses, practical teaching in the field, handouts and competitions. At first there was no coherent national training plan. Each province was more or less left to itself to decide what to provide. In 1935–6 PNF Headquarters did issue a booklet listing the types of courses taught by the Fasci Femminili, including the Massaie Rurali ones, but this was not systematically followed. Even the booklet itself noted, of the farming courses, that programmes were to be drawn up separately in each place ‘according to local requirements and customs’.7 Gradually, however, a more coordinated approach emerged, particularly with the introduction of national competitions from 1936 and with the creation of the new National Committee in 1938. Even so, a single template for training methods was never laid down. Although increasing numbers of directives were sent from Rome urging emphasis on specific topics (poultry, silk and so on), the actual details (numbers of classes, format and timetables) continued to be decided by 118

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local organizers according to their means. Similar initiatives did emerge in many provinces as local organizers learned what was being done elsewhere both by reading press reports and through the ‘turni di servizio’ system whereby Provincial Fiduciaries were briefly (usually for a week in July during school holidays) transferred to another province to study their methods. This structure was necessary since female Fiduciaries tended to move around far less than their male counterparts. It was only with the advent of war that serious attempts were made to co-ordinate the rather chaotic and regionally varied training programmes. At this point the Ispettorati Provinciali dell’Agricoltura (formerly Cattedre Ambulanti) were given primary responsibility for training (although the Fasci Femminili and the two corporative organizations retained a role).8 The Massaie newspaper gushed with enthusiasm about the extensiveness of the training programmes, providing floods of statistics. For 1935–6 Tina Marino reported 2,567 sectional poultry units and 3,412 rabbit units, 1,971 experimental vegetable gardens, 1,167 market stalls, 10,173 training courses and innumerable home visits by donne fasciste to rural women to exhort them to do their bit against the sanctions.9 For 1936–7, Clara Franceschini listed 6,088 farming courses, including 1,860 on poultry and 1,641 on rabbits, with 239,615 members attending. A further 8,243 courses (the numbers of participants are unrecorded) on domestic science, hygiene and childcare had been run and the members subjected to 8,152 ‘propaganda lectures’.10 Such statistics, however, are hard to interpret as the term ‘course’ was used to denote some very diverse things, ranging from a few isolated lectures to properly structured programmes. The most common format was weekly lessons (usually on Sundays), a format suitable for women with heavy workloads. Occasionally a more intensive approach was chosen, such as a 30-day silkworm farming course held in Verona in the summer of 1937.11 Some courses were dedicated to specific themes such as dairying, vegetable gardening, the care of rabbits, bees, chickens and silkworms, handicraft manufacturing, childcare, sewing, hygiene, first aid, cookery and so on. In some (mainly, but not exclusively, Southern) provinces literacy courses were run.12 In practice, however, many ‘courses’ were less specialized, simply a cycle of weekly talks on different themes. This kind of general programme does not even appear in Franceschini’s figures which quite wrongly imply that every course had a distinct topic. This kind of general-format course existed, for example, in the Province of Treviso, as the detailed instructions drawn up by the Provincial Fiduciary Mercedes Raselli Bolasco for 1936–7 show. The six-month programme of 30 lessons was delivered by a succession of different people who taught their own specialisms only. They were then rotated around the various sections so that they could give the same lesson in a number of different villages. The rota of training staff included political hierarchs (both male and female), a doctor, school teachers, a priest and various technical staff from the Cattedra Ambulante and from the farmworkers’ union. Topics were varied, including 119

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embroidery, first aid, childcare, gardening, weaving, how to keep a cowbyre clean and lectures on how fascism had helped the rural population.13 Classes took place normally on winter Sundays after Vespers (around 3 p.m.). In summer they dwindled to occasional lectures on domestic science or political themes. The situation was similar in the nearby Province of Venice where, in every comune and frazione, weekly lessons were held for 18 weeks. The curriculum included farming, hygiene, needlework, handicrafts, religion and ‘fascist culture’.14 In some areas teachers included veterinarians and, occasionally, even university lecturers. Most training took place in schools or Dopolavoro facilities but in sharecropping areas classes might be held actually at the fattoria.15 Most training programmes included a good dose of political propaganda. In Conegliano, lessons began with a salute to the Duce and every group was taught to sing ‘Giovinezza’.16 In Cremona local hierarchs offered ‘cultural courses’ with lectures on: ‘Commentary on the Anthems “GiovinezzaEmpire”; Urbanization and rurality; Insurance and welfare; Childcare; Domestic science’.17 The farm training was provided mainly by the technical staff of the Cattedre Ambulanti or of the farming unions. This meant that many courses were taught by men. This was unavoidable given the scarcity of female farming experts in the Fasci Femminili. The farmworkers’ union was increasingly suited to this role as, from 1934 onwards, it was attempting to carve out a new technocratic status for itself by offering its members practical farm training. The unions justified this new direction by pointing out that, in 1934, only 3.7 per cent of farmworkers benefited from Cattedre Ambulanti courses.18 The new union courses were intended to complement, rather than replace, the work of the Cattedre. Between them, however, they never reached the majority of peasants. By 1938–9 their courses and the courses offered by the Ispettorati Provinciali dell’Agricoltura between them were offering instruction to only 290,000 people.19 The actual courses they offered, furthermore, were mainly on what were seen as ‘male farming roles’ such as viticulture.20 Training for women, it seems, was kept separate, in the Sezione Massaie Rurali. In practice, however, to save time and effort, courses for both men and women were sometimes coordinated so that teachers could instruct both (albeit separately) when in a particular village.21 I have found no evidence of these people being paid directly by the PNF for teaching the women.22 Some may have been volunteers but most, presumably, were paid by the unions or the Cattedre. In Conegliano at least, it was Fasci Femminili organizers who put together the course programmes (although always subject to the approval of the head of the local Fascio di Combattimento).23 In practice, the most numerous courses offered were domestic science, childcare and propaganda, subjects which could be taught by local organizers. A not untypical example was the Province of Ravenna which, in the first four years after the foundation of the organization, amongst a range of other activities, provided its 17,000 members with only 111 courses (attended by 5,515 women) taught by male farming experts, compared 120

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with 430 courses (attended by 7,475) taught by Massaie Rurali Secretaries.24 From 1939 onwards, however, increasing numbers of farming courses could be taught by the new female technical leaders (see Chapter 7).

Competitions Competitions were a core element of the training programme. Their purpose, according to Starace, was to ‘stimulate and reward the massaia’s domestic virtues and work’.25 Occasionally they took the form of public trials of skill, such as the ‘Perfect Housewife Contest’ held in Arezzo in late 1936 in which contestants were tested on their breadbaking and (black) shirtmaking abilities. Some 820 women competed in this province-wide contest for the first prize of a sewing machine and 82 smaller prizes for runners-up.26 The most usual type of competition, however, was basically a form of training. Contestants were subjected to repeated inspections, offered individual advice and given the chance to win large numbers of small prizes. Locally run competitions of this kind, on all sorts of different topics, featured from the early days. In 1936, for example, in Lucca Province a single competition embraced virtually the entire gamut of Massaie activities, namely the: ‘care of the home, hygiene, childcare, rabbit and poultry farming, beekeeping, silkworm farming and family agricultural industries’. Some 112 massaie won prizes after their homes were inspected by various farming experts.27 In August 1935 the first national competition, for poultry farming, was announced. The organizers hoped that: ‘Rural women, spurred on by the desire to make a good impression, will try to implement, in the best way possible, the ideas they have learned, to demonstrate that they have understood what they were taught and in the hope of a concrete reward for their goodwill.’28 This competition (actually held the following year) attracted 4,814 contestants from 34 provinces. Contestants’ henhouses were inspected by the local Massaie Rurali Secretary. They then reported by filling in a questionnaire, consisting in simple questions elicting yes or no answers, framed so that yes answers were always correct in order that even poorly trained donne fasciste, with little actual knowledge of the technicalities of poultry farming, could complete them. The questions aimed at discovering such things as levels of hygiene, feeding methods, whether ‘improved breeds’ were being raised and so on. Advice on how to achieve a higher score was provided in free booklets issued to all contestants or offered, where necessary, by technical staff from the farmworkers’ union. Inspections were carried out three times in order to assess improvement over time. At the end of the competition period all the reports on contestants who had made satisfactory progress were handed in to Provincial Secretaries and winners were selected by a panel of donne fasciste and farming experts. Soon other similar national competitions followed. March 1937 saw the launch of the: ‘Competition for the clean, orderly and flower-decked home’ 121

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Plate 5 Massaie rurali and donne fasciste at a prize-giving ceremony in Naples, 18 November 1941. (ACS, MRF, b.90)

and for ‘the well-tended vegetable patch’. This was run in a similar manner, with repeated, including surprise, inspections by donne fasciste. The nosy inspectors looked at everything, even the standard of mending of household linen.29 The vast majority of contestants got prizes rendering the competitions more like examinations to pass than real contests. Prizes varied according to what could be mustered locally. Some competitions did have a small budget for prizes (ONMI, for example, was offering 2,000 lire per province for prizes for the childcare competition by 1939 and the National Silk Agency put up 10,000 lire for silkfarming prizes) but many prizes came from private donations. Sometimes they were only discount vouchers, diplomas, medals or framed portraits of Mussolini, but often more useful things were on offer including money, tools, cooking utensils, sheets, blankets, cribs, layettes, seeds, pots and pans, GIL uniforms or almanacs. Incentives to try harder were added in the shape of special national prizes for the very best, selected among those who achieved the highest score in each province.30 This formula offered a number of concrete advantages. It constituted a form of training accessible even to those who were unable to attend more formal classes because of lack of time. Contestants did not have to disrupt the normal routine of their lives but simply to carry out their normal farming and domestic work but in an ‘improved manner’. Second, it offered a perfect excuse for the donne fasciste to invade rural homes, affording them ample opportunity for the dissemination of political propaganda. The competitions, furthermore, 122

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Plate 6 Massaia rurale Annunziata Sivagni and her family, prize-winners in one of the national childcare competitions. (ACS, MRF, b.90)

created opportunities for pomp and ceremony with huge mass prize-giving ceremonies. Although the inspection system was time consuming, most of the work was done by volunteers. Subsequent national competitions included one for childcare (sponsored by ONMI). At first this was only for women with very small children but from 1938 it took on an increasingly ruralizing and pro-natalist trend and was opened also to mothers of older children and: ‘Particular attention will be paid to contestants who have prepared their children for marriage and managed to get them to marry young, enriching their branch of the family with new buds.’ Furthermore, targeting the fact that some fascists argued that women were the key to preventing the rural–urban shift, special prizes were introduced for: housewives who have been able to keep all, or almost all, their children passionately devoted to agriculture, preventing them from deserting the land for the urban mirage and instilling in their souls a love for a podere which has been tilled by the same family for many generations.31 This theme, of course, was a classic of the ruralization campaign, emphasizing, as it did, a multigenerational link with the land through stable sharecropping contracts. April 1937 saw the launch of a national competition for ‘small-scale silkfarming’. For centuries silk had been one of Italy’s prime exports but, since the 123

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turn of the century, falling prices on world markets (due to Asian competition) had led to a steep decline in production. Where alternatives emerged and land tenure contracts permitted, peasant families tended to abandon this delicate crop which, at certain points in the cycle, could be ruined even by draughts and meant considerable inconvenience as most cocoons were raised actually inside rural dwellings. Silk also required a huge amount of seasonal labour (including round-the-clock feeding for a short period), work done largely by women and children. By the 1930s silk production had collapsed in Lombardy and Piedmont and was confined mainly to the Veneto where low wages and great poverty still made the domestic sacrifice and huge workloads involved an economically rational choice.32 The regime’s interventions in the late 1930s were the first real state attempt to stem this decline. Such interventions included training, competitions and a guaranteed minimum cocoon price. Training courses were held all over Italy and attempts were made to reintroduce silk even in the South, a somewhat desperate enterprise given the lamentable state of many Southern peasant homes. All this explains why the silk competitions were not particularly popular. In 1936–7, only 4,103 entered the Massaie silk contest33 although numbers did grow to 5,267 (with entrants from 52 provinces) in 1938–9,34 8,438 in 1939–40, and to 18,208 (from 63 provinces) in 1942.35 Other competitions proved more attractive. In 1936 15,858 entered the competition for ‘the clean, tidy and flower-decked home and the well-tended vegetable patch’ and a further 12,492 for the childcare competition.36 Such figures were, however, modest given the size of the membership. Some provinces did better than others. Whilst in Reggio Emilia, in 1937, 874 entered the housework and vegetable-growing competition,37 a mere 87 women signed up for it in Novara. In the same year, only 170 participated in the childcare competition in Modena.

Handouts Far greater numbers benefited from handouts and special offers. Hundreds of thousands of ‘improved stock’ rabbits and poultry were given out or sold cheap and there was a large-scale operation to distribute cut-price seed and silkworm eggs. Vast numbers of ‘improved race’ day-old chicks or eggs ready for hatching were distributed to be added to the clutch already being raised by members’ own broody hens. The aim of such handouts was partly to give members firsthand experience of the benefits of better livestock breeds and seeds. They also represented, of course, a material incentive to membership and were widely used to encourage attendance at courses. Prize draws, for things like packets of seeds, were held at the end of courses for the most assiduous attenders, or even at each class. Other handouts served as rewards for certain types of behaviour, creating small levels of discretionary power for the organizers. One example of this was the special offer, from 1935 onwards, of a cut-price Necchi sewing 124

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machine. Twenty-five of these costly and, to a poor family, extremely desirable items, were given out annually completely free to very poor and ‘politically worthy’ members.38 The distribution of cheap chicken feed (at about two-thirds of market price) became a huge operation which created considerable paperwork for organizers. The purpose was to enable the massaie to increase production of eggs and poultry. Priority was given in this to section poultry units and then to the ‘most needy’ massaie. Some of the feed was specially imported (mainly from Romania and Hungary) but most of it came from Italian millers who donated by-products such as bran. This was collected and distributed to members for a set national price.39 This operation actually made a small profit for the Party (which paid only for transport) which was then divided among provincial federations, according to the size of their membership, as a subsidy for Massaie activities.40 This cut-price method saved Party money but sometimes backfired, for the quality of some of the donated feed was so poor (one batch was described as ‘dust and straw’) that the members refused it.41 In 1941 the millers’ donations were rendered illegal by rationing laws and the Party began to have to purchase feed from them, albeit at a special price.42 Most other handouts were a similarly shoestring operation. A few were publicly funded (in 1937, for example, the Ministry of Agriculture gave out 10,000 free ‘improved stock cockerels’ to massaie) but many other handouts entailed only minimal cost to Party or state. ‘Free’ chicks were often not completely free: the massaie had to ‘pay’ for them in fresh eggs. Sometimes ‘improved stock’ cockerels or rabbits were not given out but exchanged for one from the massaia’s own farmyard, or simply loaned for 6–12 months for breeding. Many of the handouts which really were free, such as packets of seeds, were not purchased by the organization but donated by firms or individuals.

Rabbits and chickens Another key element of the training programme was the establishment of ‘experimental vegetable plots’ and ‘model henhouses and rabbit hutches’. The henhouses and hutches became the source of many of the ‘improved livestock’ handed out to members. They were also used for practical demonstrations of ‘rational methods’. Some of these were set up by private initiative but from late 1935 every local section was ordered to establish a poultry unit. The Fasci Femminili Secretaries were given the thankless task of creating these without funding. The Ministry of Agriculture provided some start-up livestock but everything else was to be arranged free of charge: FF Secretaries . . . using their spirit of initiative, which should be one of their strongest characteristics, should try to obtain a piece of land (about a hectare), free of charge, for each Massaie Rurali group, if possible including buildings suitable to house a poultry unit for 50–100 125

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birds. This can be land belonging to the state, local authorities, charities or other organizations or privately owned.43 Even the actual henhouses and hutches were to be improvised from whatever could be found locally (one issue of the paper even included a diagram showing how to convert old water barrels for this purpose) or by gathering local donations to buy them. The day-to-day work of caring for the livestock was to be done by ‘a capable, possibly unemployed, massaia, who, in return for a small recompense in kind, will . . . collect the feed, resorting to contributions from families who have the means to make voluntary donations’. It was also proposed that schoolchildren could gather wild plants daily to feed the animals.44 Similarly, ‘section vegetable plots’ were set up by simply asking local landowners to donate a patch of land, preferably near village centres.45 Such methods were hardly likely to achieve wonderful results and eventually attempts were made to upgrade quality by enrolling all the poultry units in a national competition with inspections, prizes and so on. Even here only 10 per cent of the prizes came from the Party and the rest had to be raised locally. In 1940 a similar competition for the (far less numerous) section rabbit units was launched. From late 1937, in the context of the wider process of increasing state control of agriculture and the push for autarky, section poultry units were placed under the control of Regional Poultry Centres and given the task of breeding from improved stock poultry provided by either state centres or specially licensed private farms. By the end of 1939 there were 2,350 section units (roughly 25 per province) but the spread was uneven with over 50 in some provinces and under ten in others. Such numbers were actually a reduction on previous statistics as the competition had resulted in some being declared unfit. Units were fairly small, averaging only 30 birds.46

Intervening in the market Increasingly market intervention became a theme of Massaie activities. From August 1935 local sections were ordered to establish special stalls where members could sell their goods free of charge on local markets. The instructions were not, however, uniform all over Italy and had to be thrashed out locally.47 In some cases only a reduction in market taxes was available. The organization also gave information on market prices. These were advertised weekly by the Fasci Femminili as well as appearing in the newspaper. At regional and national level there were special Massaie fairs and members also participated in events like annual agricultural shows. In 1935, for example, Massaie sections from all over Italy, including provinces as far afield as Sardinia, Apulia and Basilicata, took part in the National Agricultural Exhibition in Bologna. Exhibits demonstrated the range of Massaie activities including farming, herbalism and handicrafts.48 Often the primary focus was on handicrafts and might feature women weaving or spinning (usually picturesquely clad in 126

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Plate 7 Massaia demonstrating the spinning of angora rabbit wool at a rabbit farming exhibition in Treviso in October 1941. (ACS, MRF, b.90)

regional costumes) as part of the exhibit. Such events were particularly important in the South and for some Southern sections this was the most frequent activity reported. One of the biggest events was the ‘Christmas Capon Fair’ held in Rome in December 1939. The Fair mingled trade and propaganda and included competitions for the best poultry exhibited and a daily lottery with a chicken as a prize. There was also an exhibition on the role of the massaie in poultry farming with photographs of local prize-winning birds from all over Italy, graphs and even handicrafts made from feathers and eggshells. This was also the occasion for the announcement of the winners of the section poultry unit competition. Massaie and their chickens from over 50 provinces travelled to Rome to participate in this event. The fact that it was far from a normal commercial fair is underscored by the fact that the Party underwrote its financial losses.49 This was true of other exhibitions too such as a poultry exhibition in Monza, held in October 1938, which lost 6,382 lire.50 There were also increasing interventions to mediate between the massaie and the market. Local sections became collection points for silk cocoons and rabbit skins. The range of produce collected increased over time, particularly during the Second World War, to include, for example, broom and sunflowers. The organization was, however, ambivalent about market economics. In 1935, for example, one Massaie pamphlet well expressed this ambivalent attitude, warning that: 127

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Now that special market sites are available for massaie rurali on the main provincial markets, we need to not just teach the massaie how to produce and sell well, but also to make sure that women’s market sales do not disrupt family life, something we have noted in various groups.51 Often, instead, self-sufficiency was promoted. The potential self-sufficiency of a farm was even portrayed as linked to the autarky of the nation and the massaie urged to contribute simultaneously to both.52 This meant that, in a rather contradictory manner, the massaie were urged to go towards the market but also away from it. The 1937 diary argued that: rural housewives have always tended to obtain as many as possible of the raw materials needed for their household from their own farm. It is precisely this praiseworthy traditional practice which enabled us to resist the sanctions. And we must not allow this custom of rural selfsufficiency to decline as it keeps us prepared for any eventuality and is an important factor in our economic independence. This was based on the (extremely dubious) notion that: ‘the more that a massaia does without external goods and outside labour, especially in terms of food but also in household items and clothing, the stronger her farm will be.’53

War, autarky and the nation After 1935, the fact that Italy was almost continuously at war led to attempts to mobilize all women against the sanctions. ‘Women’s resistance’ was co-ordinated by special provincial committees of ‘mothers and widows of soldiers in the First World War’, presided over by FF Fiduciaries. Their role included collecting gold, watching over consumption, identifying cheating shopkeepers and taking assistance and solace to soldiers’ families. After sanctions ended the committees of widows were closed down but the Fasci Femminili continued the task of coordinating ‘internal resistance’. For the Massaie, this led to changes not just in the organization’s political message outlined in Chapter 5, but also in its activities. One effect was to make the training courses increasingly linked to propaganda. Although the Taylorist theme meant the highlighting of the supposedly impartial values of ‘science’ and ‘progress’, politics came increasingly to the fore. The content of the courses themselves, too, began to change, as the massaie were taught how to carry out a whole series of ‘autarkic activities’ in the name of national self-sufficiency. Even the official aims of the Sezione were modified to include autarky. Two new clauses were added to Article 2, namely: f) to increase, for the purpose of economic autarky, the massaie’s 128

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productive activities with measures aimed at facilitating the raising of poultry and rabbits, small family flocks of sheep, the collection of produce derived from the massaie’s small rural industries and handicrafts, the fight against waste, the provision of feed, materials, seeds, tools etc. e) to facilitate the introduction of various measures which could be of advantage to the massaie.54 New crops were emphasized such as sunflowers, castor-oil plants and honey. Defunct ‘traditional activities’ were revived too. In Lecce, massaie revived the ancient art of processing seashells which could be used to manufacture fake fur. There was a great emphasis on the need to produce more meat, for, paradoxically, ‘victory in the Battle for Wheat’ had led to reduced livestock numbers, and much meat was imported. Here a key role was mapped out for the massaie. Instead of imported beef, Italians were now to content themselves with ‘autarkic meats’ such as chicken and rabbit, meats produced almost exclusively by women, which could be raised partly on scraps or what they could forage. This campaign spread (albeit to a lesser extent) to encouraging women to create small flocks of sheep and raise pigs. This led to the only interventions of the organization in land tenure contracts. In 1938 an agreement was reached for sharecroppers’ contracts to be revised nationally to relax existing ceilings on how many chickens and rabbits they could raise. Similar alterations were applied to sheep in 1939. Assistance with purchasing the sheep came through a loan scheme and, from February 1939, small flocks of sheep owned by massaie rurali were exempted from local livestock taxes.55 Industrial-scale raising of such animals was discouraged as the idea was to create only small units, raised on the margins of farms. The massaie were also urged to learn how to recognize medicinal herbs which could be gathered and used to replace imported drugs, and to devote more time to harvesting wild crops such as bilberries, juniper, mushrooms and raspberries and to engage in various forms of recycling such as making rag-rugs and using newspaper for firewood. They were also mobilized, along with the rest of the population, to do such things as collect metal. In her didactic dialogue of August 1937, for example, Cattaneo Adorno exhorted her readers to hand in their iron cooking pots and utensils, replacing them with aluminium ones. One of the most heavily emphasized campaigns was to revive the old craft of making broom plants into textiles, a labour-intensive process using plants which grew wild on hills and wasteland. A specially equipped training truck toured rural areas teaching the massaie how to harvest and process the new crop. Economically, of course, much of this was pretty irrational, and in direct contradiction with the technocratic, productivist language in which it was presented. Perhaps the best example of this backward-looking approach was the great emphasis on handicraft production, such as weaving, spinning, basketmaking, lacemaking and so on and the domestic production of preserves and 129

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dried fruit. This well illustrates the driving idea behind the economic activities of this organization. It aimed to exploit to the full the most abundant resource of rural Italy in this period – labour. The low rate of return for silk production, for example, was not only to be offset by massaie producing the cocoons. They were also urged to restore rusty handlooms that had belonged to their grandmothers and spin and weave the cloth at home.56 This home-produced silk would not, it was admitted, be of high enough quality for export but would be sold on the domestic market for things like sheets. There were also calls to revive other sorts of hand-weaving, not just silk.57 Handicraft production itself, in reality mainly hard work for only small rewards, was romanticized as ‘traditional’ and ‘truly Italian’ as can be seen in the following quotation from La donna fascista. The writer eulogizes the National Rural Housewife and Handicraft Fair, stating that: ‘often very simple objects reveal, through their sincere ingenuousness, true forms of a primitive art spontaneously born from the soul of the people and transmitted by tradition in testimony of the innate sense of beauty of the Italic people’58 thereby somewhat missing the point. Like the ‘folklore’ events described in Chapter 8, this ‘spontaneity’ and ‘tradition’ was in fact the product of a national programme. Not content with returning her to the drudgery of handloom and spindle, the middle-class organizers were full of innumerable other ideas for things the diligent massaia could achieve if she only worked just a little harder, used a little more ingenuity in recycling or made use of every crumb that fell on the table and every inch of land around her farmhouse. The production obtained from a range of labour-intensive marginal activities was to be pieced together in an ever-expanding working day to achieve little more than mere survival. The outbreak of the Second World War accelerated this trend and saw the promotion of an ever-widening range of crops and productive activities, including things like the use of acorns and how to raise pigeons and doves for meat. Because of the urgent need for more poultry, all remaining limitations in sharecropping contracts were suspended. The content of the training, already mobilized on to an ‘emergency’ war-style footing by the autarky campaign, was cranked up yet another gear. This was because Italy’s ability to feed itself now depended largely on female labour. Now effectively heads of farming households, many women began to take on a host of tasks previously performed exclusively by men. The ‘Tasks for the Month’ column in the magazine, for example, began to tackle a range of new questions such as the role of fertilizers, ploughing and the sowing of crops such as wheat. Cattaneo Adorno was clearly out of her depth on many of these topics and often limited her advice to listing jobs that men would do in that particular month and suggesting that women seek assistance from the farming unions. The content of training courses altered. Some areas began to run courses, mainly followed by younger peasant women, teaching them to drive tractors, and special courses were set up to train women to take over the running of farms.59 The farmworkers’ union also launched a vast training programme for women (as well as for adolescent boys and men too 130

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old for the call-up) to do the jobs of enlisted men. These included courses in milking and tractor driving.60 In many cases massaie were simply enrolled on courses previously offered to men.61 Less productivist parts of the Massaie programme were reduced. In October 1940 a report in La massaia rurale from Leghorn stated that rallies had been abandoned as women had far too much to do in the fields. Instead, competitions were being stressed and local organizers were visiting the massaie at home. ‘In this way they have been able – during inspections – to speak to almost every massaia about the war, comforting them and extolling those whose men are far away.’62 Archive records confirm this new focus on home visits. In one Leghorn local group, between August and October 1941, there were 426 home visits by local FF organizers, 400 of which were to massaie ‘for recruitment, bran, meetings, propaganda, rabbit pelt collection etc’.63 July 1941 saw the announcement of a complete suspension of all Massaie rallies for the duration of the most intensive season of farmwork. Training continued.64 During the Second World War competitions became increasingly important. Pre-existing competitions continued to run and new ones were added for things like fish farming. Competitions were a particularly appropriate form of training since women lacked time to attend courses, and they offered the additional advantage of enabling inspectors to root out those trying to evade market controls. Special war-time themes were added too. In early 1943, in Bergamo, for example, prizes were awarded to those Massaie and SOLD members who had the largest numbers of sons in the army, or to wives of soldiers with the largest number of children to care for at home.65 Despite being so busy, it was during the war that, for the first time, peasant women became givers as well as receivers of welfare. Some massaie became involved in assistance to soldiers, mainly making warm clothing to send to the front and visiting the wounded in hospital. There is also a rare incident where a massaia herself became a trainer in the war period. In July 1942 the organization’s newspaper recorded a silk spinning course in Catanzaro actually being taught by a massaia. This is, however, the only example that I have found of this.66 In this period the donne fasciste tried to bring the countryside to the towns and became involved in encouraging the production of food in urban areas such as growing wheat and vegetables in city parks and raising rabbits on balconies. Their newspaper included progressively more and more farming articles and numerous issues featured massaie on the front cover. It is striking, however, that even in the wartime atmosphere, many fascist ladies failed to roll up their sleeves and do manual work of any kind but instead construed their ‘contribution to the war effort’ as welfare and supervision. Admittedly, in some areas, middle-class women did do farm work: in Cremona in the autumn of 1939 teams of female students helped women whose husbands had been called up with the grape and maize harvests and 40 female university students from Bologna similarly did 15-day stints in the fields after some special training. Not uncommon, however, was the situation in Littoria, in July 1942, where: 131

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In the harvest, the Littoria massaie rurali have been really praiseworthy in the way that they have shown themselves capable of taking the place of male labourers. In this period of intense fieldwork, the donne fasciste are, more than ever, close by their comrades, to whom they bring words of faith and understanding.67 Similarly, in the case of riceworkers the FF contribution to the Battle for Rice continued to be, right up until at least 1942,68 exactly the same welfare assistance they had given in the previous decade. Fascist ladies failed to don straw hats and wade into the paddy fields, despite the fact that increasing numbers of mondine were required and recruitment became harder and harder.69 Peasant women, in reality, needed more than ‘understanding words’. They became very busy indeed. As one commentator noted: Our massaie have always had a great number of tasks: from caring for children to cooking, from laundry to mending, to raising farmyard animals. And now, since, because of the army call-up, they often have to also do fieldwork, they need a hundred arms, like the giant in the fairy tale, to do all these jobs.70 In some areas, practical help was forthcoming including childcare. In an attempt to offset the reluctance of many Southern women to go to the fields, often distant from their homes, nurseries were created in 1941 at harvest-time.71 Such provisions increased as the war went on particularly because of the pressing need to bring in the Southern wheat harvest.72 Overall, however, time to care for children properly and to attend to their homes was generally scarce in this period and this situation was reflected in the technical sections of the massaie newspaper which increasingly dwelt on farming rather than domestic science and on the more technical themes of the training programme.

Training the trainers The history of the training programme in the final years before the fall of the regime, therefore, saw a much greater emphasis on farming and less on domestic science in a gradual move away from the position in 1937 when, according to the statistics quoted earlier in this chapter, less than one-third of the membership was enrolled on true farming courses. One of the reasons that it was possible to expand the more technical sections of the training programme was the fact that, by the outbreak of the Second World War, the decision taken in 1937 to create a new all-female professional position of ‘technical leader’ for the organization was beginning to bear fruit. Because of the shortage of suitably qualified women for such positions, the Party was obliged to create a special college to train them.

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Notes 1 See, for example, ‘Verso trecentomila . . .’ AMR, no. 9, 1935, p. 1. For some statistics on activities in 1934–5 see P. Benedettini, ‘L’attività femminile fascista nell’anno XIII’, Almanacco, 1936, p. 160. 2 This magazine began in a highly technical vein, with many articles on foreign innovations. It did, however, gradually succumb to a rising tide of propaganda. There was also a ‘rational housework’ magazine Casa e lavoro. See R. De Longis, ‘Casa e lavoro. Ruoli e modelli nelle riviste per le donne’, in F. Mazzoni (ed.), La stampa periodica romana durante il fascismo (1927–1943), vol. I Rassegne, Rome, Ist Naz. di Studi Romani, 1998. 3 See P.R. Willson The Clockwork Factory: Women and Work in Fascist Italy, Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 35–42, 63–6; G. Sapelli, Organizzazione, lavoro e innovazione industriale nell’Italia tra le due guerre, Turin, Rosenberg & Sellier, 1978. 4 A. Fontana, L’organizzazione scientifica del lavoro agricolo, Roma, ENIOS, Tip. Terme, 1927, p. 41. On rational agriculture see also Fontana, Il fattore umano nell’agricoltura, Rome, ENIOS, 1933. Fontana was a member of ENIOS’s governing council and a parliamentary deputy. Unlike many foreign experts he believed that ‘rational’ methods could be introduced even on small farms. 5 See, for example, P.P. D’Attorre, ‘Ceto padronale e classi lavoratrici. Due situazioni a confronto: Lombardia ed Emilia’, in AAVV, Agricoltura e forze sociali in Lombardia nella crisi degli anni trenta, Milan, Angeli, 1983, pp. 135–9. 6 See, for example, ‘In tema di apicoltura’, L’agricoltura razionale, no. 1, 1932, pp. 9–11. 7 PNF, Programma dei corsi affidati ai Fasci femminili e all’Ente opere assistenziali, Rome, Fratelli Palombi, 1935–6, p. 14. 8 FD 1413, 19 Sept 1939, (reprinted in ‘Notiziario’, AMR, no. 10, 1939, p. 2). 9 TM,‘L’organizzazione fascista delle Massaie rurali alla fine dell’anno XIV’, AMR, no. 11, 1936, p. 1. 10 C. Franceschini, ‘L’organizzazione delle massaie rurali’, Almanacco, 1938, p. 124. 11 ‘Attività’, AMR, no. 7, 1937, p. 2. 12 In Naples, for example, literacy courses were one of their first priorities. (Anon., ‘Napoli’, DF, no. 9, 5 May 1935, p. 5.) 13 ‘Programma per l’anno XV redatta da Mercedes Raselli Bolasco’ in AST, PNF Conegliano, b.18. 14 ‘Attività’, AMR, no. 4, 1937, p. 2. 15 This was happening, for example, in Siena in 1935. See P. Zerbino, ‘Massaie rurali’, DF, no. 15–16, 1–15 Aug 1935, p. 7. 16 Circular 45 in AST, PNF Conegliano, b.12, fasc. ‘Pnf circolari Federazione, a.XIII’. 17 ‘Attività’, AMR, no. 4, 1939, p. 2. 18 Letter on ‘Istruzione professionale dei contadini’ from Franco Angelini, 1 June 1934, to the Minister of National Education in ACS, PI, DG, Ist. Tec., Div.III, b.3, fasc. ‘Rapporti con la confederazione nazionale dei sindacati fascisti dell’agricoltura’. 19 See J. Charnitzky, Fascismo e scuola. La politica scolastica del regime (1922–1943), Florence, La Nuova Italia, 1996, p. 232. 20 See, for example, the lists of courses run by the farmworkers’ confederation from 1934 to 1938 in C. Studiati, ‘Per i nostri contadini. L’istruzione professionale’, Cooperazione Rurale, no. 5, 1939, p. 11. The photographs illustrating this article show only male students. 21 In Udine, for example, poultry farming courses were held simultaneously and in the same comuni as farming courses for men. (‘Attività’, AMR, no. 1, 1938, p. 2.) 22 Not everyone went unpaid. In March 1943 Federico Clementi, Director of the Rome Poultry Centre, received an ‘honorarium’ of 4,000 lire for his services to the Massaie. (Letter from Inspector A. Frontoni to F. Clementi, 17 March 1943 in

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ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.264, fasc. ‘Varie’.) 23 ‘Programma per l’anno XV’. 24 ‘Attività’, AMR, no. 11, 1938, p. 2. 25 ACS, SPD-CR, b.31, PNF, Sessione invernale del gran consiglio del Fascismo, 14–15–16 febbraio 1935 – XIII E.F. Relazione del Segretario, p. 18. Dated 15 Feb 1935. 26 ‘Attività’, AMR, no. 1, 1937, p. 2. 27 ‘Attività’, AMR, no. 10, 1936, p. 2. 28 AMR, no. 8, 1935, p. 1. 29 ‘Notiziario’, AMR, no. 3, 1937, p. 1. 30 ‘Il Partito per l’avicoltura rurale’, AMR, no. 4, 1936, p. 1. 31 FD 1071 25 May 1938. 32 On the decline of silk see G. Federico, ‘Una crisi annunciata: la gelsibachicoltura’, in P.P. D’Attorre, A. De Bernardi (eds), Studi sull’agricoltura italiana. Società rurale e modernizzazione, Milan, Feltrinelli, 1994. 33 Franceschini, ‘L’organizzazione delle massaie rurali’, p. 124. 34 AMR, no. 1, 1939, p. 2. 35 ‘Concorso per piccoli allevamenti bachi di seta’, DR, no. 3, 1943, p. 19. 36 Franceschini, ‘L’organizzazione delle massaie rurali’, p. 124. 37 ‘Attività’, AMR, no. 12, 1937, p. 2. 38 Two reduced price machines per province were available each year for Massaie or SOLD members. Necchi had been donating machines (initially 40 per annum) to the Party from the late 1920s. In return the firm enjoyed much needed tariff protection against stiff foreign competition. It also benefited from the autarky campaign. Schools, for example, were urged to buy Italian (i.e. Necchi) sewing machines. (SPD-CO 11.451 ‘Pavia Ditta Necchi, Vittorio e moglie Lina’.) Necchi appeared as a patron of the Massaie on other occasions, donating, for example, 10,000 lire to fund a Massaie stand in the National Textiles’ Exhibition in 1937. (AMR, no. 12, 1937, p. 2.) Two female members of the Necchi family (Nedda Necchi and Gigina Campiglio Necchi) were already members of the Pavia FF by 1924. (See E. Signori, ‘‘Il Partito nazionale fascista a Pavia’, in M.L. Betri et al. (eds), Il fascismo in Lombardia, Milan, Angeli, 1989, p. 85.) On Necchi see also Anon., ‘Industrie in linea per la battaglia economica’, DF, no. 17, 1 Sept 1937. 39 Much of the collection and distribution was actually done by the Consorzi Agrari but the Fasci Femminili did some of the paperwork. 40 See standard letter to all Federal Secretaries from Giovanni Marinelli dated 15 Feb 1938 to this effect. 41 See, for example, letter to Giovanni Marinelli from Maria Chiarizia Fiduciaria of Aquila, dated 1 May 1938 in ACS, PNF, DN, Ser II, b.264, fasc. ‘Varie e contributi’ and the letter of complaint from Udine in 1940 in the same fascicolo. See also, in the same busta, sf.16 2–g ‘Federazione Ital Consorzi Agrari. Grano per avicoli Massaie rurali’. 42 See the memo for the PNF Secretary from A.Frontoni, 22 Jan 1941, ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.264, fasc. ‘Questioni pendenti’. 43 P. Benedettini, ‘L’attività femminile fascista nell’anno XIII’, Almanacco, 1936, p. 160. 44 FD 491 18 Nov XIV. Published in ‘Notiziario’, AMR, no. 12, 1935, p. 1. 45 Circular 79, signed by Enrico Benetti, Federal Secretary, ‘Oggetto Orto Sperimentale Massaie Rurali’, AST, PNF Conegliano, b.18, fasc.‘Circolari Anno XV’. 46 ‘La significativa riuscita del concorso fra i pollai di sezione’, AMR, no. 12, 1939, p. 3. 47 See, for example, the letter from Prof Maria Antonietta Gavazzi (Massaie Provincial

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48 49 50 51

52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

Secretary) to the Prefect of Pistoia, dated 3 August 1940, complaining that some local markets were refusing to give proper concessions. (ASPistoia, Gab Pref, b. 207, fasc. ‘PNF Fasci femminili 1940–1941–1942’ sf. ‘Massaie rurali’.) AMR, no. 5, 1935, p. 1. These amounted to over 26,000 lire. (ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser I, b.339, fasc. ‘Mostra del cappone’.) On the Fair, see also ‘Premiazione e Mostra dell’attività dei Pollai. Esposizione del cappone natalizio’, AMR, no. 11, 1939, p. 3. ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.1180, fasc. ‘Ispezione ai Fasci femminili’. FF di Genova. Sez. Massaie Rurali, La Massaia Rurale Genovese in regime sanzionista, Genoa, 1935, p. 27. Throughout, this pamphlet emphasizes self-sufficiency and the virtues of small units. Larger scale production is presented as part of the male farming sphere and unsuitable for women. See, for example, ‘Non diserteremo’, AMR, no. 1, 1937, p. 1. Agenda della massaia rurale 1937, 1937, p. 102. PNF, Fasci femminili. Sezione massaie rurali. Operaie e lavoranti a domicilio. Regolamenti, Rome, Ist Poligrafico dello Stato, 1939–40. R.D.L., 25 Feb 1939, n.338. See, for example, ‘La tessitura casalinga’, AMR, no. 3, 1935, p. 2; M. Fienga, ‘La Donna e le Piccole Industrie’, DF, no. 19, 1-15 Oct 1935, p. 3. See M. Buonocore, ‘Il lavoro della donna fascista’, DF, no. 20, 25 Oct 1938, p. 3; E. Alfonsi De Donatis, ‘La poesia dei telai’, DF, no. 17, 28 July 1940, p. 11. Anon., ‘Il Mercato nazionale della massaia rurale e dell’artigianato’, DF, no. 33, 15 April 1941. See, for example, ‘Notizie ed esempi’, DR, no. 7–8, 1940, p. 100 which reports the creation of such courses in Ancona. See ‘Per la mobilitazione civile’, Terra e lavoro, no. 6–7, 1940, p. 60. This was taking place, for example, in Salerno in 1941. (MR, no. 4, 1941, p. 2.) ‘Attività’, MR, no. 10, 1940, p. 2. ‘Attività trimestrale agosto-settembre-ottobre XIX delle Capo Settore e Capo Nucleo del Rione XXIII marzo’, in ASL, PNF, b.58, fasc ‘FF 1927–43’. ‘Notiziario’, MR, no. 7, 1941, p. 2. A Nessuno Seconde. Donne bergamasche in linea! Bollettino mensile della Federazione dei Fasci Femminili di Bergamo, no. 6, 1 June 1943, p. 2. ‘Attività’, MR, no. 7, 1942, p. 2. Ibid. I have looked at La mondina only up until this year as I have been unable to locate issues for 1943. See, for example, ‘Relazione al Prefetto dell’Unione Prov dei Lavoratori dell’Agricoltura di Aprile 1942’, in ASV, Gab Pref Vercelli, Ser I, b.22 which laments the difficulties in recruiting enough mondine. A. Atti, ‘È possibile allevare più pollame’, MR, no. 4, 1941, p. 2. FD 145, 30 June 1941. FD 18, 11 June 1943.

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7 ‘AT THE GATES OF ROME’ The Sant’Alessio Training College

In October 1937 a group of 25 young women aged between 20 and 30 enrolled at the Sant’Alessio Women’s Agricultural College in the Agro Romano ‘at the gates of Rome, but right in the country’.1 For the next academic year they were to devote themselves to the study of farming as well as subjects like ‘Fascist mysticism’. They planted and hoed, raised rabbits and sheep, swept, dusted and polished and attended classes on such topics as chicken farming, beekeeping, ‘autarkic farming’, vegetable gardening, the care of silkworms, handicraft manufacturing, home economics, childcare and ‘colonial agriculture’. The following summer, their training complete, they were dispersed all over Italy, one being assigned to each PNF Provincial Federation to work as fully fledged ‘Massaie Rurali technical leaders’. The creation of the Sant’Alessio College opened up a new type of paid employment for women, a new female-only career in the service of the fascist state. A special training institution was required partly because the handful of farm schools described in Chapter 2 were clearly insufficient for such a purpose but also because the training which was to be offered by the college was not simply technical and practical but aimed to prepare the young women thoroughly for their future political role.

Aurelia Josz and the Niguarda school The origins of Sant’Alessio lay (like the Massaie Rurali with its Lombard prototype) in Milan, in the women’s farming school at Niguarda, founded in 1902 (subsequently becoming a residential institution in 1906) by Aurelia Josz,2 a local school teacher. Josz, like the other ‘pioneers of women’s farming education’ discussed in Chapter 2, was an urban resident who believed that the rural–urban shift was damaging for both countryside and cities. As an unmarried, childless woman, she was able to dedicate a good deal of time to her school (her sister Valeria aptly called it her ‘spiritual child’3) working tirelessly in an unpaid capacity for many years. With missionary zeal she devoted herself to improving the lives of rural women by offering them a type of education which would enable them to take an active and responsible role in the running of 136

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farms.4 Her school was explicitly modelled on foreign examples such as Belgium (in 1905 she spent her summer vacation visiting some of these foreign schools in person5) but she certainly owed some of her inspiration to the numerous initiatives of ‘practical feminism’ which flourished in Milan at the turn of the century.6 Josz was associated with the most moderate wing of the feminist movement of the time, which aimed to improve women’s position without challenging the existing gender hierarchy of society.7 Like Cernezzi Moretti, Josz was one of the tiny number of female graduates in Liberal Italy. Born in 1869 into a Florentine Jewish family,8 she graduated in Arts and then went straight into teaching in Milan. Here she became greatly interested in new teaching methods and, in particular, influenced by positivism, in the introduction of more practical and empirical didactic methods to help pupils learn by stimulating their interest and curiosity.9 According to the testimony of one of her ex-pupils she was a dedicated and inspirational teacher.10 Josz’s original aim for her farming school was to train girls to prepare them for a future as farmers’ wives.11 Her target group included orphans, peasant girls and also the daughters of a wealthier stratum of rural society such as large tenant farmers. Recruitment, however, proved difficult. In 1921 a new approach was tried and the school began to train specialized rural primary teachers, versed in both the theoretical and practical aspects of farming (with a particular emphasis on the latter). Many of the students went on to work in rural schools in the Agro Romano or in schools run by the Ente contro l’analfabetismo (Anti-Illiteracy Agency). At first the fascists displayed little interest in her work. In March 1923 Josz sought an audience with Mussolini in the hope of resolving the school’s perennial financial problems which forced her to devote a lot of time to attempting to secure funding for student grants and running costs. According to her own account (a description of the interview appears in her somewhat melodramatic account of the birth, development, and eventual closure of the school entitled La donna e lo spirito rurale) during the audience, Mussolini was very curt with her, continued to write throughout the whole time she was there and dismissed her arguments that women’s farming education was essential to stemming the tide of urbanization. Women, he told her, were irrelevant to the whole issue and he had more important things to deal with right then!12 Despite the Duce’s rudeness Josz, with a typical lack of modesty, managed to portray this incident in a positive light by ending with the suggestion that it might have been her discussion with him that planted in his mind the idea of launching the ruralization campaign. Her visit to Rome did, however, bear more fruit than this as she was also able to meet with Lombardo-Radice (Director General of Elementary Education) who assisted her in obtaining official recognition of the Niguarda diploma as a qualification for those applying for teaching posts. A few years later, however, the fascists changed their attitude to these matters and asked Josz to help them set up an institution, modelled on her own, at Sant’Alessio, nine kilometres to the south of Rome. The new College took over 137

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a pre-existing building and 20 hectares of land which, although previously farmed, was, at this time, in a state of abandonment. It was located next to an agricultural middle school, a boys’ boarding-school for 80 pupils with its own working farm attached which, amongst other things, produced ‘improved stock’ animals to distribute to local farms. On the completion of their three years of studies the boys from this school obtained the ‘Agricultural Expert’s Diploma’, which offered various employment opportunities including work in the Cattedre Ambulanti.13 The female College, however, was to be quite different. Following the pattern which was later repeated with the UMC, the PNF made use of Josz’s expertise and then discarded her. They asked her to send one of her ex-students to assist in the creation of the new girls’ College but, as all were already employed, she went herself. Filled with excitement, just as Cernezzi Moretti had been, that her work was at last receiving real recognition, she took special leave of absence from her teaching job in Milan, headed for Rome in October 1927 and had the college open in time for delegates at the International Domestic Science Congress to visit it in November. The first cohort of students were female war orphans, sent by the National Organization for Orphans of Peasant War Dead. It was planned to offer them two to three years of residential post-elementary education (mainly farm training and domestic science),14 although places were also open to ‘girls aged between 14 and 17 who have a special inclination for agriculture, and who are daughters of farm stewards or peasants’.15 This experiment, however, failed dismally and it was quickly decided to concentrate on specialized teacher training.16 In January 1928 urgent problems at Niguarda forced Josz to make a trip to Milan. She fully intended to return immediately to set up the teacher training courses at Sant’Alessio as, according to her own account, she had already been offered the directorship of the new institution and, at this point, had not ruled out the idea of accepting it. During her absence, however, another director was appointed and Josz had to remain in her teaching job in Milan at the Carlo Tenca Teacher Training College where she had taught for many years.17 She also continued to run the Niguarda school but, soon after her return, had to swallow the bitter pill of seeing it starved of funds (some of her grants were, in fact, transferred directly to Sant’Alessio) and, despite the introduction of religious instruction18 and a course in ‘fascist culture’ in a desperate bid to return to official favour, Josz was sacked from the headship of her own school in 1932. The official reason for her sacking was that she could not hold two teaching posts at once but, unofficially, her ‘difficult character’ was seen as a hindrance to the school’s progress.19

The Sant’Alessio Teacher Training College By way of contrast, under its new director Laura Salvi (who held the position until 1931) the new College at Sant’Alessio flourished and soon was firmly established as the Fascist Party’s Scuola Superiore Femminile Fascista di Agricoltura. 138

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Unlike Josz, Salvi had impeccable political credentials. She was a ‘fascist of the first hour’ (joining in October 1919) and had subsequently been involved with her local Fascio Femminile, first in Naples and then in Friuli, where she had been Political Secretary of the Pordenone FF from 1923 to 1928. A landowner’s daughter, she had considerable practical farming experience, first on her father’s farm in Friuli (which she had run during the First World War) and then on a latifundium in Molise where she worked from 1918 to 1922.20 The new school was one of three new fascist Scuole Superiori Femminili in Rome all created in this period (the others trained factory social workers and home economics teachers). Initially the new farming College carried on the work of Niguarda, although its entrance requirements were higher21 and its curriculum more politicized. Its principal role became to produce specialized rural primary school teachers.22 Students had to be under 30, unmarried and to already have a teacher training certificate. This meant that it was providing extra training for those already qualified as teachers. It recruited mainly among those teaching in the schools run by the ‘Delegated Institutions’,23 small rural elementary schools (run by charitable organizations) to which the state had ‘delegated’ the task of providing education in a certain area for a period of five years, in return for funding. Although such schools were semi-autonomous, they were subject to the authority of the Ministry of Education. From 1933 students sent by the ‘Delegated Institutions’ paid a reduced fee of 2,000 lire per annum (instead of the normal rate of 3,000 lire).24 The new Sant’Alessio College was residential with a ‘family-style’ discipline.25 The entire College (apart from farm outbuildings such as the henhouse) was housed in a single two-storey construction where students slept, ate and studied.26 Their lives were minutely regulated and they were allowed out only on Sunday afternoons, and only if accompanied either by relatives or by persons who had their family’s written permission. Similarly, approved visitors were admitted once a week. Apart from this their only contact with the outside world was the arrival of external teachers or official trips to exhibitions or museums.27 The curriculum of the new school consisted in classroom based instruction in basic subjects such as pedagogic methods and child hygiene but also ‘theory of the new fascist woman, passionate missionary of agricultural science and of fascist culture’ and a good deal of practical training. In the school: none of the teaching is purely theoretical because the students are divided into ‘groups’: the ‘domestic science’ group takes turns to care for the ‘house’; the huge farm, which surrounds the college, has fields, a vegetable garden and livestock which are almost all cared for by the other groups, which take turns at the work, one after the other in a uniform, continuous orderly fashion, swathed in the solemn and austere tranquillity of the Campagna.28 The subjects taught in 1932, for example, were: ‘Fascist legislation, agriculture 139

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and agronomy, farming industries, tree growing, plant pathology, flower growing, animal husbandry, poultry farming, beekeeping, hygiene and childcare, care of adolescents, nursing, domestic science for rural primary schools, religion, singing, PE, drawing’. Instruction in ‘hygiene’ was considered particularly important in order that primary teachers in remote areas would be able to administer first aid to the sick or injured whilst awaiting the arrival of more qualified medical help.29 A typical day consisted in the following: Pupils rise at seven in the morning and have an hour to clean their cubicles and get washed. At eight, breakfast, then they split into groups which take turns week by week to do specific tasks, in the henhouse, the byre, the kitchen, the vegetable garden and the fields. The kitchen group arranges lunch, gives the staff their orders, and supervises everything so that it is all carried out rationally. From nine to twelve the groups are together for lessons. From twelve to one, lunch, from one to two, free recreation, tennis, games, walks. From two until five all the groups are united again for practical farming lessons; from five to seven individual study. At seven, dinner, at eight, walks, recreation until half past nine, at which time, tired, but happy and satisfied, pupils go to bed.30 At this point the school should be understood as more part of the ruralization campaign than as specifically a product of fascist gender politics. Although, as was argued in Chapter 1, in the late 1920s the fascist hierarchy was not yet particularly concerned with the political mobilization of women, it was very interested in rural primary school teachers, given their potential as transmitters of fascist ideology to the masses. The conversion of Sant’Alessio into a specialist teacher training institution was part of a wider process of increased state control of primary education. In the early 1930s the state took over elementary schools previously run by the comuni and, between 1928 and 1935, almost all of the rural schools run by the ‘Delegated Institutions’ were absorbed into the Party youth organization the ONB.31 Women were crucial to any attempt to control elementary education as, by the interwar period, primary school teaching had already become a heavily feminized profession (about 80 per cent female). One PNF publication, for example, in 1929 described Sant’Alessio’s role in the following manner: the idea is to make rural teachers the convinced popularizers and passionate propagandists of the cult of the land. Rural teachers must bring faith and intense love of life on the land to their mission and must, in particular, develop and nurture children’s passion for farming, guiding them back to the purest and simplest joys of nature and thus ensuring 140

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them a future source of certain strength and happiness. The purpose of this is to focus all the Nation’s best energies on the task of making Italy a particularly agricultural Nation.32 Mussolini himself also made this point when receiving the school’s graduates the following year. Their job, he said, was to make peasants love the land.33 By offering agricultural training in rural primary schools the regime hoped both to fit the peasantry better for their allotted role in life and to increase the appeal of education to peasant parents by making schooling seem more relevant and useful. As Ester De Fort has noted, this was one reason why peasants resisted education for their children – they saw it as a waste of time. The idea of education as a means to social mobility was beyond them in this period and, instead, they were much keener on it if it could serve a practical purpose.34 One example of this was Lombardo-Radice’s attempt to introduce creative drawing into primary education which was rejected by rural parents.35 In 1937, however, the training of primary teachers was abandoned at Sant’Alessio. This was partly possible because Josz’s original school had been reopened in 1933 with a new, much younger, Ministerially appointed director – Maria Niccolini36 and a more fascist curriculum. In this new situation it was given official encouragement and, in 1937, moved into bigger premises in nearby Cimiano. To emphasize its new conformity with the spirit of the times, it was renamed the Scuola Femminile di Agricoltura Augusta Mussolini (Augusta Mussolini Women’s Farming School37). By 1940 it was training 50 young women each year as rural teachers.

Training the Massaie leaders In this context Sant’Alessio could take on a new role as a special training centre for the Massaie Rurali organization.38 The idea for this appears to have originated in a request in April 1937 from the Fascist Federation of Rome for the services of one of the Sant’Alessio graduates to assist with their Massaie Rurali work. None of their existing staff had any real farming expertise and: it would be a good idea if one of the clerks working for the Provincial Secretary had at least some technical know-how. Women with this sort of knowledge . . . can be found studying at the Party Agricultural College at Sant’Alessio (Rome). It is proposed that the Massaie Rurali Provincial Secretary’s assistant should be recruited from amongst those attending courses at the aforementioned College.39 A second motivation for the decision to create the new leaders may have been to increase Massaie activities in Southern areas where farming courses taught by female instructors could be far more acceptable. 141

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Once the college took on its new role in the direct service of the Party it became a showpiece for fascist policy, hosting, for example, exhibitions of autarkic handicrafts and offering instruction in colonial farming for young fascist women as part of special short courses to prepare them for life in the Empire. Sant’Alessio also now began to provide summer courses for Massaie Rurali provincial secretaries, consisting mainly in lectures from ‘experts’ of various types on agricultural, political and organizational themes. The amount of hands-on practical farming involved in these events can be guessed from the fact that the women on the course were instructed to wear their summer uniforms of white safari suits.40 Its primary purpose after 1937, however, became to train technical leaders for the Massaie Rurali, to run the training programmes locally, as well as the secondary task of providing ongoing training for these women once they were in post. Of course, even before the college was assigned this new purpose, many of the teachers trained there had probably already played a role in Massaie training as local MR Secretaries. A ‘job description’ for Technical Leaders, issued in 1941, listed their tasks as including: spreading the use of ‘rational techniques’ by touring small villages to inspect massaie farms and give them advice; taking responsibility for the province’s section henhouses and rabbit units; setting up courses and teaching some themselves; providing the necessary technical assistance when massaie took part in exhibitions and encouraging autarkic initiatives of various kinds. Whilst engaged in all these activities ‘technical leaders must, above all, aim to disseminate fascist propaganda amongst rural women’.41 In some areas, given the size of the membership, this meant a lot of work. It was, however, probably in areas with the least activity that they could make the greatest impact. In some Southern areas it was only with the appointment of a Technical Leader that agricultural training really began, most often linked to sectional rabbit or poultry units. This, doubtless, was one reason why, despite lower membership figures in Southern provinces (see Chapter 9) of the first cohort of 25 graduates, nearly half were sent to the South (Salerno, Caltanissetta, Cagliari, Teramo, Aquila, Lecce, Catania, Messina, Enna, Ascoli Piceno and Reggio Calabria).42 The new Technical Leaders worked as part of the Fasci Femminili Provincial Federations although the farming corporate bodies actually had to come up with the cash as part of their obligation to provide the Massaie Rurali technical training (the employers’ organization and the farmworkers’ union paid half each).43 This, however, became a bone of contention and the unions repeatedly complained about having to pay these salaries.44 Eventually, in late 1940, the Party gave in and employed the women directly itself. In practice the sums involved were not particularly large45 as the original project was quite modest for such a large organization: only one Technical Leader was to be posted to each province (in contrast, for example, to the Cattedre Ambulanti which had far greater numbers of technical personnel). This suggests that, even once the new 142

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Technical Leaders were in place, it was assumed that much of the training would continue to be offered by men. I have found no actual evidence that the long-term plan was to eventually staff most of the training courses from Sant’Alessio graduates but this was possible given that in 1941 plans were being proposed to expand the school. According to the regulations for admission, the Sant’Alessio students were carefully selected, and were required to provide evidence of previous political activism in fascist organizations. It was never envisaged that ordinary Massaie Rurali members themselves might aspire to become Technical Leaders, given that the practical knowledge of farming offered by a peasant background was not seen as a qualification for entry. On the contrary, graduates were encouraged to apply, although specifying a degree in Agriculture as a desirable qualification (applicants had to have an Upper Middle School Diploma but preference was to be given to those with degrees in ‘Agriculture, in Natural Science, in Colonial Science and to university students’)46 was optimistic given the dearth of enthusiasm for Agricultural Science among female university students.47 The College almost certainly made do with a rather different sort of recruit and one contemporary archival document refers to them, doubtless perfectly accurately, as ‘mostly primary teachers’.48 Women from a higher social class probably hoped for better work than teaching peasants how to weave and raise rabbits or maybe felt that they could exert themselves with greater dignity as volunteers for ONMI or the Red Cross. Even the teaching staff do not seem to have been particularly well qualified for what was supposed to be a form of higher education. There was a succession of different directors after Laura Salvi, first Serafina Gasparo, then Maria Larghi and, from 1939 to 1942 Maria Teresa Molaroni. Larghi’s qualifications were simply a teacher training certificate and diplomas from some short farming courses49 whilst Molaroni was herself trained at Sant’Alessio and appointed immediately upon graduation. Many of the students had urban backgrounds: according to a document, sent to Party Headquarters, listing those attending the college in 1938–9, 15 of the 25 students that year had home addresses in provincial capitals.50 The dearth of previous experience in rural matters of many of the trainees was also suggested in a draft document, written by Inspectress Angiola Carosi Martinozzi (the former Angiola Moretti who had married Count Nestore Carosi Martinozzi in 1938)51 which was to be used in the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution. This draft gushingly described the college in the following manner (typical of the sort of language used to refer to the school in many fascist publications): ‘Twenty hectares of land surround the students’ simple boarding house so that they are in daily contact with the work of the fields,’ but the following, too revealing, section ‘they feel the unmistakable beauty of nature, rich with so many resources that were hitherto unknown to them’ was, perhaps understandably, erased from the draft by a blue editorial crayon.52 I have little information on the level of demand for places as such records have not survived, but it seems likely to have been buoyant, at least initially, 143

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given the high levels of unemployment among qualified primary school teachers.53 During the Second World War, however, demand faltered as a range of new, more appealing female job opportunities opened up, which offered the possibility of immediate income without the need for long months of training. Although fascist propaganda continued to depict the Sant’Alessio students as rigorously selected according to their educational, moral and political qualifications,54 in reality, it became increasingly difficult to find enough applicants. Despite the fact that the college did not seek to meet all its running costs from fees (fees provided only about a quarter of its income), attending was still not cheap. In 1939 students were charged 500 lire for uniforms and 300 lire per month in fees. Fees rose annually and by 1942 they were 450 lire per month with uniforms at 1,200 lire and a further 300 lire charge for laundry.55 In the first two years of its operation a steady flow of applications had been ensured by the provision of ten grants annually for women who: ‘had joined the PNF prior to the March on Rome: orphans: those from large families or families of Fallen Fascists or Fallen in the African War or those who had Fallen or Fought in the Spanish War’.56 In subsequent years, once the college was established, these were cut back drastically to only two per annum although the category of women who could apply was considerably broadened by making the wording vaguer to include all those from ‘demonstrably poor families . . . and who, either personally or their families, have a particularly good fascist record’.57 By the beginning of October 1942, however, a mere twelve applications had been received for the academic year which was about to commence and in order to fill the empty places the number of grants had to be increased once again to ten.58 The type of education provided by the college mirrored closely the future work of its graduates. Carosi Martinozzi Moretti described the curriculum thus in 1939: Through working on the college’s own farm, the students flesh out their understanding of the theoretical ideas taught them by teachers chosen from the most expert and specialized in the various agricultural disciplines. They are also given the appropriate theoretical and practical training they need to enable them to promote rural female handicrafts, and in particular domestic textile production and the growing and processing of national textile fibres. A course on colonial culture is the final element of the students’ curriculum.59 In reality, although the school was defined as a form of higher education, the curriculum was much more practical than theoretical and did not aim to give students any in-depth knowledge of agricultural science or indeed of farming techniques overall. This contrasted, for example, with the boys’ school next door which offered a much more scientific approach.60 In short, the women’s 144

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Plate 8 Students feeding poultry at Sant’Alessio College. (Fratelli Alinari)

school aimed to give none of what today might be termed ‘transferable skills’ but instead to prepare a few women for a very specific task and for that role only.61 Training focused on typical Massaie Rurali subjects – home economics and the ‘small domestic industries’. Lectures were delivered mainly by staff from the boys’ school, such as poultry expert Federico Clementi, but much of the students’ time was devoted to practical work experience in the college’s own farm. Certain parts of the farm, which specialized in the small-scale cultivation promoted by the Massaie organization, were used for breeding some of the improved livestock for distribution to members. In 1941 the Party grip on the college was tightened, and from this point the administration and the didactic programmes of all three Scuole Superiori were placed under the direct control of the PNF National Directory. Angiola Carosi Martinozzi Moretti (answerable to one of the PNF Deputy Secretaries) remained in charge. A committee was also established to enable consultation with the relevant corporative bodies in the running of the Colleges, which meant the two farming Confederations in this case.62 In this period, furthermore, the college’s curriculum focused increasingly on ‘autarkic subjects’ such as the fight against waste, forms of recycling and so on.63 By this time, although the college farm had already been somewhat modernized and boasted a ‘modern cowbyre with high quality dairy and work animals, a rabbit unit, rational henhouse and pigsty, all stocked with good breeds’,64 much more grandiose plans were being drawn up. These included a brand new building for the students to sleep in, with accommodation for as 145

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many as 50 students, the increased use of the farm to produce rabbits, chickens, etc. to distribute to Massaie members. There were also plans to utilize the farm as a showpiece of the ruralization campaign, given its convenient location near Rome. The original building was to be modified and refitted to be used exclusively for teaching. Eventually the intention was that the refurbished school would become a sort of technical centre for the entire Massaie Rurali organization: ‘The PNF National Directory would then have at its disposal both a study centre in the college and a national centre for experimental agriculture relating to every type of farming which the Massaie Rurali do, which would be open to all the individual FF provincial Federations.’65 None of these plans, however, was ever implemented as they were overtaken by the events of war and the Nazi occupation. The regulations of the College for Technical Leaders were similar to those for the trainee rural teachers, with many restrictions on their personal freedom. All continued to live in as full-time boarders, with their respectability closely guarded by strict rules. Recreational facilities were provided on the site itself and the school had its own piano and radio and even a theatre and a church. A glimpse of the type of leisure activities that went on is afforded by orders for sheet music in 1941 which included such musical masterpieces as ‘The Triumphal Anthem to the Duce’) and ‘Bombs on England’.66 The Sant’Alessio College is a good example of the contradiction and ambiguity which lay at the heart of much fascist policy towards women. It gave access to a new professional career for women and, unlike most higher education in a country which was, according to Barbagli, plagued by ‘intellectual unemployment’,67 guaranteed stable employment to its graduates. The job itself was reasonably well paid (for a woman) - with a salary of 800 lire per month in 1938 (offering 131⁄2 pay-packets each year).68 However, any potential emancipatory overtones which might emerge from such professional training were kept strictly in check and the school trained its students for one job only and no other. All this well exemplifies fascist thinking both about women’s education and about middle-class female employment. In terms of education it was part of the move towards a more hierarchical and undemocratic approach to schooling which aimed to make use of the education system to fit individuals into predestined niches in the social hierarchy according to their class and gender.69 This aim is evident, for example, in the attempt by the Gentile Reform of 1923 to establish girls-only grammar schools. These schools, which offered no access to university, in fact proved a complete failure as middle-class parents shunned the idea of dead-end education for their daughters and the numbers of girls in secondary and higher education actually rose during the interwar period. This eventually led to a more radical approach in Bottai’s School Charter of 1939 which stated, for example, that: ‘The destination and social mission of women, which are quite distinct in fascist life, have as their foundation different and special educational institutes.’ Coeducation was to be gradually abolished and the 146

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new aim of female schooling was defined as to ‘prepare [girls] spiritually for home management and for teaching in nursery schools’.70 Sant’Alessio also epitomized fascist thinking on middle-class women’s employment, forming part of a trend towards the emergence of a particular type of professionalization for women. In the early days of the fascist political mobilization of women there had been a great reliance on volunteer labour for Party work. Gradually, however, although volunteers continued to be used, a small number of women began to find paid employment in fascist organizations, mainly welfare orientated, usually concerned with providing services for children or other women and giving them power only over other, poorer women. This trend, for example, can be seen in the motherhood organization ONMI and in the introduction of nursing courses for ‘fascist hospital workers’. Other ‘new female professions’ typical of this trend included factory social workers,71 domestic science teachers and PE instructors for girls. A key element of this ‘professionalization’ was the creation of the three ‘higher education’ institutions for women in Rome as well as the special Academy in Orvieto founded a little later in 1932 which trained female gym instructors for the Party youth organizations.72 The idea of launching new female professions may seem at odds with the waves of increasing fascist rhetoric against female extra-domestic employment, but, on closer examination, the contradiction was more apparent then real. At the same time as legislative attempts were made to cut back female competition with men in certain fields of employment, other, separate and distinct jobs were promoted as ‘fit work for women’. It seems likely that it was far from by chance that Sant’Alessio was converted into this kind of school precisely in the period of the 1938 law on female employment. This law, which has been frequently misrepresented by historians as an attempt to cut all female employment to 10 per cent of the workforce73 in fact targeted only specific types of white-collar jobs designated as primarily of interest to men. The long list of exemptions to the law, published in 1939, included many of the jobs that women actually did in office work such as shorthand typing and telephony. As this demonstrates, much fascist employment legislation on gender issues was, in practice, less concerned with expelling women from the labour force than with safeguarding certain jobs for men. Women were to be allowed to work, but only in specific approved roles. None of the farming schools discussed in Chapter 2, for example, were permitted to issue diplomas which might lead to women taking away jobs from men qualified as ‘Agricultural Experts’.74 The three Party Colleges and the Orvieto Academy all trained women for what were seen as new, exclusively female jobs, which could channel them away from the male job market. In a parallel process, older female professions such as midwifery were increasingly professionalized in an attempt to discipline and control them.75 In this light, the Party Colleges were entirely consistent with other legislation since they trained women only for specific female-designated employment. A small number of women were now offered an alternative to university.76 Maria 147

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Castellani, for example, argued in 1937 that the expansion of this type of Scuola superiore could offer a solution to the ‘problem’ of the rising numbers of women in higher education. If Italy had: ‘women’s Faculties, which give access to female professions or which forge women’s culture, according to modern understandings of this, many women enrolled in universities would be persuaded to follow branches of learning more suited to them.’77 The fascists themselves were not particularly coy about the fact that the main reason for this was to prevent women from competing with men on the labour market. To quote but one of a number of articles on this which appeared in the late 1930s, a writer in La donna fascista candidly admitted in 1937 that: ‘the fascist government . . . is trying to direct female energies towards special schools, suited to make the most of women’s talents for the benefit of society, without getting involved in unpleasant competition with men.’78

Beyond training The role of the Sant’Alessio graduates was primarily to assist with the huge expansion of the training programme. They were also supposed to bolster activities in parts of Italy where recruitment was slow and local sections not very active. Even once the technical leaders were in place, however, there was still much for the donne fasciste to do as the MR section offered far more to its members than just agricultural training. Although training was at all times the most common activity of local groups, many also offered numerous other initiatives. Many of these included an educational element but some were primarily recreational, making the Massaie Rurali not dissimilar to another fascist mass mobilizing organization, the Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro (OND).

Notes 1 Anon., ‘Una visita alla R. Scuola Agraria Media di Roma’, L’agricoltura razionale, no. 1, 1930, pp. 29–33. 2 On the life and work of Josz see the detailed, carefully researched article by P. d’Annunzio, ‘Aurelia Josz (1869–1944): Un’opera di pionierato a favore dell’istruzione agraria femminile’, Storia in Lombardia, no. 2, 1999, pp. 61–96. See also V.V. Josz, Le origini della prima scuola agraria femminile italiana nel pensiero e nell’opera di Aurelia Josz, Milan, Tip. Ongarelli, 1957; ‘Aurelia Josz’, in R. Farina (ed.), Dizionario biografico delle donne lombarde 568–1968, Milan, Baldini & Castoldi, 1995, pp. 6012. 3 V.V. Josz, Le origini della prima scuola, p. 6. 4 A. Josz, La donna nell’agricoltura (lecture given to Gaetana Agnesi Circle on 24 May 1900), Milan, Tip. Agnelli, 1900. 5 See A. Josz, Le scuole femminili all’estero. Note e impressioni di viaggio, Milan, 1905. 6 On ‘practical feminism’ see, in particular, the many works of A. Buttafuoco, such as Questioni di cittadinanza. Donne e diritti sociali nell’Italia liberale, Siena, Protagon, 1995; Le Mariuccine. Storia di un’istituzione laica. L’Asilo Mariuccia, Milan, Angeli, 1988. 7 D’Annunzio, ‘Aurelia Josz’, pp. 73–4.

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8 The fact that she was Jewish doubtless facilitated this as Jewish families in this period were more open to female education than most other Italian families. 9 Josz published a number of articles on teaching methods. On her pedagogical ideas see D’Annunzio, ‘Aurelia Josz’, pp. 65–6. She also published, amongst other things, two history school textbooks. 10 See testimonial by Maria Piazza, dated 7 September 1993 in AFCDEC, 5 H 6, fasc. ‘Aurelia Josz’. 11 In her book La donna e lo spirito rurale. Storia di un’idea e di un’opera, Milan, Vallardi, 1932, Josz presents her initiative as unique (she omits even to mention the UMC) and herself as a self-sacrificing, lone pioneer. For a (romanticized) description of the school in this period see E. Lombardo, ‘In visita per le scuole femminili (autunno 1920)’, DC, no. 21–2, 1920, pp. 6–10. See also ACS, PI, DG, Ist. Tec., Div.III, b.42. 12 This incident is recounted in Josz, La donna e lo spirito, pp. 92–4. 13 This could trace its origins to 1870 when a school for male peasants had been founded in nearby Frosinone. This became a practical farming school in 1885, moving to another site for the purpose, and then, in 1908, arriving at Sant’Alessio. In 1923 new buildings were planned and the pupils moved into them in October 1929. (See Anon., ‘Una visita alla R. Scuola Agraria’.) 14 For a description of this school and its curriculum see A. Josz, ‘La Scuola Convitto Femminile Fascista di Agricoltura in Roma. Tenuta S. Alessio’, in IV Congresso Internazionale di Economia Domestica, Roma 14–15–16 Novembre 1927. Riassunto per Sezioni dei Rapporti Presentati al Congresso, Rome, Tip. Poliglotta, 1927, pp. 57–8. 15 ‘Iscrizioni alla Scuola di agricoltura femminile fascista’, Giornale, no. 3, 16 Feb 1928, p. 2. 16 Report for Minister of Public Instruction by Chief Inspector Martinelli, 4 Dec 1931, ACS, PI, DG, Ist. Tec., Div.III, b.42, p. 3. 17 V.V. Josz, Le origini della prima scuola, p. 16. 18 When the school was inspected in 1930 it was criticized for, amongst other things, the fact that: ‘The pupils’ religious and spiritual education is somewhat neglected.’ (Report by Prof Angelo Varisco, Director of the Brescia Royal Agricultural School, 20 Feb 1930, ACS, PI, DG, Ist. Tec., Div.III, b.42.) 19 On her sacking see the correspondence in ACS, PI, DG, Ist. Tec., Div.III, b.42, fasc. ‘Cimiano (Milano) Scuola agraria femminile “Augusta Mussolini”’. Josz’s anger and feelings of betrayal about these events are dramatically described in the final chapter (entitled ‘Agonia e dolore’) of La donna e lo spirito. After this she retired from paid teaching in 1934 and devoted herself to caring for her sick brother. In 1944 she was deported by the Nazis and died in Auschwitz. (See AFCDEC, 5 H 6, fasc. ‘Aurelia Josz’; L. Picciotto Fargion, Il libro della memoria. Gli ebrei deportati dall’Italia (1943–1945), Milan, Mursia, 1991, p. 342.) 20 ACS, SPD-CO, 548.500 ‘Laura Salvi. Roma’. She had also been a delegate at the International Agricultural Congress held in Rome (June 1927). 21 D’Annunzio, ‘Aurelia Josz’, p. 91. 22 The education of the orphans probably continued for a while as reports on Sant’Alessio in the early years tend to describe it as only partially devoted to teacher training. 23 On the ‘Delegated Institutions’ see, for example, J. Charnitzky, Fascismo e scuola. La politica scolastica del regime (1922–1943), Florence, La Nuova Italia, 1994, pp. 148–50. This system had been established in 1921 as a cheap method of providing education in thinly populated areas with few pupils. 24 ‘Le tre Scuole Superiori Femminili del Partito si riapriranno nella prima decade di ottobre’, Giornale, no. 18, 15 Sept 1933, pp. 1-2. 25 See Anon., ‘Le Tre Scuole Superiori Femminili del Partito Nazionale Fascista’, Giornale, no. 19, 1 Oct 1933, pp. 2–3.

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26 I owe thanks to the present-day occupants of the building, ‘La Fonte Meravigliosa’ Cultural Centre (and in particular the administrator Cristiane) who most kindly allowed me to look around the building in September 1999. For maps of the layout at the time see ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.259. 27 ‘Le Tre Scuole Superiori del Partito Nazionale Fascista’, p. 3. 28 Nennella, ‘La scuola femminile fascista di agricoltura in S. Alessio’, Giornale, no. 2, 15 Jan 1930, p. 6. 29 P. Benedettini, ‘Lo sviluppo dei Fasci femminili’, Almanacco, 1931, p. 365. 30 Anon., ‘Scuola Superiore Fascista di Agraria per la preparazione delle Maestre Rurali’, Giornale, no. 24, 15 Dec 1932, p. 3. 31 E. De Fort, Scuola e analfabetismo nell’Italia del’900, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1995, ch. 3; De Fort, La scuola elementare dall’Unità alla caduta del fascismo, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1996, pp. 416–21. According to De Fort, the transfer was not to increase the rural schools’ efficiency but purely for political reasons (ibid., p. 421). At the end of the 1930s the state took over the control of the rural schools from the ONB. 32 Segretaria dei FF, Il Partito Fascista e le Sue Opere. Fasci Femminili, Rome, Libreria d’Italia, 1929, pp. 60–1. 33 Anon., ‘Dirigenti ed alunne delle Scuole Fasciste di Assistenti di Fabbrica, di Economia Domestica e Maestre Rurali ricevute dal Duce’, Giornale, no. 14, 1 Aug 1930, p. 1. 34 De Fort, Scuola e analfabetismo, pp. 168–9. In the Liberal period rural schools had essentially been a poor copy of urban ones with a similar curriculum. 35 Ibid., p. 175. 36 ‘Il libro e la vanga. Il podere delle maestre’, Cooperazione Rurale, no. 7, 1940. 37 Augusta Mussolini was the widow of Arnaldo (Benito’s brother). She died in 1936. 38 FD 876, reproduced in DF, no. 20, 20 Oct 1937. 39 Typed copy of an unsigned handwritten note ‘Assistenti Tecniche presso le Sezioni Provinciali Massaie Rurali’, ACS, PNF, SPEP, b.19, fasc. ‘Roma’. Under the note was scribbled: ‘Marinelli, let’s discuss this’ (unclear signature, probably Starace) 2 April 1937. 40 ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.264, sf. ‘Corsi pratici dimostrativi per le segretarie provinciali delle MMRR e delle OLD’. 41 ‘Compiti delle dirigenti tecniche’, MR, no. 9, 1941, p. 2. 42 ‘Elenco delle Federazioni presso le quali prestano servizio, come dirigenti tecniche delle massaie rurali, le diplomate dalla scuola di agraria di S. Alessio’, 8 May 1939, ACS, PNF, DN, Ser II, b.125, fasc. ‘Assunzione delle diplomate della scuola superiore fascista di S. Alessio’. 43 The corporative organizations also paid Angiola Moretti to inspect the schools. By October 1940 she was earning 500 lire from the PNF as Inspectress, 1,826 lire from the Education Ministry, 793.50 lire from the Fascist Farmers’ Confederation (employers) and the Fascist Farmworkers’ Confederation and 955.15 from the analogous corporative confederations for industry. In the early 1930s, however, she had been paid only by the Party (1,650 lire per month). 44 This was the subject of repeated complaints by the Confederation. As one memo in 1940 pointed out, the Party had forced the Farmworkers’ Confederation to contribute to the upkeep of the college and also pay the salaries of the Technical Leaders (as well as producing the Massaie newspaper) despite the fact that the union received only 0.50 lire from the annual fees of each member. (Unsigned ‘Memoria per il reggente il direttorio nazionale’, 31 Aug 1940, ACS, PNF, DN, Ser II, b.125, fasc.‘Assunzione delle diplomate della scuola superiore fascista agraria di S. Alessio’.) 45 See draft of circular letter from Giovanni Montefusco (Head of PNF Administrative Services), Rome, 10 Nov 1940 in ibid. 46 This was specified in the annual admissions regulations. For details of these see, for

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47

48

49 50 51

52

53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

62 63

example, the following fogli di disposizioni: FD 1135 18 Aug 1938; FD 1392 18 Aug 1939; FD 178 12 Aug 1940; FD 179 28 Aug 1941; FD 104 20 Aug 1942. In 1935 only eight women were enrolled in Agricultural faculties in the whole of Italy. There were, however, much larger numbers in ‘Natural Sciences’ with 714 enrolled in Faculties of Physical, Mathematical and Natural Sciences in the same year. (F. Catasta, ‘Studentesse d’Italia’, Almanacco, 1935, p. 160). Letter dated 20 August 1943 from the Paymaster General to the Official Receiver at the special office dealing with the property of the now defunct PNF in Ponte Milva in Rome, ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.351, fasc. ‘Richieste varie al liquidatore ex PNF’. PNF, DN, AV, Ser II, b.35, fasc. ‘Maria Larghi’. ‘Scuola Superiore Fascista di Agraria di S. Alessio anno scolastico 1938-39 XVII’, ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.125, fasc. ‘Assunzione delle diplomate della scuola superiore fascista agraria di S. Alessio’. Born in Carbognano (Viterbo) in July 1889, Nestore Carosi-Martinozzi dated his PNF membership to March 1919. He was a landowner and a graduate in Agriculture. During the ventennio he held many agricultural and political positions including being President of his local Cattedra Ambulante and a member of the Provincial PNF Directory in Rome. He taught at Sant’Alessio as well as being President of the neighbouring boys’ school. (See his CV in ACS, SPD–CO 509.504/3.) A. Carosi Martinozzi, ‘Le Tre Scuole Superiori del PNF’, ACS, MRF, b.90, Parete B ‘Attività Culturali – Scuole superiori femminili’. The final section of the document was also cut in a similar manner as unsuitable for public consumption as it seems to have been too much even for the strong stomachs of fascists used to dreadful rhetoric. The offending passage reads: ‘Thus they reach out to the humble women of the fields in their homes and outdoors, in order to co-ordinate and make the best use of their daily efforts, to instil faith in them, and ensure that these women find their place in the life of the Nation which enlists them in humble and great battles, precious intelligent collaborators of our rural men.’ In 1938 there were about 100,000 unemployed primary school teachers. (G. Natale, F.P. Colucci, A. Natoli, La scuola in Italia. Dal 1859 ai decreti delegati, Milan, Mazzotta, 1975, p. 140.) Anon., ‘Le Diplomate delle Scuole Superiori del P.N.F. ricevute da Vidussoni’, DF, no. 20, 15 Aug 1942, p. 2. FD 178 12 Aug 1940. FD 1131 18 Aug 1938. ‘Alle Scuole superiori del Partito’, DF, no. 43, 15 Sept 1941, p. 2. Promemoria, 3 Oct 1942, from A. Carosi Martinozzi, ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.259, fasc. ‘Scuola di S. Alessio’. A.C. Martinozzi, ‘Le Tre Scuole’, DF, no. 2, 31 Dec 1939, p. 10. For the curriculum of the boys’ school see Anon., ‘Una visita alla R. Scuola Agraria Media’, p. 3. For the first few years after the transformation of the college this was not strictly true as the diploma it awarded could also count as a primary school teaching certificate. This, however, was soon dropped, maybe because the students were mainly qualified teachers already. Letter dated 1 September 1941 from the PNF Vice-Secretary (Alfonso Gaetani) to the Fascist Farmers’ Confederation, ACS, DN, SV, Ser II, b.125, fasc. ‘Scuola di S. Alessio’. Unsigned letter (probably by Angiola Moretti) dated 11 June 1941 to Mussolini reporting on the work of the school over the previous academic year (ACS, SPDCO, 542.097).

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64 Letter dated 20 August 1943 from the Paymaster General to the Official Receiver, ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.351, fasc. ‘Richieste varie al liquidatore ex PNF’. 65 Promemoria by Nestore Martinozzi, July 1941, ‘Trasformazione agraria del tenimento di S. Alessio (Roma) per l’attuazione del programma stabilita dal direttorio nazionale del PNF’, ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.259, fasc. ‘Scuola di S. Alessio’. 66 Ibid. 67 M. Barbagli, Disoccupazione intellettuale e sistema scolastico in Italia, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1974. Barbagli’s famous thesis has not gone unchallenged. See, for example, C. Levy and C.A. Rootes, ‘Disoccupazione intellettuale e mobilitazione politica’, Biblioteca della libertà, no. 97, 1987 who argue that intellectual unemployment was far less of a problem than Barbagli has claimed. 68 In 1941 the rate was the same (ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.862, fasc. ‘Dirigenti tecniche Massaie rurali’) but by 1943 it had risen. The Udine Technical Leader, for example, was getting 1,387.50 lire per month. (ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.1642, fasc. ‘Fed di Udine, Ufficio del Personale, Cartelle delle persone in servizio’, sf. ‘Dirigente tecnica MR’.) 69 On the gender bias of fascist education policy see V. De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women. Italy 1922–1945, Berkeley, California University Press, 1992, ch. 5. 70 For a translation of the Charter’s text see C.F. Delzell, Mediterranean Fascism 1919–1945, New York, Walker and Co, 1970, pp. 148–55. 71 See, for example, ‘La scuola superiore femminile fascista di assistenza sociale’ L’assistenza sociale nell’industria, no. 5, 1928; ‘La sorella spirituale dell’operaio. L’assistente di fabbrica’, in DF, no. 32, 30 March 1941, p. 11. 72 See M. Rossi Caponeri, L. Motti (eds), Accademiste di Orvieto. Donne ed educazione fisica nell’Italia fascista 1932–1943, Perugia, Quattroemme, 1996. On women and sports in this period see also R. Isidori Frasca, . . . e il duce le volle sportive, Bologna, Patron, 1983. 73 See, for example, E.P. Noether, ‘Italian Women and Fascism: A Re-evaluation’, Italian Quarterly, no. 90, 1982, p. 73. 74 See, for example, the letter dated 7 May 1930 from the Public Education Minister to the Ministry of Corporations turning down a request for such recognition for the Florence Cascine school. (ACS, PI, DG, Ist. Tec., Div.III, b.39, fasc. 23, ‘Istituto Agrario Femminile di Economia Domestica Alfieri Cavour. Firenze.’) 75 See N. Triolo, ‘The Angelmakers: Fascist Pro-natalism and the Normalization of Midwives in Sicily’, Ph.D. thesis, University of California at Berkeley, 1989. 76 The social workers’ school was slightly different in this respect as it accepted only graduates. The effect was, however, similar, as the school then channelled them into a new ‘female profession’. 77 M. Castellani, Donne italiane di ieri e di oggi, Florence, Bemporad, 1937, p. 83. 78 M.L. Perduca, ‘La preparazione della giovane all’avvenire’, DF, 1937–8, p. 7.

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8 A DOPOLAVORO FOR RURAL WOMEN? Radio, film and folklore

From the start the Massaie Rurali section organized a range of activities for its members, above and beyond the training programme. Some were highly propagandistic, others had a more productivist air. They ranged from participation in events which were, at least on the surface, very ‘traditional’, such as those linked to the fascist revival of folklore, to much more modern activities like listening to the radio or watching films. Many offered chances to travel beyond the narrow confines of home and farm. All such activities were far more numerous in the North than in the South.

Welfare and leisure Often when the Massaie press referred to ‘welfare initiatives’ it meant training, although the organization did get involved in some limited ‘welfare work’. Members could benefit, for example, from the offer of a few free or subsidized places at spa centres1 or the chance to send their children to summer camps. There was also a campaign to encourage rural women to take out life insurance and savings plans. In Trieste there was even a special mobile childcare clinic which made weekly visits to Massaie sections by early 1935,2 but this was extremely unusual as most welfare assistance for peasant women was provided directly by other fascist organizations such as ONMI. Much more frequent were essentially recreational activities. In theory, during the ventennio, leisure facilities were available to all through the largest of the PNF’s ancillary organizations, the OND (Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro – National Afterwork Agency).3 In practice, however, most dopolavoristi were men. Separate OND membership statistics by gender were not kept after 1930 but at that point only 10 per cent of the membership was female. Even in large cities women made use of the Dopolavoro far less than men4 and it is likely that this was even more true in rural areas. OND membership for either sex grew only very slowly in the countryside. By 1935 only 15 per cent of the peasantry had OND membership cards5 although numbers did increase more after this. For peasants much of the national Dopolavoro programme was not very relevant, since it focused on sport which had little appeal for those whose work already 153

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included demanding physical exertion. In rural areas, therefore, much Dopolavoro activity was, by necessity, extremely similar to that of the Massaie Rurali and even included practical farm training courses. Like the Massaie, many of its other activities were a mixture of the modern (radio listening, etc.) and the ‘traditional’ (folklore and so on). The great similarity between what the two organizations did in rural areas leads to the conclusion that, in practice, the Massaie Rurali section functioned in many respects as a kind of female version of the largely male Dopolavoro. It clearly offered the mix of social and educational facilities which were the OND hallmark, as the following description of activities in the hamlet of Scomigo (Treviso) reveals. Here: farmwomen . . . after their fruitful work on the land, find a well deserved place to relax within their organization which, through the Radio, through cultural courses, instructive outings and the newspaper which is punctually distributed and assiduously read, enlivens them and gives them that moral well-being that this special category needs.6 Such activities were facilitated where the Massaie Rurali had their own premises. Quite a few of these, of varying quality, did appear. Some offered facilities such as communal sewing machines. Others acted as advice centres for women who were in town to market their produce. They ranged from simple information points in local Party premises to special Massaie centres (Case della Massaia Rurale), sometimes doubling as shops selling handicrafts, which gave advice mainly on legal questions such as tax, insurance and inheritance rights. In Grosseto, for example, the Casa was open on Thursdays (market day). It had a dining-room, cloakroom and meeting hall as well as a shop (open daily) selling members’ handicrafts.7 The shop was not a normal moneymaking operation: accounts submitted to PNF Headquarters before it was created envisaged an annual subsidy of 2,000 lire from the Federation.8 The province of Rome was particularly rich in such facilities. Using the monies donated by Marchioness Clarice Incisa della Rocchetta, the organization’s newspaper claimed that 50 different Roman sections had a Casa by 1938.9 Premises were not only used for such serious, useful activities but could be simply for pure recreation. In Trieste in 1938, for example, the FF of Monfalcone held a party for the massaie in their local centre. On a Saturday evening massaie from various groups gathered first to watch a dancing display in local costumes by the fascist girls’ group. They then got the chance to dance themselves and enter a lottery with prizes including two kid goats.10

Getting out Far from all the Massaie activities, however, were single-sex events such as these, and many involved travel. Training did, of course, include outings such as visits 154

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Plate 9 Massaie rurali at a Party rally in Rome. (ACS, MRF, b.90)

to model farms but there were increasing numbers of other excursions of various kinds, as well as participation in political events like rallies. In the Staracian period, the Party became very choreographic and mass rallies in uniform were common. The massaie had their place in all this. This was the reason for the neckerchief and badge, to provide a uniform even to those who could not afford anything more sophisticated. Such activities, of course, took women from the home into the public sphere. Frequent destinations for Massaie outings were commemorative sites of the Great War. Redipuglia,11 for example, which, with over 100,000 graves, was Italy’s largest and most imposingly constructed war cemetery, was visited by numerous groups of peasant women.12 Another favourite place to visit was Predappio, the birthplace of Mussolini. Many of these visits were drenched in the liturgical and ritualistic features of fascist ceremony and spectacle which have been the focus of a number of recent scholarly studies.13 As one of the regime’s foremost ‘sites of memory’ Predappio was visited by streams of ‘pilgrims’ during the ventennio, making it a kind of ‘“Bethlehem” of the new political religion’.14 For the massaie it was portrayed as particularly important, for it was a symbol of Mussolini’s humble rural roots and the home of his mother. Quasi-religious language was common in descriptions of massaie visits. Typical of this is one report which recounted that a massaia had ‘religiously kissed’ everything she was allowed to touch in Mussolini’s house.15 Another example was a trip to Predappio, in 1937, by 820 massaie from Pesaro. Dressed in regional costumes, their first stop was at the tomb of the Duce’s parents: 155

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The previous evening, the massaie rurali decorated coaches and lorries with wild flowers from their fields and they also brought enormous bunches of them to lay on the Tombs. The endless queue of massaie, in their characteristic costumes and their arms filled with flowers, was a splendid, lovely sight . . . Then the massaie heard a Mass for Mussolini’s Parents, celebrated in the Predappio church and accompanied by an orchestra of violins and harps from the Rossoni Grammar School in Pesaro. Then, with religious emotion they visited the Duce’s house, poor, rustic like their own, where a Mother has worked, loved, suffered, living a life like theirs, simple and loving, a life of sacrifice and happiness, teaching Her Great Son goodness, discipline and selfsacrifice.16 As this account shows, on these visits, as in many other Massaie excursions, political propaganda and rituals were combined with the reassuring familiarity of mass. In late 1936, for example, 6,000 rural women took part in a PNF rally in Venice. They took their places, with their 158 pennants, in the middle of Piazza San Marco opposite the altar. Next to them were arranged the 52 ploughs which the men’s Fascio was giving to the colonists bound for Italian East Africa, each plough was draped in a tricolour flag, donated by the Fasci Femminili and next to each one stood a massaia rurale and a soldier who had fought in East Africa. Before celebrating mass, the Patriarch blessed the ploughs and the flags.17 Prize-giving ceremonies at the ends of competitions were another excuse for pomp and ceremony. They usually included speeches from various local fascist dignitaries and might also involve the screening of a propaganda film.18 Here too priests were often present. Massaie rurali also took part in many of the great theatrical massed rallies of the 1930s, such as those which took place in provincial capitals each time the Duce undertook one of his numerous tours of Italy. In such rallies women, whether massaie or donne fasciste, generally did not march but were simply lined up in the square to hear speeches. Some rallies had huge numbers of participants. In December 1938, for example, 10,000 massaie were assembled to mark the opening of the Third Massaie Rurali Fair. The massaie were also present in the Great Rally of Women Fascists in Rome in June 1937. The 500 women who went to this from Como, for example, stayed overnight in a school, rose at dawn to attend mass, watched Mussolini pass by in Via del Circo Massimo and then hurried to Piazza Venezia to take up position to hear his address.19 156

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At all such public spectacles everything was carefully choreographed beforehand and there was no reliance on the spontaneous enthusiasm of the members. Women were instructed to attend (sometimes using church bells to call them) and strict orders issued about where to stand, how to behave and what to wear. It seems likely, however, that many participated with enthusiasm at such novel, exciting events, particularly if they involved seeing somewhere new, or even going to Rome. For a peasant woman this could be a truly memorable event. This was clearly true, for example, for Rita Tofani, a massaia who wrote to Mussolini to thank him for the wonder of her day at the women’s rally in 1937: I will never, and that really means never, forget the day I spent in Rome, that day I spent near you. In my whole life I have never had such a happy day. I was lucky enough to see you close up and I was able to see for myself your goodness and I admired your words . . . and that ‘yes’ that we gave in reply to your questions is a promise made by us Italian women straight from our hearts and we will keep our promise whenever you command it.20 It must be stressed, however, that not all trips and excursions were drenched in quasi-religious rituals. Many were considerably more prosaic, simply mingling fun and training, with only minimal propaganda included. Typical was the visit of 60 massaie from Gorizia to Padua and Venice in 1935. They stayed in a cheap hotel, toured the tourist sites, and visited the botanic garden, the agricultural college and a ‘model farm’.21 Another example, to pick but one of many, was a Massaie rally held in Trieste in 1939 which included a choral singing contest, a prize-giving ceremony, a performance in regional costumes of ‘rustic dances’ and a fair in the park where each section had a stall selling local handicrafts and culinary specialities.22 Many other trips, it is true, did contain a little more propaganda but it was often far from the most prominent feature of the outing, such as the trip by 150 massaie in 1938 (together with 50 of their menfolk) from the province of Pisa to Florence. Whilst eating in the Party canteen they were subjected to some speeches, but the excursion also included mass in the Cathedral and visits to museums and other tourist sights.23 Massaie sometimes also got the chance to see plays. As in the OND these were usually lowbrow events such as comedies or farces produced by local dramatic societies24 but more intellectual fare was occasionally offered, such as when 2,000 massaie watched a performance of ‘Faust’ in Padua.25 A prominent feature of many such trips and public events in which the massaie participated was their ‘folklore’ flavour and they themselves, clad in ‘traditional dress’, performing ‘rustic dances’ and selling ‘traditional handicrafts’ furnished some of this flavour. As Cavazza has argued,26 although folklore was promoted in this period partly because of nostalgia, yearning for 157

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a bygone age of class harmony, in many cases the ‘revival’ was also driven by commercial considerations. Some folklore events were organized primarily to attract tourists, both foreign and Italian, others, such as the ‘Grape Festival’, launched to promote consumption of certain produce, in this case to increase flagging consumption of wine. Although some of these folklore festivals were simply a revival of interest in something that already existed, others were essentially what Hobsbawm has termed ‘the invention of tradition’.27 Some of the ‘traditional costumes’ for a national OND rally in Venice in 1928, for example, were remodelled for the occasion or even simply made up.28 Old fairs and festivities revived after long disuse were frequently modified in the process, whilst others were pure invention. Some, such as carnival, were cleaned up to expunge the more disorderly aspects, such as the wearing of masks. Although many folklore celebrations in this period were local festivals, partly the product of local municipal pride, fascism attempted to stress the harmony between regional/local and national pride engendered by such occasions. It was on this issue, folklore, that the similarity of the OND and the Massaie Rurali led to turf wars. Although I have found no evidence that the OND wished to take over other Massaie activities, doubtless recognizing that singlesex events were more likely to be attractive to peasant women, on the question of folklore festivals, the most public events organized by the Dopolavoro, the OND officials wished to remain in control. In 1936, a Party directive tried to stem the apparent encroachment of some Massaie sections into what was claimed as Dopolavoro territory. This noted that: ‘In some provinces the Massaie Rurali are organizing groups in traditional costumes or are tending to take over the OND costume groups’ and sternly warned, in an attempt to establish a hierarchy of command, that: ‘the folklore activities are the responsibility of the Dopolavoro. Therefore, those in the Groups, even if they are organized by the Massaie Rurali, must take out OND membership and comply with Provincial OND directives.’29 Again in 1938 another directive ordered that: ‘The Massaie Rurali must stop getting involved in the artistic activities of the folklore groups. Those activities are the responsibility of provincial Dopolavoro authorities.’30 The Massaie Rurali Secretaries may have been prevented from taking the initiative in such matters by these directives but the membership continued to participate in folklore activities in many areas. ‘Traditionally’ costumed massaie continued to add what was presented as a charming, rustic note to ceremonies, typically offering baskets of fruit or other farm produce to assembled hierarchs. Their presence became essential to many ‘revived’ festivals such as the new Grape Festival. This festival, celebrated annually on the last Sunday of each September, had previously existed in a few local areas but the fascists proclaimed it a national festival and even tried to claim its origins in Ancient Roman festivities.31 In the early days of this new festival the female sales staff, despite their rustic dress, had often been giovani fasciste from well-to-do families 158

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but by the late 1930s the massaie were frequently involved in activities such as staffing kiosks offering bunches of grapes in ‘rustic baskets’.32 The regime’s desire for a ‘rustic’ female presence at ceremonies and rituals seems to have increased with time and by 1938 teams of massaie from the Province of Rome were kept at the ready: so that, with local Party Inspectors and Secretaries in charge, many groups of the five thousand massaie with traditional costumes can take turns to move around quickly and in an orderly fashion, in order to be present in every festival and ceremony held in the Capital, where the population always warmly welcomes them.33 Such events, of course, were likely to have a contradictory impact since, in the service of anti-urbanization and the nostalgic celebration of the past, these groups of women got repeated opportunities to view the relative delights of the urban world. As a tool for ruralization, therefore, such events may have backfired since they may have hastened the desire of some to leave the land. Other Massaie activities, too, could be unsettling for a rural community, such as the modern media of film and radio which brought new sounds and images to remote areas. Although neither radio programmes nor films for peasant women were produced directly by the Massaie Rurali section itself, it seems relevant to include them here, as both formed a frequent activity of local sections and were particularly important in some areas, given the low levels of literacy discussed above.

Film Special didactic films for the peasantry were produced in this period by the Istituto Nazionale LUCE (L’unione cinematografica educativa – founded in 1924) and screened around Italy by the Cattedre Ambulanti from 1931 onwards.34 Some of these crudely constructed short films were shown specifically to rural women. Although in the late 1920s and early 1930s such films (mostly silent) had been predominantly devoted to technical themes (albeit with an antiurbanization message), by the late 1930s, they had become more propagandistic in tone,35 including, for example, far more ‘news’ of the ‘achievements of the regime’. By 1937 over 60 different short films were circulating among local Massaie sections and a special film was being made called ‘La giornata della massaia rurale’ (The Day of the Massaia Rurale).36 In some areas films were extensively used as part of training, or might be used as part of sessions to launch training courses to attract the interest of the peasant women.37 In Vercelli, in 1935, Massaie Rurali classes ‘were always followed by cinematographic projections which illustrate the topics of the actual lessons’.38 Massaie also watched ‘documentaries’ about events like the Ethiopian war. In 1935 in Aquila, for example, ‘Per la Vittoria’ (For Victory) was shown in 15 159

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different locations around the province. About 5,000 people saw this film, of whom half were massaie.39 A similar film ‘Abissinia’ was watched by massaie in Conegliano Veneto. This, a ‘reel which shows the customs, the landscapes, the peoples, the life, etc. of this African land, in which Italian troops are fighting for its civilization and redemption’,40 was shown on a Thursday morning in a special screening in the local cinema. The fact that Massaie viewings took place early in the morning, 8 a.m. in one instance,41 was probably because cinemas were asked to offer the facilities for free and it was necessary to find times when the building was not in use. The women of Conegliano also got the chance to see another ’documentary’, ‘Sulle orme dei nostri pionieri’ (On the Trail of our Pioneers)42 and, in January 1937, even a purely recreational film about ‘Cardinal Richelieu’. Many rural areas, of course, were distant from the nearest cinema but outdoor screenings were possible from April to October, usually projected on to a wall or portable screen in village squares. Such screenings were provided by travelling cinema vans which toured rural towns and villages. This method was pioneered by the Istituto Luce but by the late 1930s the farming unions had their own vehicles complete with loudspeakers mounted on the roof.43 Others got the chance to see films on organized trips. In the summer of 1935, for example, a Massaie Rurali rally was held in Padua. Large numbers of massaie from numerous sections, some dressed in regional costumes with wide-brimmed straw hats, converged on the city. After visiting an exhibition, they attended a special screening of ‘cultural films with a rural setting’.44

Radio Italian wireless broadcasting45 began in 1924 but the fascists were slow to recognize its potential. For years it was left in private hands (broadcasting under state licence) and Mussolini, with his background in journalism, paid it little attention, believing the print media far more important. In this early period, although not devoid of political content, programmes, aimed at the small number of well-off households who could afford the considerable expense of acquiring a set, consisted mainly of music. The regime limited itself to censoring rather than dictating what should be broadcast. By December 1931 only 241,889 Italians had radio licences (compared with 3,980,852 in Germany and 4,321,754 in Britain)46 and these were virtually all in urban Northern areas or near Rome and Naples.47 By the 1930s, however, galvanized to a certain extent by Goebbels’ masterly use of the airwaves, the fascists became more interested in the new medium. This led to the foundation of the Ente Radio Rurale (ERR – Rural Radio Agency) in June 1933.48 Financed by the state but under the control of the Party its task was to sell cheap radios in rural areas and to make special programmes for primary schools and for adult peasants. 160

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Although the numbers of radio licence holders increased steadily during the 1930s, by 1940 when a survey of listeners was carried out, the vast majority were still middle-class. In this survey, of the 862,200 replies (75 per cent of licence holders responded) only a minute number – 4,474 – were from peasants.49 This problem was, however, circumvented very effectively by group listening in schools or local Party premises. ‘L’ora dell’agricoltore’ (Farmers’ Hour) was broadcast from 15 April 1934 on Sunday mornings to enable collective listening after mass.50 It is clear that, from the very start, women were among the intended audience.51 As Arturo Marescalchi, Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, put it, the material broadcast was to be suitably gendered: For women, since the forging of a new kind of rural woman is one of the core elements of ruralization, there will be instruction in the care of the home and its furnishings, how to clean and beautify it, in childcare, first aid, and the lesser aspects of domestic science so that they learn how to use foods better, and even recipes for sweet and savoury dishes.52 Programmes also included news of public events, market information and legal changes affecting agriculture as well as music, songs, stories and anecdotes. Initially the scriptwriters hoped to reach listeners by dramatizing technical and political messages through dialogues, featuring three fictional peasants: Timoteo, the traditionalist who had not improved his land, Menico the agricultural modernizer and Dorotea, a tireless worker and ‘prolific mother’ of seven children (presented as ‘the prosperity of the home’ in the first dialogue).53 In these dialogues gender roles were presented as very rigid but it is worth noting that Dorotea is a strong character and a fount of information (in one dialogue, for example, it is she who lectures the men on how to prevent accidents in the fields).54 Overall, however, although they did include useful technical advice, the dialogues were crude and unimaginative and there was little attempt to create any sort of interesting story-line. A number of historians have, quite rightly, been very critical of them. Monticone has termed them patronizing and puerile and unlikely to appeal to the target audience, calling them ‘a heavy failure and overall one of the worst radiophonic efforts of the regime’.55 He argues that the programme makers assumed that the typical peasant was ‘stubborn and simple, but who could be convinced by a few idiotic wisecracks’.56 Isola concurs with this, noting, amongst other problems, the fact that the fictional peasants were almost farcically clean and contented and were even heard singing joyfully in the fields.57 Not long passed, however, before ERR itself recognized the problems with such dialogues and, in October 1934, abolished them.58 June 1934 saw the 161

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introduction of answers to listeners’ technical questions,59 and from February 1935 programmes began with a political speech. By June 1935 the format had changed yet again so that the first 35 minutes (comprising 10 minutes of music and 25 minutes of farming and political information) was transmitted centrally from Rome and the next 25 minutes devoted to local farming information relevant to the area covered by each of the nine transmitting stations.60 This latter section was probably the least well produced as the local farming experts often had little idea of how to communicate with their audience and tended to subject them to dry, technical lectures.61 It is striking how frequently the programmes were modified, suggesting that nothing worked well. By late 1937 didactic dialogues were back, now featuring: Pippo, one hundred per cent rural, his wife, and other characters. Excerpts from operas, sung by the most famous artists, songs and dance tunes, alternate with the various topics of the conversation, making listening enjoyable as well as useful and interesting.62 The dialogues always contained some material aimed at female listeners. In the first few months of this second round of dialogues, for example, topics covered included ‘poultry farming tips, rabbit recipes, information on how to fatten pigs and hens, the value of honey in the diet, practical childcare information’.63 In February 1938 the listeners were even subjected to a dreadful propagandistic song, the ‘Canto della massaia’. In 1938 too ERR began to broadcast replies to ‘listeners’ questions’ sent in by massaie (with free postage).64 At first the Fasci Femminili had no official role in the ERR. From July 1935,65 however, Massaie Rurali provincial secretaries were given a seat on new committees set up to promote ERR activities locally (although they still played no part in the actual production of programmes) and in 1938 the new Massaie Central Committee deliberated the question of special radio broadcasts for women. This led, in March 1939, to the programme changing its name to ‘L’Ora dell’Agricoltore e della Massaia Rurale’ (Hour for Farmers and Massaie Rurali). Special sections of the programmes (entitled ‘For the Massaie Rurali’ or ‘Conversation with the Massaie Rurali’) were introduced. In 1938 Starace urged local hierarchs to intensify propaganda: ‘so that the greatest number of members possible attend the radio listening sessions’66 and in December 1938 the Fasci Femminili were instructed to ensure that there were special sessions for rural women.67 This increased emphasis on the need to encourage female listening was stepped up even more during the Second World War and from 16 March 1941, fortnightly broadcasts also began to be directed at the Fasci Femminili.68 On 22 March 1941 there was a special political broadcast in which National Inspectress Laura Marani Argnani addressed the massaie rurali on the subject of ‘The Duties of Italian Women in Wartime’. 162

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The donne fasciste dutifully rounded up large numbers of peasant women to listen to this tirade of propaganda which summarized the reasons for the War (‘English arrogance’ against ‘youthful and strong peoples’ who failed to submit to Mussolini’s crusade for peace) and outlined the task of the massaie in the current situation (to work harder, produce more, fight waste and use every inch of land, be strong and keep faith until the advent of the certain victory ahead).69 Marani Argnani’s broadcast was, of course, an extreme example and most programming included considerably more technical information and entertainment. It is likely, therefore, that many women did attend listening sessions with interest, particularly in the later period. Things did, however, get off to a slow start. For peasants of either sex, radio listening was hampered by the problem of hills blocking signals in many remote mountainous areas, from the still fairly small number of transmitters and the lack of electricity in many rural comuni. In 1935 in some provinces less than 10 per cent of primary schools had electricity and less than 50 per cent of rural villages had radios at the end of that year.70 This situation gradually improved partly because battery-operated machines began to be available in 1938. The 18,927 radios available for rural collective listening in April 1937 doubled in only eighteen months to 36,262 (half in schools and half in Party buildings),71 although after this the rate of growth slowed somewhat. Some rather fragmentary evidence suggests that in the early period, even where there were radios, not many women listened. Photos of group listening sessions sent in by ‘listeners’ for a competition run by Radio rurale magazine in 1936, for example, show largely male audiences. One caption read: ‘Villabassa school (Val Pusteria), one of the many which, on Sunday mornings, welcomes the pupils’ dads who come to listen to “Farmer’s Hour”’.72 Whether such representations can be used as any reflection of the real extent to which women were present is, of course, hard to assess as their absence might simply reflect a greater reluctance to being photographed. A few other scattered clues, however, point in a similar direction. When, for example, in 1937 Radio rurale enticed peasant listeners to write in with their opinions of the programmes by offering prizes, very few of the extracts published in the journal were by women. One man wrote to say: ‘When I went in to the Dopolavoro I was dumbfounded to see so many men, young and old, who were listening to the broadcast.’73 It is quite possible that many women, in practice, may have agreed with the wife of Cesare Cerato from Maddelena di Viù (Turin). Cesare wrote, in a letter to Radio rurale, also in 1937, that: ‘I’ll never miss another listening session, even if it makes my Massaie Rurali wife grumble. She thinks listening to the radio is a waste of time.’74 Another letter to Radio rurale the previous year (from the pupils of a Trentino school) also echoed the idea that Farmer’s Hour appealed mainly to men: ‘our radio has livened up our little village which is far from the city and does not even have a church. On Sunday mornings our fathers, good farmers as they are, 163

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listen to Farmer’s Hour.’ In this village, however, women listened to other programmes. ‘Our grandmothers always come to hear Mass, and on Saturday evenings everyone in the village comes to our school to enjoy themselves as there is no Dopolavoro here.’75 For these women, religious broadcasting and Saturday evening dance music held greater appeal than lectures on crop diseases and politics. In this Northern village there seems to have been no problem with women attending this mixed-sex event but in other areas the collective listening sessions with men was probably a hindrance to women. Although eventually radios did spread to all but the most isolated areas, and, according to Isola, many peasants enjoyed the special programmes, the extent to which this reached women varied. Turin, of course, is in the North. Even though Cesare’s wife was not keen on listening, she did at least have the choice. This was less true in parts of the South and here listening was probably held back by other factors such as hostility to what was sometimes a mixed-sex occasion, with men and women gathered together to listen in the same room. The separate listening sessions supposedly provided from December 1938 could, of course, offer a solution to this although they were only practical in villages where there was more than one radio set. Although no statistics exist to document how many women did listen in the South, it seems telling that it was only Northern stations that began to include the special sections of programmes for women in 1939. This was probably a tacit admission that the numbers listening in the South continued to be relatively low. In other respects, too, there was a great deal of difference in the level of activity between Northern and Southern Massaie Rurali sections.

North and South To pick but one month out of many possible examples, in the reports of ‘Activities in the Provinces’ published in the Massaie newspaper, the Sicilian province of Messina in September 1937 reported that it had set up training courses on hygiene, domestic science, handicraft production, gardening, sewing and literacy. Admittedly there was some evidence of agricultural training as the local FF are reported as busy with the collection of prizes for a silk contest and the existence of a provincial poultry coop is mentioned but overall the activities in this area, as in reports from many other Southern provinces, reflect the fact that the organization had to adapt to local, often very unpromising, circumstances.76 In Caltanissetta, to give another example, the January 1938 report detailed very little. In this province only 30 women got prizes in the national competition for ‘the flower-decked home’, and an identical number won material to make bed linen and blankets in the childcare competition, which suggests that only tiny numbers entered. Admittedly they had plans to set up weaving courses and one group in the provincial capital was teaching literacy, but another group in the same city was simply resorting to 164

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pure old-fashioned charity. Here: ‘a system of reciprocal welfare has been introduced and the better off massaie rurali offer food which is distributed to the poorer members.’77 This contrasted greatly with some Northern or Central provinces. In Arezzo in Tuscany (a ‘classic sharecropping’ area), for example, a report only 12 months later listed, for the fascist year ending October 1938, 365 lessons on various topics (with 10,000 attending, more than the total membership, which means that some members did more than one course), four competitions (with contestants numbering 230 for silk, 504 for ‘the orderly and floral home’, 388 for childcare and 1,483 for sunflowers). There were also six local competitions, lots of handouts, 25 rallies, 15 ‘instructive and recreational’ trips and an organized campaign for local massaie to donate eggs to the anti-TB campaign.78 The ‘Activities in the Provinces’ column in L’azione delle massaie rurali, furthermore, contains far, far more news from Northern and Central provinces. Reports from the South and Islands are not just thinner in content, they are strikingly less in number and some provinces rarely appear at all. In Southern activities there is a great reliance on domestic science courses, showing films, listening to the radio and welfare initiatives like sending rural children to summer camps.79 Much less technical training took place there and, indeed, less of everything overall. Most ‘technical activities’ were related to handicrafts. Eventually, however, this situation did begin to change, though only gradually. A report from Messina sent to Rome in 1940 claimed that there the Party had been successful in overcoming the diffidence of Southern women. It asserted (referring to all the Party women’s sections) that: ‘Sceptics who like to hide behind difficulties and particularly behind bad habits, and who, therefore, thought that Sicilian women would be excluded from the Party, have been proved totally wrong.’80 For the Massaie this report listed: ‘careful propaganda on the rearing of rabbits, poultry and silkworms and on the cultivation of castor oil plants, sunflowers and mulberries, the creation of experimental vegetable plots, participation in the silk campaign, numerous rallies, outings and country festivals . . .’ Although this report may, in fact, be somewhat optimistic in its claims (no actual statistics are offered on the numbers and frequency of these activities) it does seem true that, by this time, things were changing. The main reason for this may have been the arrival of the new Technical Leaders. Messina was one of the 24 provinces which were assigned a Sant’Alessio graduate from the first cohort in 1938. After this many Southern reports of activities are largely accounts of what the Technical Leader had been doing. It must be admitted, however, that not all Technical Leaders really did make an impact. Enna was another of the provinces which, like Messina, was allocated a Technical Leader in 1938. Despite this, a rare report from this central Sicilian province as late as June 1939 talked of courses in the singular: only one rabbit farming course was held in the entire province with 46 women enrolled and one horticultural course with 52 enrolled. 165

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Although the level of activity in the South did eventually expand in some provinces, the main activities by the end of the 1930s continued to be handicrafts, exhibitions, training in domestic science and childcare and participating in a few competitions. In Avellino the only courses running in 1939 (held weekly on Wednesdays and Sundays) were on ‘colonial culture’, literacy, childcare and domestic science. These were so unspecifically rural in nature that they were offered indiscriminately to both massaie and members of the workers’ organization SOLD.81 All of this leads to the inescapable conclusion that the Massaie Rurali organization, based on a formula which had been successful in the Northern region of Lombardy, was not really suited to the conditions in some regions of Italy. This had a great impact too on the rate and level of recruitment.

Notes 1 It does, however, seem unlikely that there would be much take-up on this. Few massaie would have been able to leave their farms or find the money to take advantage of this offer (discounts ranged from 10–50 per cent of the normal price in 1942). (‘L. Beri, ‘Silenziosa missione. Riposo per le donne dei campi’, DF, no. 21, 30 Aug 1942, p. 2.) 2 ACS, SPEP, b.27, fasc. ‘Trieste – situazione’. 3 On the OND see V. De Grazia, The Culture of Consent. Mass Organisation of Leisure in Fascist Italy, Cambridge University Press, 1981. 4 This was the conclusion reached by, for example, my study of urban factory women in Milan. (P.R. Willson, The Clockwork Factory, Oxford University Press, 1993, ch. 9.) 5 De Grazia, Culture of Consent, p. 124. 6 Report by Marcello Barale on Annibale Foscari Fascist District Group in Scomigo, 15 July 1936, AST, PNF Conegliano, b.15, fasc. ‘Ott XVI’. 7 ‘Attività’, MR, no. 7, 1940, p. 2. See also DF, no. 15, 30 June 1940, p. 14. 8 See the detailed accounts in ‘Casa della massaia rurale’, ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.1110. This refers only to the running costs. The building was given free by the local comune although 25,000 lire were needed from Party funds to refurbish it. 9 AMR, no. 7, 1938, p. 2. About one-third of the money was spent on sewing machines (ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.193, fasc. ‘Assegnazione di macchine per cucire Necchi a massaie rurali meritevoli’). 10 ‘Trieste’, DF, no. 10, 25 May 1938, p. 5. 11 See P. Dogliani, ‘Redipuglia’, in M. Isnenghi (ed.), I luoghi della memoria. Simboli e miti dell’Italia unita, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1996. 12 For example, about 100 massaie and donne fasciste from Conegliano went there in September 1935. (AST, PNF Conegliano, b.12, undated document from Ufficio stampa.) 13 The main Italian exponent of this approach is Emilio Gentile, who portrays fascism as a ‘political religion’ in his Il culto del littorio, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1993. Many of those who write in this vein are, however, Americans. See S. FalascchiZamponi, Fascist Spectacle. The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini’s Italy, California University Press, 1997; M. Berezin, Making the Fascist Self. The Political Culture of Interwar Italy, Cornell University Press, 1997. For some very acute observations on this new historiography see S. Luzzatto, ‘The Political Culture of Fascist Italy’,

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Contemporary European History, no. 2, 1999, pp. 317–34. 14 M. Baioni, ‘Predappio’, in Isnenghi (ed.), I luoghi della memoria, p. 504. 15 ‘Gita delle Segretarie dei Fasci femminili e delle Massaie rurali a Igea Marina e a Predappio’, DF, no. 17, 1 Sept 1937, p. 4. 16 ‘Attività’, AMR, no. 7, 1937, p. 4. 17 ‘Attivita’, AMR, no. 12, 1936, p. 2. 18 See, for example, the account of a ceremony in Castelfranco (Treviso). (Il gazzettino mercolodì, 1 Dec 1937, p. 4.) 19 See the breathless account of this written by the Como Massaie Provincial Secretary, the former UMC activist Gabriella Anderloni. (‘Adunata Donne Italiane a Roma’, DR, no. 7, 1937, p. 113.) 20 Letter from MR Rita Tofani, S. Amata, 25 June 1937, ACS, SPD–CO, 176.663. 21 ‘Attività’, AMR, no. 11, 1935, p. 2. 22 ‘Attività’, AMR, no. 8, 1939, p. 2. 23 ‘Pisa’, DF, no. 19, 10 Oct 1938, p. 4. 24 In 1937, for example, the Conegliano massaie watched a show called ‘Nina no far la stupida’. (AST, PNF Conegliano, b.17, fasc. ‘Maggio XV 1937’.) 25 ‘Attività’, AMR, no. 9, 1939, p. 2. 26 S. Cavazza, Piccole patrie. Feste popolari tra regione e nazione durante il fascismo, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1997. See also (for a comparison with other European countries at the time) Cavazza, ‘Folklore e tempo libero: il dibattito europeo e l’esperienza italiana tra le due guerre mondiali’, Storia in Lombardia, no. 1–2, 1995, pp. 147–65. 27 See E. Hobsbawm, T. Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 1983. 28 Cavazza, Piccole patrie, p. 98–9. 29 FD 651 16 Oct 1936, reprinted in ‘Notiziario’, AMR, no. 12, 1936, p. 1. 30 FD 1130 9 Aug 1938. 31 Gentile, Culto del littorio, p. 176. 32 For an account of a Grape Festival see ‘La IX Festa dell’Uva a Venenzia’, DF, no. 19, 10 Oct 1938, p. 4. 33 ‘Nelle provincie’, AMR, no. 6, 1938, p. 2. 34 On the documentaries and newsreels of the Istituto Luce see, for example, G.P. Brunetta, Storia del cinema italiano 1895–1945, Rome, Riuniti, 1979, pp. 236–8, 362–80. 35 M. Argentieri, L’occhio del regime. Informazione e propaganda nel cinema del fascismo, Florence, Vallecchi, 1979, p. 27; E. Cigana, ‘Potenziamo la cinematografia rurale’, Terra e lavoro, no. 4, 1939, p. 50. 36 M. Castellani, Donne italiane di ieri e di oggi, Florence, Bemporad, 1937, p. 65. 37 For example, ‘Raduno Massaie rurali’, AST, PNF Conegliano, b.21, fasc. ‘Gennaio XVII 1939’. 38 Report from the local branch of the farmworkers’ union to the Prefect, 28 Feb 1935, p. 5, ASV, Gab Pref Vercelli, Ser I, b.22. 39 ‘Attività nelle provincie’, AMR, no. 8, 1935, p. 2. 40 Letter, dated 24 Oct 1935, from the PNF Political Secretary to the parish priests of Conegliano. (AST, PNF Conegliano, b.12, fasc. ‘PNF ott.XIII’.) 41 AST, PNF Conegliano, b.11, fasc. ‘Luglio 1935’. 42 AST, PNF Conegliano, b.20, fasc. ‘Aprile 1936’. 43 See, for example, C. Studiati, ‘Per i nostri contadini. L’istruzione professionale’, Cooperazione rurale, no. 5, 1939, pp. 10–13. 44 ‘Attività nelle provincie’, AMR, no. 7, 1935, p. 2. 45 On radio broadcasting see, for example, A. Monticone, Il fascismo al microfono. Radio e politica in Italia (1924–1945), Rome, Edizioni Studium, 1978; P.V. Cannistraro, La fabbrica del consenso. Fascismo e mass media, Rome–Bari, Laterza, 1975; D. Forgacs,

167

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46 47 48

49 50 51 52 53

54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

Italian Culture in the Industrial Era, 1880–1890: Cultural Industries, Politics and the Public, Manchester University Press, 1990. Monticone, Il fascismo, p. 43. Ibid., p. 48. ERR was dependent on the Ministry of Communications with assistance from the Ministries of Education and of Agriculture. In April 1940 it was merged with EIAR and officially ceased functioning as a separate institution. On ERR see G. Isola, Abassa la tua radio per favore . . . Storia dell’ascolto radiofonico nell’Italia fascista, Florence, Nuova Italia, 1990, pp. 115–41: Monticone, Il fascismo, ch. 3. Monticone, Il fascismo, p. 386n. This did prove somewhat problematic as in some villages mass clashed with the programme time (10 a.m.). Other radio programmes specifically for female audiences were aimed at middleclass women. See Isola, Abassa la tua radio, pp. 101–15. A. Marescalchi, ‘La radio e i rurali’, Radio rurale (hereafter RR), 25 Feb 1934. The dialogue text was published as ‘Menico e Timoteo’, RR, 25 April 1934, pp. 11–12. It is also reproduced in G. Isola, L’ha scritto la radio, Storia e testi della radio durante il fascismo (1924–1944), Milan, B. Mondadori, 1998, pp. 251–60. RR published various other dialogues such as ‘Menico e Timoteo’, RR, 25 June 1934, pp. 6–7. ‘Una lezione di Dorotea’, RR, 29 Sept 1934. Monticone, Il fascismo, pp. 94–5. Ibid., p. 96. Isola, L’ha scritto, p. 250. ‘Per l’Ora dell’Agricoltore. Una Riunione a Vicenza’, RR, 25 Nov 1934, p. 12. ‘L’Ora dell’Agricoltore’, RR, 25 June 1934, p. 4 M. Mariottino, ‘L’Ora dell’Agricoltore’, RR, 25 June 1935. L. Ambrosini, ‘La radiofonia rurale in Italia’, Terra e lavoro, no. 17–18, April–June 1938, p. 33. ‘Orario programmi mese di dicembre – L’Ora dell’agricoltore’, RR, 25 Nov 1937. ‘Radio trasmissioni per le massaie rurali’, AMR, no. 2, 1938, p. 1. ‘Notiziario’, AMR, no. 3, 1938, p. 1. FD 430 20 July 1935. See ‘La nuova organizzazione periferica dell’Ente Radio Rurale’, RR, 25 Aug 1935, pp. 1–3. FD 1071 25 May 1938. FD 1207 6 Dec 1938. For the texts of two of these broadcasts (essentially war propaganda) both by Clara Franceschini see ‘Il primo radio rapporto dei fasci femminili’, DF, no. 32, 30 Mar 1941, p. 4 and ‘Alle donne italiane’, DF, no. 5, 30 Dec 1942. The full text of this broadcast is in MR, no. 4, 1941, p. 1. ‘Radioruralia’, RR, 25 Dec 1935, p. 2; Isola, Abassa la tua radio, p. 138. ‘La Radiofonia rurale al 30 aprile XV’, RR, 25 May 1937, p. 8; ‘La Radiofonia Rurale al 28 ottobre XVI’, RR, 29 Nov 1938, p. 4. RR, 25 Oct 1936, p. 5. Extract from letter by Luigi Della Rosa di Cugnach di Carmegn di Sedico (Belluno) in ‘“L’Ora dell’Agricoltore” nel giudizio dei rurali’, RR, 25 May 1937, p. 5. Ibid. ‘“Notiziario”. Una radio in un villaggio’, RR, no. 4, 1935–6, p. 7, cited in Isola, Abassa la tua radio, p. 124. ‘Attività’, AMR, no. 9, 1937, p. 2. ‘Attività’, AMR, no. 1, 1936, p. 2. ‘Attività’, AMR, no. 1, 1939, p. 3.

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79 For example, see the reports of activities in Taranto in 1935 in ACS, SPEP, b.23, fasc. ‘Taranto’. 80 ACS, PNF, SPEP, b.5, fasc. ‘Messina. Rapporto situazione politica 19-11-XVIII’, p. 10. 81 Attività’, AMR, no. 5, 1939, p. 2.

169

9 RECRUITING FOR THE NATION Why did three million join the Massaie Rurali?

In purely numerical terms the Massaie Rurali section was a huge success (see Table 9.1). Membership grew steadily, if unevenly, to an impressive three million members at its height, making it easily the largest women’s section in the Party (Table 9.2).1 This chapter explores how this was achieved, focusing in particular on the various recruitment methods deployed and on women’s motivations for joining. It will also consider some explanations for the great regional diversity of membership levels. Initially, some donne fasciste seemed to think that it would be sufficient to tell peasant women of the greatness of the regime for them to want to sign up immediately.2 All that was needed was energy and enthusiasm: They will come to fascism with steadfast joy in their guileless hearts. They will look upon this Italy, maternally vigilant, strong and beautiful, with grateful love. So, to work: we should start straight away. Next Sunday and all the following Sundays we should all be in the countryside among our rural women, who will become our most true and loyal friends.3 Some descriptions of recruitment seem to suggest that this was, indeed, true, recounting that all those who joined did so spontaneously. One gushing article in La donna fascista in 1935 even asserted most implausibly that: Almost as if they were just waiting to be called to rush to us, numerous massaie, from every province, have responded with enthusiasm, as one, to the call of the fascist women. The very simultaneous nature of their response demonstrates their total support for the basic canons of fascism. They have shown real interest and a praiseworthy discipline. And they are so keen to learn, to make themselves useful, to improve themselves!4 The reality, of course, was more complex and, in many cases, considerably more prosaic. The apparently simple question of who joined and why is highly charged politically because beneath it lies the issue of whether we can say that 170

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Table 9.1 National membership – Sezione Massaie Rurali Date (end of ‘Fascist Year’)

Number of members

28 Oct 1935 28 Oct 1936 28 Oct 1937 28 Oct 1938 28 Oct 1939 28 Oct 1940 28 Oct 1941 28 Oct 1942 25 July 1943

241,654 571,663 895,514 1,191,086 1,481,321 1,656,941 1,968,731 2,502,201 2,914,355

Table 9.2 National membership – Fasci Femminili and Sezione Operaie e Lavoranti a Domicilio Date (end of ‘Fascist Year’) 28 Oct 1938 28 Oct 1939 28 Oct 1940 28 Oct 1941 28 Oct 1942

Fasci Femminili

SOLD

743,786 774,181 845,304 938,507 1,027,409

309,945 501,415 616,286 761,927 864,922

Source notes for Tables 9.1, 9.2, 9.5, 9.6 The 1935-41 figures are taken from fogli d’ordini or fogli di disposizioni. Although these are official figures I feel confident that they are generally accurate since, where they can be cross-checked from more confidential archive documents, the figures match exactly or only vary by a tiny amount.a The 1942–3 figures are from ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b. 556, fasc. ‘Prospetti delle tessere e marche di convalida e distintivi del PNF dal 29 ott al 25 luglio 1943’. The figures for 1942 are the number of cards renewed from 1941–2 for the following year by stamping them. The figures for 1943 are these figures plus the numbers of new cards issued for each province. I am uncertain about the precise accuracy of the 1942 figures as they are clearly rounded up or down in most cases. I am not, moreover, able to cross-check these figures, as I have found no other source for these years. They do not, however, seem implausible given the general trend of the overall rise in membership in the preceding years. a

See, for example, correspondence related to the ordering of the newspaper in ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser I, b.287, fasc. ‘La Massaia rurale’ and fasc. ‘Giornali vari femminili’. See also in ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.264, fasc. ‘Varie e contributi’ which lists of numbers of members in each Federation for 1935–6 and 1936–7 to see what level of national subsidy each should receive. Other archival confirmation includes a bound PNF national account book for A.XIX (1940–1). Under the heading ‘Massaie rurali’ income from 2,002,117 cards at L.0.70 each is recorded (making L.1,401,481.90). (ACS, SPD–CR, b.33 1922–43, fasc. ‘Bilanci del PNF’.) See also the document dated 15 July 1943 in ACS, PNF, DN, Ser II, b.820, fasc. ‘Pratiche diverse’ which lists numbers of Party cards issued.

millions of peasant women were won over to fascism. This issue, the attitude of the masses to the regime and the significance of the huge memberships of the mass mobilizing organizations, has been the topic of a heated and highly politicized historiographical debate.5 Historians generally agree that there was much support for the regime among certain social groups, particularly the middle 171

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classes. The real controversy, sparked off by the work of Renzo De Felice, has been about the views of poorer people. Admittedly the most intense debate has been about the working class, but this question is also relevant to peasants. Obviously, it would be foolish to immediately conclude that these membership figures signify that three million rural women were converted heart and soul to fascism or even to assert that those who joined were fascist supporters whilst the others were not. As Luisa Passerini has argued, in her perceptive oral history of the Turinese working class under fascism, the whole question of ‘consensus’ is complex and, in practice, varying degrees of ‘consensus’ and ‘resistance’ could coexist in the same person. Thus even persons who did not consider themselves fascists could approve of some fascist policies.6 But fascinating and important as Passerini’s subtle work undoubtedly is, it must be stressed that most of the women who joined the Massaie Rurali were politically far less experienced than the urban workers she interviewed. In the case of the Massaie, women decided whether or not to join for a variety of different reasons. Ignorance, distrust or cultural factors, such as prejudice against extra-domestic female roles, may have been just as important as any sort of grasp of the politics of the organization in preventing some from joining. Similarly, material factors were an important incentive for many of those who did decide to sign up. This renders difficult the conclusion that taking out a card can be construed in any way as a clear indication of these women’s political views. As previous chapters have shown, membership offered many concrete benefits for a section of the population which, despite fascist rhetoric about the primacy of the rural world, had been squeezed by economic recession and the strengthened hand of landlords after the destruction of the free labour movement. The extensive programme of training courses, the opportunity to win prizes, the numerous free hand-outs and other special offers, market discounts and the technical information in the monthly news-sheet, together probably made the annual small outlay on a membership card seem worthwhile. The organization was locally orientated, potentially companionable, and offered the excitement of events away from home, such as rallies, excursions, training courses, markets and exhibitions. Nonetheless, as might be expected, vast numbers did not immediately throng to join the moment the organization was set up and the fascists had to deploy a range of strategies, including both the carrot and the stick, to build up membership gradually. The pace at which membership grew in different parts of Italy varied greatly, reflecting a complex series of local variations in factors such as land tenure patterns, political traditions, the specific role of women in the peasant family, attitudes to extra-domestic female roles and the organizational abilities of local leaders.

Who joined? An article in the organization’s almanac for 1937 makes the assumption that the typical member really was a ‘massaia’ (in the sense of a ‘reggitrice’), in other words 172

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the most authoritative female in a smallholding or sharecropping household. It does, however, urge the reggitrici to ensure that the younger women under their command also attend Massaie Rurali meetings. [Massaie] should ensure that they take part in local civic and religious festivals and attend MR meetings . . . A Massaia rurale should carefully watch over the morality, the religious and fascist beliefs of all those who work for her, whatever their age, so as to avoid exposing her own children to bad influences.7 It is indeed possible that in many areas most members were reggitrici. This was the view, for example, of one former sharecropping woman, from near Pisa, whom I interviewed.8 A single card may, in fact, have seemed enough to secure the material benefits of membership for a household. Most organizers did, however, attempt to recruit much more widely than this. In Pistoia, for example, in 1935, the Fiduciary defined all women in sharecropping households as potential recruits. She argued that: It is necessary to start by stating and remembering that, when we refer to massaie rurali, we mean, in our case, not just the Capoccia’s wife, who alone morally rules the home, and who is usually elderly, but all the women in the household.9 The fact that some families may have considered one member to be sufficient is suggested by an article in the organization’s newspaper that exhorted women not to take this approach. This supposedly describes a visit to a peasant household where, although a number of family members belong to various Party organizations, only one woman has enrolled in the Massaie. The report of the conversation (between the peasant woman and the local Massaie Rurali Secretary) crudely mingles the cult of Mussolini with material incentives: ‘Only one out of three women are members? – Yes, I am! – But do you love the Duce? – Of course! – Well then you need to sign up. – Straight away! We are quite happy to join because the card pays for itself immediately, even just in the discount you get at the market!’10 It is therefore, possible that an article in L’azione delle massaie rurali in 1936 was correct in asserting that the majority of Massaie members, at this point, were ‘sharecroppers’ wives’.11 But this was far from the only type of woman who joined. Recruitment targeted not just the reggitrice and her household but other types of rural women too. Of course, as discussed in Chapter 1, the various categories of peasantry were not, in fact, always separate and distinct, but such blurring of categories was not a problem for Massaie recruiters since they aimed to enrol everyone. Although some writings by organizers in the first year or so suggest that they themselves did consider their primary target group to be real reggitrici, or at least members of their families, the national strategy was soon 173

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confirmed as including all rural women. The regulations issued in April 1935 made clear that membership was open to the whole range of different peasant figures, including braccianti: Membership is open to women who normally live in rural comuni and whose families are peasant proprietors, small leaseholders, sharecroppers or farm labourers. The giovani fasciste from rural comuni should take part in the activities of the Massaie Rurali sections, without the need for any sort of special membership.12 This meant that members did not need to be actual tillers of the soil themselves, it was enough to live in a farming household of some kind. In 1938 Maria Guidi recorded members as including: ‘rough peasant women, busy sharecroppers, enterprising fattoresse, women who run farms and wives of landowners’.13 Class distinctions were, however, protected. The wealthier women had to keep their Fascio Femminile membership as well as joining the Massaie.14 Membership was gradually widened even further. In 1940, in Rome, even the recruitment of urban women who ran market stalls was attempted.15 The same year the wives of state road maintenance men were all signed up. This job included a small house and 1,000 square metres of land on the stretch of road for which they had responsibility. These women were recruited to enable the organization to utilize this land for ‘demonstration vegetable plots’. Medical kits kept in each house were also used for Massaie first aid courses run by the Red Cross.16 By 1940, therefore, the target group included virtually all types of rural women (and some non-rural ones). What is harder to evaluate is the extent to which the membership really matched this picture. In areas where membership rose rapidly, such as Reggio Emilia, recruitment probably did eventually embrace the whole spectrum of rural women. In other areas, exactly who joined is less clear. Of course, the simplest way to find out exactly who the massaie rurali were would be to look at what is listed under ‘profession’ on membership records. Unfortunately, such records have virtually all been lost or destroyed and, after extensive searching, I have found them only for a few villages near Arezzo and one village close to Leghorn. Of these, only the Arezzo records include data on ‘profession’. Table 9.3 has been compiled from these lists. The 2,087 members listed (the lists also include the member’s name, her father’s name and her date of enrolment) cannot be seen as a representative sample as they are clearly just a fragment of a much larger set of lists organized alphabetically. They do represent, however, a sizeable percentage of the roughly 10,000 members in Arezzo province in 1940–1.17 Nearly half were recorded as ‘colone’ (sharecroppers) with a further 781 in the ambiguous category of ‘atta a casa’ (housewife) who, in many cases, were probably peasants, simply recorded this way. In some lists ‘atta 174

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a casa’ and ‘colona’ are clearly distinct and, in that case, the housewives were probably just that. In other lists every single woman is described as a housewife, a classification which may simply reflect a decision on the part of the person compiling the list to call anyone who worked at home (as indeed most ‘colone’ did) as ‘atta a casa’. There are also a number of entries where it is clear that the women are peasants but it is not indicated exactly what kind. They are given vague titles – ‘contadina’ (peasant) or even ‘massaia rurale’. In these figures only a tiny number (43) of women who are not peasants are recorded – one midwife, 2 farm managers, 3 washerwomen, 2 coal sellers, 12 teachers, 7 landowners, 3 tailoresses, 2 domestic servants, 1 ‘housewife’, 8 workers, one travelling saleswoman and one simply called a Massaia Rurale Secretary. Even some of these, however, such as the washerwomen, probably came from peasant households. The large numbers of colone in these lists are unsurprising given that this was a classic sharecropping area.18 Unfortunately, because the lists contain no addresses (only the names of their villages) it is not possible to discover how frequently more than one woman joined from each sharecropping household. Nor do the Arezzo lists give the age of members. This information, however, is recorded in the Leghorn archive. At least initially, some organizers felt that it was better to target younger women as more likely to embrace something new. One organizer wrote: The ‘Massaie Rurali’ section of the Fasci Femminili is trying to reach . . . young women in every area. It is the young who are most likely to be able to come to meetings and are most malleable to the kind of rural education that befits fascism’s great civilization.19 But not everyone agreed with this. Another organizer felt that it was more important to reach older women as the young had already had a chance to learn about the wonders of fascism elsewhere: We are very keen to have young women with us since, moulded by the Regime’s youth organizations, they represent tomorrow’s strength. But in our meetings we have sometimes asked the mothers whether they felt a deep divide between the two generations. We have heard them agree with this and then seen their tired faces suddenly light up on hearing us offer to fill the gap, and to tell them of the wonderful things that fascism has already done for them.20 The Leghorn data (from September 1940) suggest that the second view prevailed, at least in some areas. These lists are for only one village section with 133 members. Located on the sea just south of the provincial capital, Rosignano Solvay was in an area where sharecropping, compartecipazione and small landownership predominated. In the comune of Rosignano Marittimo (of which Rosignano Solvay was a frazione) in 1934 there were 451 sharecropping families (in which 3,592 175

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Table 9.3 Professions of Massaie members in 17 villages in Arezzo Province, 1940–1 Village Chitignano Chianacce Castiglione Fiorentino

Castelnuovo Sabbioni Castiglione Fibocchi Castelluccio Camucia

Total Colona membership (a)

Atta a Other farmwomen casa (b)

100 46

1 –

98 44

– –

1 midwife 2 fattoresse

391

371

2

–

3 1 1 5

102

5

93

52 120 188

– – 154

15 119 29

Capezzine 66 Capolona 66 Caprese Michelangelo 58 Castelfranco 155 di Sopra

13 4

– 45

– 17 massaie rurali

– 43

58 81

75

72

Cortona

214

Cividella della Chiana Ciggiano

Faella Valdarno

Cicogna Chiusi della Verna Total

Various

3 farmworkers 36 peasants – –

No data

laundresses benestante(c) MR Sec. workers

7

1 worker 1 1 4 1 1 –

seamstress teacher landowners seamstress servant 52

– 23 peasants 3 farmworkers

– 2 1 1 1

workers teacher servant seamstress

–

3 farmworkers

–

–

37

156 massaie rurali 8 ‘young MR’

50 114

38 46

12 51

193

193

–

– 1 1 11 1 –

97 2087

– 941

97 781

– 263

10 teachers 2 benestanti(c) 1 housewife(d)

– farm labourer 2 coal sellers vegetable grower 1 travelling forestry workers saleswoman gardener – – 43

59

Source: These figures have been computed from membership lists conserved in ASArezzo, PNF, bb. 2, 3 and 4. Lists for each comune are in separate folders. The villages are not necessarily a representative sample but these are the only folders that have survived. Notes: (a) Sharecropper. (b) ‘At home’. (c) Benestante means ‘well-off person’. These are probably landowners. (d) This is listed separately as the word used is casalinga not atta a casa. This person almost certainly was a real housewife.

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Table 9.4 Age of Rosignano Solvay members in 1940 Age (in years)

Number of massaie in age range

21–29 30–39 40–49 50–59 60–69 Over 70

17 32 45 14 15 10

Source: All these figures (and those cited in the text) are my own computations from membership lists in ASL, PNF Atti Amministrativi Z, b.20, fasc. ‘Fascio femminile Rosignano Solvay’.

persons lived), 360 male and 215 female braccianti, as well as 392 smallholders.21 In the Rosignano Solvay membership lists, although information on profession is lacking, the date of birth is recorded as well as the date of first joining. It is, therefore, possible to compute the age composition of this tiny sample. In Rosignano Solvay, most of the Massaie Rurali members were either middle-aged or elderly (see Table 9.4) and there were remarkably few young members. The majority joined in their thirties or forties and the youngest recruit recorded was 22, already too old to be simply ‘flying up’ from the youth groups. The average age when they first took out a membership card was 42.5 years and the average age of the section members in 1940 was 44.9 years. Although the age of members in this section did range from 23 to 80, roughly two-thirds were over 40 years old. It does look extremely likely that, in this small village at least, most of the members were reggitrici. Of course to generalize from such a small sample would be very dangerous. Rosignano Solvay lies close to Leghorn and the town itself was essentially industrial, having mushroomed after the opening of a railway line and then the Solvay chemical works just before the First World War. It is possible that, by this time, younger women may have been opting out of agriculture in this area. However, it is quite probable that, in many areas, particularly sharecropping areas, this picture held true. One of the reggitrice’s responsibilities was the training of younger women in the household and she may have felt that sending them to farming and domestic science courses would undermine her authority. Many may have preferred to follow training themselves and then pass the information on. In a survey of Leghorn agriculture published by the farming unions, for example, it is indeed the reggitrice who is portrayed as joining the organization where, it is argued, she can learn things to pass on to the ‘new fascist generations’.22 To return to the question of age, it is also worth noting that, in accounts of Massaie activities written by donne fasciste, there are often references to how the peasant women’s faces are marked by work and weather, accounts which seem to refer to older women. Indeed, it is rare to find descriptions of the members as fresh-faced. Admittedly many propaganda photos feature younger massaie 177

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rurali but this may not necessarily be significant. In Reggio Emilia, when a small group of massaie were sent to the rally for the Ventennale del fascismo, only young women were chosen. The Provincial Fiduciary felt that, since many foreigners would be present, ‘it was necessary to show off some fine faces, strong girls who would honour our race’.23 In some areas, of course, younger women did join. A good proportion of the mondine, for example, would have been relatively young, and certainly considerably younger than the Leghorn sample. The idea that somehow girls would automatically ‘fly up’ from the youth sections at age 21 was, in practice, absurd given that the giovani fasciste were almost all middle-class. In 1939 a mere 16.7 per cent of girls in the relevant age bracket were enrolled in the GF groups.24 They were mainly in northern and central areas but even the region with the highest percentage (Piedmont) had only 22.8 per cent enrolled. The lowest was Basilicata with 8.6 per cent. Overall, this fragmentary documentation yields some interesting insights but it is not enough to say anything conclusive about the composition of the membership. Both sets of lists come from mainly sharecropping areas and membership doubtless varied elsewhere. Membership levels themselves did vary greatly from region to region.

Regional differences I have fairly reliable figures showing levels of membership by province for five different years – in 1935–6, 1936–7, 1937–8, 1941–2 and 1942–3. As Tables 9.5 and 9.6 show these figures reveal enormous differences in the pace of recruitment. Broadly speaking, and unsurprisingly, recruitment was much faster in the North than the South. Lombardy alone had almost a quarter of the members in 1938. Other high membership Northern areas were the Veneto, Piedmont and Emilia. Most Southern provinces lagged far behind. In 1937–8, for example, the provinces with the highest membership were Reggio Emilia with 41,000 members and Milan with 45,000 (both in the North) compared with less than 2,000 in the Southern province of Brindisi and only 2,550 in Cosenza, both important farming areas. As argued in Chapter 3 such regional imbalances had existed from the FNFMR period. In February 1934 in the Lombard province of Varese, numbers, it was reported, were ‘quite a few thousand’ whereas Avellino (in the South) had managed to recruit only ‘hundreds’.25 In Palermo (Sicily) things got off to a sluggish start. By September 1935 they had recruited only 630 women in the provincial capital and 620 in the whole of the rest of the province.26 Such regional differences can be ascribed to a series of factors. I have found few national directives on how to get people to take out membership cards, and local recruitment methods varied considerably. Local Federations did, of course, have a financial incentive to maximize membership levels (even purely paper members) as the size of their membership affected their disposable budget. A large budget made more activities possible, and increased the status of the organizers themselves. Recruitment methods undoubtedly altered with time. 178

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Table 9.5 Levels of membership by region Region

Females 1935–6 ‘active in agriculture’ in 1936*

Piedmont Liguria Lombardy Tridentine Venetia Venetia Julian Venetia Emilia Romagna Tuscany Marches Umbria Lazio Abruzzi Campania Apulia Basilicata (Lucania) Calabria Sicily Sardinia Abroad

424,616 89,285 399,324 89,740

83,757 116,680 149,580 15,935 20,400 31,160 99,954 180,000 226,230 7,410 12,950 17,130

258,500 67,000 393,150 43,305

313,750 72,575 438,900 55,255

505,632 95,386 471,109 332,192 210,848 114,917 236,616 260,681 329,365 115,838

82,718 16,986 150,031 9,831 14,240 19,315 73,040 112,704 156,622 34,234 52,923 73,411 23,700 37,050 47,530 11,250 18,800 22,275 21,275 30,148 43,365 24,748 41,717 48,365 14,314 20,401 30,600 20,342 28,717 46,438

329,276 31,200 306,782 154,567 102,350 49,800 107,700 130,500 130,000 88,900

374,256 35,500 352,411 170,254 125,790 58,000 134,250 150,950 161,500 107,500

86,356 217,468 80,423 22,206

2,214 9,994 25,102 11,840

39,140 74,000 138,500 53,800 1,681

42,936 84,000 168,800 65,800 1,928

571,658 893,811 1,183,760 2,502,201

2,914,355

Total

4,082,002

1936–7

4,902 13,748 52,695 18,750

1937–8 October 1942

8,350 25,762 64,020 23,350

July 1943

Sources: *Figures taken from O.Vitali, La popolazione attiva in agricoltura attraverso i censimenti italiani, Rome, Tip. Failli, 1968 p. 148. These are Vitali’s recalculated figures (see Chapter 1) which can serve only as a very rough guide as they include girls over 10 as well as adult women. See also Table 9.2 for source notes.

Once the section was well established, and what it had to offer became well known (particularly in areas where a lot of activities were organized), recruitment probably became fairly bureaucratic. But getting started was quite a different matter. In Lombardy, where membership quickly soared to impressively high levels, recruitment was eased by good communications, a reservoir of expertise in the shape of various former UMC organizers and a largely literate peasantry. In some other Northern areas too, the organization was set up without too much difficulty. In Novara, for example, organizers argued that they got off to a good start as, previously, the local FF ‘had taken especial interest in rural women’s domestic and family training, offering them whatever modest propaganda and informative materials were available.’ This:

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Table 9.6 Membership by province Region

Province

1935–6

1936–7

Piedmont

Alessandria Aosta Asti Cuneo Novara Turin Vercelli

11,200 4,150 10,000 13,500 6,180 18,507 20,220

16,850 6,830 15,000 22,300 8,150 25,550 22,000

25,000 9,850 15,310 29,000 13,220 31,620 26,200

44,700 19,000 23,500 51,500 41,800 40,000 38,000

50,250 22,000 25,200 70,800 47,500 50,000 48,000

Liguria

Genoa Imperia Savona La Spezia

10,500 1,800 1,800 1,835

12,700 3,050 2,350 2,300

18,050 5,000 3,740 4,370

25,000 19,000 14,000 9,000

25,725 21,000 15,100 10,750

Lombardy

Bergamo Brescia Como Cremona Mantua Milan Pavia Sondrio Varese

8,050 20,160 8,444 11,000 15,000 20,500 8,000 2,800 6,000

15,300 34,891 13,149 26,160 25,000 37,000 14,000 5,500 9,000

19,700 41,000 16,140 37,790 30,000 45,000 17,350 7,500 11,750

24,000 69,000 33,150 46,500 42,000 85,000 38,600 19,000 35,900

28,600 76,000 37,700 48,600 46,500 85,000 50,800 24,000 41,700

Bolzano Trent

1,860 5,550

3,250 9,700

4,230 12,900

4,600 40,705

5,050 50,205

Belluno Padua Rovigo Treviso Udine Venice Verona Vicenza

4,400 15,280 14,300 17,055 6,150 7,500 9,000 9,033

6,181 20,000 20,800 21,455 10,000 11,500 14,000 13,050

8,300 23,150 27,950 26,701 13,250 19,000 16,300 15,380

22,025 55,000 49,000 44,500 40,000 40,751 46,000 32,000

24,505 67,000 57,000 47,000 47,000 44,251 52,000 35,500

Fiume Gorizia Pola Trieste Zara

1,900 3,084 1,241 3,500 106

3,350 4,000 2,400 4,100 390

3,975 5,500 3,810 5,600 430

5,000 9,000 8,200 8,000 1,000

5,900 10,000 9,000 9,000 1,600

11,500 4,026 12,514 8,100 3,100 5,600 7,200 21,000

16,980 8,511 14,223 13,500 5,490 8,000 11,000 35,000

20,900 22,654 18,248 16,150 12,670 14,000 17,000 41,000

55,162 37,500 32,300 33,800 43,895 28,500 24,500 51,125

57,876 40,750 34,800 40,400 49,395 33,500 25,800 69,890

Tridentine Venetia Venetia

Julian Venetia

Emilia

Bologna Ferrara Forli Modena Parma Piacenza Ravenna Reggio Emilia

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Table 9.6 (continued) Region

Province

1935–6

1936–7

Tuscany

Arezzo Florence Grosseto Leghorn Lucca Massa Carrara Apuania Pisa Pistoia Siena

Marches

2,600 7,000 4,400 2,200 4,184 800

5,000 10,328 5,000 3,400 8,790 1,650

7,150 15,727 6,850 3,800 13,339 2,650

13,500 21,000 18,500 9,600 28,178 13,000

14,500 23,000 19,600 11,700 28,965 15,900

4,450 4,550 4,050

6,135 6,670 5,950

8,715 8,180 7,000

24,289 15,000 11,500

27,789 16,000 12,800

Ancona Ascoli Piceno Macerata Pesaro

6,950 3,650 9,000 4,100

10,500 6,500 13,000 7,050

14,300 9,300 14,500 9,430

35,250 24,100 20,000 23,000

39,190 28,600 23,000 35,000

Umbria

Perugia Terni

8,200 3,050

14,500 4,300

17,875 4,400

36,000 13,800

41,000 17,000

Lazio

Frosinone Littoria Rieti Rome Viterbo

4,100 3,900 2,300 8,500 2,475

4,600 4,100 3,000 14,000 4,448

6,500 4,629 4,500 21,400 6,562

19,000 11,000 13,500 41,200 23,000

24,000 14,000 18,500 51,200 26,550

Abruzzo

Aquila Campobasso Chieti Pescara Teramo

15,000 2,006 3,200 1,925 2,617

21,700 3,767 7,800 3,050 5,400

24,025 5,690 9,350 4,200 5,100

36,300 45,000 17,500 18,500 13,250

48,300 47,300 17,700 22,000 15,650

Campania

Avellino Benevento Napoli Salerno

4,000 1,800 4,850 3,664

4,500 3,200 8,500 4,201

9,000 3,900 12,000 5,700

25,000 28,000 50,000 27,000

30,500 36,000 63,000 32,000

Apulia

Bari Brindisi Foggia Lecce Taranto

5,600 700 6,350 4,782 2,910

10,000 1,250 6,500 7,467 3,500

15,000 1,780 7,000 18,198 4,460

22,000 5,200 21,000 28,500 12,200

25,500 6,800 23,000 38,000 14,200

Basilicata

Matera Potenza

470 1,744

2,902 2,000

5,800 2,550

17,640 21,500

20,936 22,000

Calabria

Catanzaro 1,519 Cosenza 800 Reggio Calabria 7,675

2,563 1,385 9,800

9,162 5,000 11,600

21,000 35,000 18,000

24,000 40,000 20,000

Sicily

Agrigento Caltanissetta

1,300 3,400

1,700 3,700

13,500 7,500

14,500 8,600

1,000 502

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Table 9.6 (continued) Region

Sardinia

Province

1935–6

1936–7

Catania

7,750

15,500

24,000

23,500

29,500

Enna Messina Palermo Ragusa Siracuse Trapani

1,550 5,750 5,000 700 1,680 1,170

5,020 11,000 9,500 950 4,225 1,800

5,020 11,700 8,300 2,100 4,000 3,500

13,000 20,000 27,000 15,000 10,000 9,000

15,000 30,000 31,000 17,500 12,800 9,900

Cagliari Nuoro Sassari

6,450 2,900 2,490

10,000 4,650 4,100

13,000 5,550 4,800

25,000 15,000 13,800

29,000 18,000 18,800

1,681

1,928

Abroad

1937–8 October 1942

July 1943

Sources: See source notes to Table 9.2.

prepared the ground for a rapid and spontaneous comprehension of the importance of technical and domestic science training (promoted by the Regime for the improvement of rural women) in the context of their tasks and duties to the Nation in peace and war.27 Novara, of course, was a province with many riceworkers. In all such provinces (either those that grew rice or those that sent workers to the paddy fields elsewhere) the local donne fasciste had at least some experience of working with rural women. Elsewhere, in parts of Italy where there had been no such preliminary work, recruitment was initially very problematic. One revealing document conserved in a Tuscan local archive shows that organizers were perplexed about how to begin. In Pistoia, organizers had to start from scratch in 1934 as the FNFMR had not emerged here. This strategy document, written by the FF Provincial Fiduciary, noted that: ‘the massaie, who are extremely suspicious, find it hard to come to us.’ It proposed, as a solution, first enrolling not peasants but secretaries of Fasci Femminili sections, rural primary school teachers, female farm managers and landowners (including those who did not work the land themselves). The idea was that these local figures of authority would know how to overcome peasant women’s reluctance to get involved.28 This document also noted, displaying a clear understanding that women would join for material rather than political reasons, that ‘at the moment it is a vicious circle. It is difficult to announce Massaie Rurali courses if we don’t have any members and it is difficult to recruit members if we cannot demonstrate the advantages membership brings.’ A further document written by Maria Clorinda de Franceschi (the Massaie Rurali Provincial Fiduciary) also foresaw a role for landowners and urged local organizers to create an ‘action group’ of women from the local landowning families 182

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with the largest numbers of massaie on their land. She also proposed giving these ladies themselves some training as: ‘we think that, because this is a sharecropping area, one of the first means of penetration must be the convinced and competent support of land-owning women.’ Recruitment was to begin with ‘propaganda meetings’ for landowners, teachers and parish priests.29 The tone of these documents suggests that the middle- and upper-class organizers themselves (de Franceschi was herself a Baroness) had difficulty in knowing how to approach peasant women whose lives were so different from their own. Reports of the activities of the Pistoia Fasci Femminili reveal that there had been no previous attempts at any kind of specifically rural activity here.30 It is indeed possible (although I have no concrete evidence of this) that in sharecropping areas, such as Tuscany, some landowners simply imposed membership on their tenants. Elsewhere, other bodies could assist recruitment. In 1938 orders were issued that: ‘Propaganda for the recruitment of the massaie rurali must be stepped up. For this purpose, organizers should also collaborate with the corporative organizations for farmers’ and for farmworkers’.31 In reality, the unions had already been helping out in ricegrowing areas before this. Rice-weeders were simply signed up en masse. In Vercelli, police records show how, in May 1935, at the start of the very first rice season after the foundation of the new organization, enrolment was being organized by the prime mondine. Membership cards were issued by the offices of the farmworkers’ union.32 The political reliability of the prime mondine for this task was ensured by the fact that FF Fiduciaries and Massaie Secretaries were consulted before they were appointed.33 Here membership was clearly necessary to find employment. This technique gave a huge boost to recruitment in a number of Northern provinces. In 1937, not an untypical year, 93,901 women aged over 21 (and 18,751 under 21s) were employed as local riceworkers and a further 32,868 adult females (and 21,608 under 21s) migrated temporarily from other provinces.34 This meant that a total of 126,769 women old enough to join the Massaie Rurali more or less automatically became members of the organization. That the rest were issued with Giovani Fasciste membership is clear from one description of the departure of the Reggio Emilia mondine in 1937 who: ‘wore huge, brightly-coloured straw hats – white, red striped, blue spotted – with large green scarves round their shoulders, the Massaie Rurali uniform. Very many of them were wearing Giovani Fasciste uniforms.’35 Analogous techniques were probably used in olive-growing areas such as Apulia where the Fasci Femminili set up similar welfare provisions for seasonal olive-pickers (almost all female). Here too there were female overseers – the prime raccoglitrici. Olives, of course, were an important, labour-intensive crop and harvested in many parts of Italy. Much of the harvesting was simply done by labour living on the farm, such as in Tuscan sharecropping households. The welfare initiatives were not for them, however, but for the roughly 120,000 women employed each year in the South and Umbria where olives were grown 183

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on a massive scale and the workforce moved around from November to March, often sleeping in makeshift dormitories.36 The main ‘welfare’ provisions were nurseries for pickers’ children and inspections of dormitories and other facilities by ‘fascist home visitors’. Like rice-weeders, olive-pickers had to go through the labour exchanges controlled by the farmworkers’ union to get work.37 These women basically had no choice but to join. They needed work. But for most members, joining was not compulsory. For the vast majority of them, at least one, often the principal, motivation must have been the extensive material benefits offered to members. Many of the provisions were appealing, in particular for a section of the population who had been totally neglected before this. Moreover, the UMC method of offering prizes to those who introduced new members was sometimes adopted and in some areas there was a bonus for the first to renew their cards. In Pavia, in 1939, for example, calendars were distributed free to the first 1,800 massaie to renew.38 More importantly, by the 1930s PNF membership had become a prerequisite for access to many benefits and resources, earning itself the nickname of the ‘bread card’. Initially, joining the Massaie was not recognized as full PNF membership39 but this soon changed. Orders issued in March 1938 declared that joining the Sezione Massaie Rurali was deemed equivalent to FF membership.40 Indeed, some probably joined because it was the cheapest way to get a Party card. By the late 1930s, Massaie membership was required to gain access to what was effectively state welfare (despite being called ‘Party welfare’). Of course people joined in this context. As one woman I interviewed remembered, although she herself was too young to join, others signed up: ‘To get their rights’.41 The implications of this is well illustrated by the following letter from the Political Secretary of Conegliano (Veneto) PNF to the local ONMI President in 1936: In order to increase the membership of the excellent Massaie Rurali organization and in order that those who benefit from Party institutions clearly demonstrate their loyalty and gratitude to the Party itself, I ask you to make arrangements to ensure that no woman in this town receive any benefits from your Committee unless she can prove that she has joined this organization. She should either produce a membership card or a letter from the Massaie Rurali Fiduciary. If she has not yet joined, she should be invited to put her papers in order.42 Another example of this sort of tactic was the imposition of obligatory membership for women in peasant families who were chosen to go out to Italy’s African colonies to farm what Mussolini termed ‘a place in the sun’.43 Lured by land hunger and misleading propaganda, even more aspired to go, and some must have joined the Massaie as part of the process of getting in the queue. Membership also became the route to other jobs and benefits such as the paid employment, for cleaners and so on, offered in the Party children’s holiday camps.44 184

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Such factors probably also help explain the fact that membership numbers spiralled vertiginously after the outbreak of the Second World War, doubling between October 1940 and mid-1943. This was doubtless at least in part because the economy was increasingly regulated and fewer and fewer things could be had without a Party card. When resources were scarce then the ‘bread card’ became increasingly important. In this period the section’s organizers became mediators, channelling requests.45 It is important, however, not to think of women simply joining for material reasons alone, in spite of the propaganda. It is quite possible that parts of the propaganda itself, for all its crudeness, could strike a chord with at least some of the membership. It paid women attention, emphasized their value and importance in the peasant household and sang the praises of female crafts and skills. It was positive about female achievements and abilities and, although it stressed traditional gender subordination, there was no alternative ideology available to peasant women at the time to challenge this. Even the Church offered similar messages.

The Church In some, probably many, areas the role of the clergy was a crucial factor. As argued above, religion was often a theme of various types of Massaie excursions, and priests and bishops appeared frequently in ceremonies in which rural women participated. More specifically, parish priests could, and did, play a core role in regular section activities. In the villages and hamlets surrounding the small wine-growing town of Conegliano (Treviso) priests were often invited to events like ceremonies for the distribution of membership cards46 and were asked to bless the steel rings given in exchange for wedding rings in the ‘Giornata della Fede’. Priests were also issued with regular orders to announce news of Massaie Rurali activities, such as talks and films, at the end of mass on Sundays.47 Here, Massaie weekly meetings were held straight after church and priests themselves appeared regularly on the rota of speakers, usually giving talks on the theme of ‘Religion – Motherland – Family’.48 The priests became messengers to advertise all sorts of activities, as the following two letters show: I would be very grateful if, during tomorrow’s Holy Service, Your Reverence might be so good as to announce from the pulpit, to the local massaie rurali, that those wishing to go on the Trieste outing have until the 20th to give their names and 16 lire to the primary teacher. You should also inform them that the trip will take place during the first ten days of September.49 I would be much obliged if you could announce from the pulpit, to the massaie rurali of your village, that on Sunday the 19th, at the usual time, that is after Vespers, _________ will be there to give a talk to the massaie themselves. 185

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At the end of this talk the speaker will give each member a ticket for a free screening of the film ‘Gloria’ (which commemorates some of the events of the Italian war), which will take place in the morning of Thursday 23rd at the Conegliano Modern Theatre. Before the screening, membership cards will be issued to all massaie who have paid their fees for the Fascist Year XIII. The ceremony will start at 9.30 and all the town’s dignitaries will be present. Your Reverence is also invited to attend. In the certainty that you will do all you can to ensure that all the massaie rurali of your village are there, and will, where necessary, be good enough to answer any queries they might have, I offer you, in advance, my heart-felt thanks together with fascist greetings. Dino Rui (Political Secretary)50 In Conegliano the pulpit was used so regularly for announcements of Massaie activities that by December 1935 the local Party Federation had created standard letters with blanks for officials to fill in detailing which announcements priests should make that particular Sunday.51 Priests helped out elsewhere too. In Pisa in 1938, for example: Theoretical and practical training courses have been organized for the massaie rurali; His Excellency the Archbishop of Pisa has given his full support to these courses, so that those parish priests and monks who are most suited to this delicate task have, alongside the lectures on themes set by the Provincial Fiduciary (the fight against urbanization, colonial propaganda), given talks on the indissoluble link between Fascism and Christianity.52 Given the enormous moral authority enjoyed by priests in many rural areas, particularly ‘white’ (politically Catholic) areas like Treviso, their blessing represented a very powerful seal of approval for any organization. Most of the peasantry saw priests as very important persons but, in particular, women deferred to them. The role of the clergy in this organization is but one example of the great benefits the regime derived from the Lateran Pacts of 1929. Indeed, as Scoppola has argued, one of the regime’s core motivations for signing the Pacts was to win female support.53 Under the terms of the Pacts,54 bishops had to promise to discipline priests if they took part in discussions harmful to the state and priests, at least publicly, had to go along with the wishes of local fascist authorities. Of course not all priests were pro-fascist, nor did the Church simply carry out all of the regime’s wishes. As Ernesto Brunetta has noted of Treviso: the Church, particularly after the signing of the Concordat, participated, sang praises and blessed pennants just like everywhere else in 186

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Italy. But here they always held back a little, they were never entirely wholehearted. This was something that the fascist functionaries, whose job it was to keep an eye on the clergy’s behaviour, often failed to understand. It is true that the Church participated, but cautiously, following its own agenda, with an outlook on life which, right from the start, undermined the relationship.55 Some priests went further than this. One in the Conegliano area was sent into internal exile for his anti-fascist beliefs and letters in the Conegliano archive also show how some priests tried to get out of giving talks to the massaie with the excuse either that they were ill or too busy on Sundays.56 One priest, according to an informant in his congregation, even told women not to give up their wedding rings and commented: ‘Why are you giving your gold to the Motherland for another war which will kill you? You are mad. Buy a one-lira ring and hand that in.’57 Others, however, embraced their political duties willingly. In this area there was even one priest with a PNF card, and an internal Party report I found claimed that in 1938, with one exception, none of the local priests gave cause for complaint.58 It seems probable, in practice, that where conflict arose it would be very unlikely to be over something like this organization. The praising of the family unit and traditional rural lifestyles, which formed the core of its political message, were quite acceptable to most of the clergy. Where priests did fall foul of the authorities it was usually because they did things like leading prayers for peace.59 On the question of gender roles, the importance of the family and the dangers of urban lifestyles, Church and regime were generally in broad agreement. There was apparent potential for conflict with the Church in terms of organization. In Treviso, for example, 5,100 adult women belonged to the Catholic women’s groups and a further 21,146 to the various Catholic girls’ groups by April 1935.60 In practice, however, rivalry was more likely to occur with the Fasci Femminili and the youth groups than with the Massaie Rurali since the Catholic groups recruited mainly among the middle class and lower-middle class.61 Furthermore, under the Lateran Pacts, the Church was not permitted to organize anything which looked remotely like a trade union, which meant that vocationally classified groups like this were not possible. Section meetings of the Catholic groups concentrated largely on religious activities and their press was concerned with morality and spiritual matters.

Reggio Emilia The role of the clergy doubtless helps explain high membership levels in strongly Catholic areas but in traditionally ‘red’ areas, where the atheist creed of socialism had taken hold in the pre-fascist period, other factors need to be considered. One such ‘red’ province, Reggio Emilia, quickly raced ahead in the membership tables issued by the Party. 187

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Reggio Emilia was a predominantly agricultural province with a varied pattern of land tenure. The mountainous area, to the south of the provincial capital, had many impoverished small landowners, an area from which there had been much emigration. On the plains there was a variety of forms of land tenure with many sharecroppers as well as landless labourers. Socialism here, under the leadership of Camillo Prampolini, had been reformist and gradualist. Unlike other areas of the Po Valley, where sharecroppers and farm labourers had often been politically antagonistic, here they had worked together to build a cooperative movement.62 It also needs to be stressed that, despite Reggio’s ‘red’ reputation, Catholicism even here certainly played a role, for, while socialism was important on the plain, the mountainous region had been a stronghold of Catholic peasant leagues. These leagues, which recruited only smallholders, sharecroppers and small leaseholders, had 20,000 members in the mountains, compared with only 3,700 on the plain, in 1919.63 All this, of course, was destroyed by the rise of fascism. The declared ambition of Laura Marani Argnani, Reggio Emilia’s FF Fiduciary, was the ‘totalitarian recruitment’ of all the women in the province. She never realized this Staracian dream, but Massaie membership did grow extremely rapidly with 7,700 members in March 1935, 13,000 in October 1935, 21,000 in October 1936, 35,000 in October 1937, 41,000 in October 1938, 47,000 in October 193964 and, finally, 69,890 by July 1943. These figures were impressive given that, in 1937, the total female population in the province was 178,000, of which only 119,000 were over 21.65 By 1940, according to Marani Argnani, 53 per cent of the adult women in the province had Party cards.66 Reggio Emilia took first place in the league table of Massaie membership early on and kept it for many years, earning it repeated praise in the fascist press and PNF Fogli di disposizioni. Even in August 1934, during the period of the FNFMR, this province was already forging ahead with 2,500 members (nearly 10 per cent of the national membership).67 By 1936 it was claimed that: In all the comuni of the Province there are no longer any rural families without at least one woman in the organization. In many comuni, such as Gattatico, Casalgrande and Novellara, membership is totalitarian. Another example is the villages of Ca’ di Scatole, Maro di Castelnuovo Monti and Cervarezza di Busana where, out of total populations of 400, 500 and 1,000 inhabitants, there are, respectively, 100, 120, 159 members.68 This quotation reveals that membership was already geographically spread. Gattatico, Casalgrande and Novellara are all on the plain whilst Ca’ di Scatole, Maro di Castelnuovo Monti and Cervarezza di Busana are in upland areas. One factor in this rapid rise was clearly rice. Every spring roughly 6–7,000, mainly female, riceworkers left to work in other provinces and a further 2,000 188

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were employed locally. Such work was crucial to the survival of many rural households and demand for this work, particularly in periods of agricultural unemployment such as the early 1930s, regularly exceeded the numbers of jobs on offer.69 Although Marani Argnani herself was not keen to be tainted by this forced enrolment, preferring to let the unions take responsibility,70 it seems clear that here too membership was basically compulsory. In some cases rice may have acted as a means to establishing sections. Once all the mondine in a given village had cards, they could form the core of a local section. Presumably, once activities began, other women in the area would see the material benefits on offer and decide to join. Most riceworkers came from the plain area rather than the mountains.71 In the lowland town of Guastalla, for example, many of the 240 members recruited by 1935 were mondine.72 This combination of coercion and material calculation does not, however, figure at all in the writings of Laura Marani Argnani, Provincial Fiduciary from 1929 to 1940. Born in 1866, in Faenza (Ravenna), from 1908 until 1919 she was Director of the Reggio Emilia Teacher Training College and, from 1925 to 1935, Principal of the ‘Princess of Naples’ Teacher Training Institute (the new name of the same college since 1919).73 A hardworking, patriotic disciplinarian, during the First World War she had mobilized her students to make clothes and other items for soldiers, work for which she was awarded the Gold Medal in March 1919. She soon became a true believer of the fascist faith. As one of her ex-students vividly recalled ‘she had an obsession that filled her whole head: her head was full of the Duce, she adored him, she was in love with the Duce.’74 According to Marani Argnani’s numerous writings on the subject, many peasant women too shared this view: the reason they joined the Massaie Rurali was to show their devotion to the Duce. As soon as they learned, she argued, that Mussolini had set up this organization for them, they wanted to enrol.75 She wrote of the ‘ready understanding, the spontaneous, warm devotion these dear massaie have for the Duce, who, for them, as for all of us, personifies the Party and the Motherland’.76 She even recounted that one woman, who had walked 16 kilometres along a mule track just to get to the first meeting, had done so: ‘“Because they told me that there was a lady who was saying good things about the DUCE”.’77 It is possible that some of the women Marani Argnani recruited were as taken in by the cult of the Duce as she herself was. Some of the initial recruitment was done, of course, in the period of the Ethiopian War and the sanctions. This was the period when, historians generally agree, the regime and Mussolini himself enjoyed the greatest popular support. It is likely, however, that other factors were relevant too. Marani Argnani’s accounts of recruitment meetings tell of gathering rural women in a local hall, of informing them of the goodness of Mussolini, then signing them up. What features less in these heroic accounts is the fact that she must have also informed them of the material benefits that came with membership. Even she herself admitted that she offered prizes to massaie who enrolled ten others. 189

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In practice the reasons for joining must have been a complex mixture. Some, particularly in remote areas where little new happened, probably came to the first meetings at least partly out of curiosity. To a poor peasant woman in a mountain village, the idea that this elderly, well-educated and rather severe city lady would give up her time to come and speak to them was flattering indeed, particularly if she bore promises of tangible material benefits. That many rural women, even in a politicized area like Reggio, were politically naive, is undeniable. It is true that the socialist and Catholic unions had paid attention to riceworkers and other day labourers before the rise of fascism, but, even in provinces like Reggio, many women remained untouched by such campaigns. Conversely, it is possible that those who had been in trade unions previously, although perhaps less keen to join a fascist organization and undoubtedly with a greater understanding of its politics, were nonetheless more used to belonging to something organized. Marani Argnani’s accounts make recruitment seem easy. In 1935 she wrote: When you speak to them about the aims of this ‘massaie rurali’ organization, following the will of the Duce, you first see, in their eyes, a flicker of delight and curiosity, then they get more and more interested, then they are increasingly deeply moved. It is not unusual, after you finish speaking, to find them all close around you, telling you the story of their lives, describing their homes, kissing your hands or even putting their arms around your shoulders like sisters.78 Recruiting for the Massaie, she felt, was much simpler than for SOLD. In 1940 she wrote of the love these rural women have for the DUCE. He is a towering figure in their hearts. He dominates their minds. In contrast, the recruitment for the Workers and Home-workers Section is proceeding much more slowly. This is firstly because there is not much industry in the province and there are few women workers but it is also because it is harder to get into their hearts. They are not always good and simple like the women on the land.79 When this ‘simplicity and goodness’ revealed itself as desperation Marani recoiled in horror. Tellingly, at one meeting to found a section, an elderly peasant woman said to me, naively, in her dialect, which I cannot imitate: ‘As for me, I’ll get myself a Massaia card, just as I’d have the communist one if they gave me something to eat.’ At these words, a wave of sadness and compassion filled my soul. I caressed her, I explained to her the enormous difference between Fascism and communism; I tried to show her the great good that Fascism has given us all. I think she understood me. 190

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It is true that tears came to her eyes and she kissed my hands but she promised me that she would always love the Duce.80 Deluded as she appears to have been about many women’s precise motivations for joining, even Marani had to admit that not all peasant women were easy to recruit. Whereas the more politically naive women in remote mountain areas seemed to succumb easily to her fiery speeches and promises of Mussolini’s benevolence, things were not so simple in lowland areas where socialism had been strong. Here, as in Pistoia, Marani had to resort to asking landowners to ‘persuade’ their employees to join.81 Another solution was suggested by the FF Secretary of Rubiera, a large lowland village near the provincial capital, in 1935. Finding recruitment a real struggle, she proposed imposing membership on anyone who came asking for welfare of any kind in the local Fascio. She noted peevishly that: ‘Such women, who are always ready to ask for things, need also to understand their noble duty to give their names to the Regime’s Institutions that are assisting them.’82 It does seem certain that one of the most important factors in Reggio Emilia, and one which made it stand out from other fairly similar Northern provinces, was the quality of its leadership. In an organization that relied almost entirely on volunteer labour, the organizers needed to be ready to devote time and energy to the cause. All this Laura Marani Argnani was more than willing to do and appears to have been able to inspire others to do so too. Many commentators at the time

Plate 10 Massaie rurali and their teachers. Training course in Reggio Emilia in 1940. Photograph by Renzo Vaiani (1915–1996) (Biblioteca Panizzi)

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ascribed the high membership in Reggio Emilia to her dynamism,83 and she was indeed a highly committed and seemingly tireless organizer, prepared, for example, to tour ceaselessly around the province, not excluding the remotest areas. Rather than simply sending orders to local FF secretaries to set up Massaie sections, she herself usually went there to get things going in person. After she retired from teaching in 1935 she dedicated almost all her time to political organization. In spite of the fact that she was already 70 years old, in the first semester of 1935–6 she addressed no less than 160 meetings around the province ‘for propaganda against the sanctions, to collect gold and to ask women to donate their wedding rings’.84 The following summer she made a total of 76 inspection visits to the children’s holiday camps. Despite her level of political fanaticism, which gave rise to numerous jokes about her, the testimonies of her ex-students show that she was a person who could inspire real respect85 and her hardworking example seems to have galvanized local leaders. Many village sections were extremely active.86 Marani Argnani made her mark as soon as she became Provincial Fiduciary in July 1929.87 When she took over the local Federation, previously run by Ines Suter Mazzoni, it was fairly inactive and in financial trouble. This changed quickly. Within only a year she had increased the numbers of women’s Fasci in the province from four to 25 and resolved the problem of local hierarchs withholding funding for the women’s sections by going over their heads and appealing to the Prefect.88 Among the many new activities she started up was welfare assistance for riceworkers. This meant that, by the foundation of the FNFMR, many of her organizers already had experience of working with rural women. Over the next few years she continued to build up the FF, creating a solid base ready to run the new Sezione from 1934. Marani Argnani was also helped by the fact that many rural primary school teachers in the province must have been her ex-students. This was significant, since ‘the vast majority of the Secretaries and their collaborators are primary teachers’.89 All such teachers, of course, had to have a Party card and had the training necessary to teach subjects like domestic science. In Reggio Emilia, therefore, a number of factors combined to make this a leading province in recruitment. This example does not seem to demonstrate that peasant women here were necessarily more fascist than elsewhere, although it does suggest that those in remote areas could be more susceptible to the attentions of organizers. It also shows that a poorly funded organization, which nevertheless aimed to recruit through material incentives, worked best where volunteers were willing to work really hard. For this, really energetic, determined leadership was significant. It is also possible that here, where rural class conflict had preceded fascism, more landowners were willing to contribute to and support an organization which functioned essentially as a state charity using donations.

The South In stark contrast to Reggio Emilia was the situation in most of the South. Here membership grew very slowly. This is not particularly surprising given the far 192

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weaker impact that fascism generally had in Southern Italy. The OND, for example, had huge problems trying to establish itself here and membership was always lower here than in the North. As with the Massaie, furthermore, Southern OND sections were often far less active than their Northern counterparts.90 There were, however, also more specific reasons relating to the low level of Massaie membership. Very occasionally reports tried to claim that in the South recruitment was not so difficult91 but most took the opposite view. The recruitment problems in the South experienced by the FNFMR continued and were not easy to resolve. Starace reported to the Fascist Grand Council in February 1935 that: Moral, social and technical assistance initiatives are developing well in every provincial delegation and in every Fascio Femminile, with the exception of certain provinces in the South and Islands, where the organization faces some difficulties, due to the particular local conditions.92 These ‘difficulties’ included the patterns of habitation and cultural traditions, both of which militated against high membership levels. In many southern areas, such as Calabria, recruitment was hindered by cultural traditions hostile to female extra-domestic roles.93 There was also the problem of the extreme isolation of some rural communities where, despite innovations like radio broadcasting, massive illiteracy and dreadful roads kept the world of politics at a distance. Only the most intrepid and energetic organizers would brave the miles of mule tracks that linked many Southern villages to the nearest road or railway line. The heart of the problem, however, was that many of the Southern peasantry were not properly rural but crowded together in squalid agro-towns and that, despite the exceptions noted in Chapter 1, many wives and daughters of peasants themselves did not work on the land. These issues were raised again and again by Southern organizers in 1934-5 as they puzzled over how a policy, designed for a very different environment, was supposed to be implemented in their area. In January of 1934, Maria Fabriani, FNFMR Delegate for Palermo, noted that in her province: Women and children are not involved in farming. They mostly live (due to an atavistic custom) in big villages, in houses that are crowded together, without vegetable plots or gardens, with hardly any windows and doors that open onto the street. The men leave for the fields in the morning and come home very late. She did attempt to be optimistic, arguing that: with the valued assistance of teachers, some interventions which will help forge a rural spirit are possible. Through propaganda work, not 193

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just about farming but also about material and moral hygiene, the reclamation of future massaie rurali can begin.94 Similar problems were faced by Apulian organizers. Rome had told them to attempt what seemed an impossible task, recruiting among some of the most proletarianized peasantry of the whole of the South, with no land to cultivate. Here, even the tradition of rural crafts such as weaving was more or less absent. If farmyard animals such as chickens or even pigs were kept, they often had to live in the same room as the family whilst the enclosure of former common land near the agro-towns rendered even the gathering of wild plants (such as broom or medicinal herbs), promoted by the organization, impractical. In a somewhat perplexed article published in the Giornale della donna, Wanda Gorjux Bruschi,95 Provincial FF Fiduciary in Bari, summarized some of the difficulties this implied: In our provinces with their extensive farming there are no massaie rurali. Women are landowners or farm labourers. It is not easy to make field hands, gleaners and olive-pickers, into ‘massaie’ who love to work in the fields, create gardens and vegetable plots, rear chickens and rabbits, run a farmhouse . . . And now, for many reasons, over many centuries of history, people have ended up huddled together into sizeable towns (take Andria, for example, which has about 60,000 inhabitants who are all involved in agriculture). Families are forced to live in wretched, characterless, hovels and women . . . have nothing to do but wait all day for their husbands to bring home the fruits of their labour.96 Gorjux Bruschi’s highly unrealistic solution was the idea that, although there were few real massaie in the South, the Party could now create them: The Party, in ordering that all the Fasci Femminili of every province should have Massaie Rurali sections, is adding the final touch to its programme to ruralize the population. It is shaping individuals who are indispensable not just to the good running of farms, but also for the ‘fixing’ of families on a podere: women.97 This miraculous transformation did not take place, since the bonifica programme for the Apulian Tavoliere, for which a consortium of landowners was responsible, remained more or less on paper and Serpieri’s recent downfall ensured that it would stay that way.98 Gorjux Bruschi herself did not attempt to intervene in such big questions. Instead, her solution was, as in Pistoia, to start with women from the landowning class. In April 1935 she wrote: We need to start from above . . . only major landowning women can be effective in creating massaie rurali where they do not exist or no 194

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longer exist. If big landowners lived on their lands, for at least part of the year, they would give a concrete example of how a rural life can be as noble, lofty, civilized, resplendent and magnificent as any other. If land-owning women accept their national and social role as great massaie, they will be able to teach domestic science, vegetable gardening and poultry and rabbit farming to the wives of the small leaseholders and sharecroppers who work their land.99 Despite all these problems, Bari Province was one where membership grew relatively fast. By September 1935: ‘Participation in Bari province, hindered at times by a dearth of funding, is better than in Bologna.’100 By the following March, Bari already had 52 Massaie groups, with a number of courses (including some on farming) running.101 Paradoxically one reason for this relative success may, in fact, have been because the urbanized condition of many of the peasantry made it easier for organizers to reach them. Bari also had energetic leadership in the shape of Gorjux Bruschi whose talents were recognized when she went on to become a PNF National Inspectress in September 1937. Gorjux Bruschi did take quite an interest in the massaie rurali and wrote a good deal about them in the early years. In Bari, there was also outside help: ‘Acting on a suggestion from the Farmworkers’ Union it was decided to extend membership to include all women living in farm labourers’ households.’102 Exactly how this was done is not clear but it potentially involved a large number of women. The collaboration of the Farmworkers’ Union, furthermore, was important in somewhere like Apulia given that this was the Southern area where it had the highest female membership – 55,000 in 1931. In most of the South, things were slower. Some of the biggest problems, and not just for this organization, were faced by those trying to recruit women for the Party in Sardinia, where the lack of interest of the local population gave a somewhat desperate tone to reports from local organizers to PNF headquarters in Rome. Although recruitment does not look so bad on paper, these reports reveal that attempting to hold parades and so on were almost impossible since those few women who had joined rarely acquired a Massaie headscarf and badge. In Nuoro: the biggest problem is the mentality of Sardinian women, who felt, and today still partly feel, that their participation in any organization which entails them going out of the home, even for a short time, is contrary to custom and to the honour of the family.103 Furthermore: Except in a few areas, the Sardinian countryside is sparsely populated and there are not any real farmhouses as such: the population is massed together in towns of two to three thousand inhabitants. For this reason Sardinian women, in general, play little role in working the land, partic195

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ularly because, in Nuoro province, most of the population are shepherds and, given the sort of discomforts this involves, these are all men.104 Added to these considerable obstacles, still further problems faced Southern organizers. Requiring membership as a prerequisite for access to state welfare facilities was far less effective here as the facilities were so poor. ONMI, for example, which had developed a good network of maternal welfare clinics in the North by the end of the 1930s, provided very little in the South and Islands. What does need to be emphasized, however, is the fact that, despite all these difficulties, recruitment did eventually take off even in Southern provinces. Exactly who the members were is, however, harder to discern. Some may have been sharecroppers and a certain number must have been olive-pickers but the figures for Sardinia also show that women who did not actually do farmwork were recruited. Here at least, the organization must have focused on recruiting peasants’ wives rather than only women who did actual farming themselves since, as early as 1938, the number of members overtakes Vitali’s estimate of those ‘economically active in agriculture’. That these semi-urban women were targeted for recruitment also seems to be confirmed by the kind of training activities offered by many Southern sections, which consisted, as was discussed in previous chapters, largely in domestic science and handicrafts. In the South, furthermore, recruitment increased dramatically during the Second World War and by the fall of fascism many Southern provinces had quite large memberships. It is probable, as was argued above, that one reason for this was the arrival of the Technical Leaders who could put in the necessary hours to set things up. Membership undoubtedly also increased in the South as more women moved into farm-work to replace men called up at the front. At this point the training and welfare initiatives like nurseries for children of harvesters, offered by the organization, could be particularly useful. It does need to be stressed, nonetheless, that recruitment problems were not confined to the South. Challenging problems were also faced in poorer, remoter areas of the North. In the far North, in the mountain province of Belluno, for example, amateur local journalist Carlotta Fratini wrote in February 1943 (with rare candour for this period of great rhetoric) that the great poverty of agriculture had hampered Massaie recruitment. She noted that here, where there was little land to go round, all energy and use of farm tools were concentrated on male farming activities whereas kitchen gardens and so on were considered unimportant. Many peasant women became servants, factory workers or emigrated. This made recruitment difficult because ‘The Massaie Rurali organizers and instructors found themselves faced with only old women and children or women who were so overburdened with work and responsibility, that they could not really ask much of them.’105 A much more extreme example was given by Bianca Montale, who wrote, astonishingly, in 1979 that: I have personally met people who, in the 1930s, still had not heard of 196

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Mussolini. This may seem extraordinary but amongst peasant women from the Ligurian hinterland, in small, impoverished hamlets, it is far from rare.106

Future voters Such a radical situation was probably very unusual in most of the North at least and millions of rural women did become Massaie Rurali members. As might be expected, vast numbers did not immediately queue up to join the moment the organization was set up and membership levels were built up gradually by a variety of methods, differing from region to region. The meaning of all this, however, is complex. The role of the clergy, material incentives and the opportunities for leisure and sociability may mean that many joined primarily out of opportunism or for reasons only vaguely connected with a grasp of the politics of the organization. Some, probably a minority, were forced to join, whatever their views, because otherwise they could not get work or much needed welfare assistance. Membership, therefore, often meant something less than a wholehearted embracing of the fascist cause. These women were not dedicated supporters of the regime like some, although far from all, of the donne fasciste. Membership did, however, have at least some impact on their lives. By packaging their political message carefully, the fascists were able to introduce large numbers of peasant women to the world of politics. For most of them, with the exception of those who had lived in ‘red’ families, this was a world that had previously been distant from their lives. Soon it was to come much closer. Only a few years later they could vote.

Notes 1 It was, however, still much smaller than certain Party organizations. In 1940, for example, the OND had 4,035,239 members, the Fasci di Combattimento had 3,609,848 and the GIL youth organization had 8,495,929. The total membership of the Party and its ancillary organizations was 23,281,622, a huge proportion of the population. (‘Forze inquadrate nel P.N.F.’ FO 264 28 Oct 1940.) 2 For a romanticized description of recruitment, see ‘Contadine fasciste’, DF, no. 4, 20 Feb 1935, p. 4. 3 Giuseppina Gobbato (Giovane Fascista), ‘Propaganda nelle campagne’, DF, no. 12, 20 June 1935, p. 8. 4 Anon., ‘Massaie rurali’, DF, no. 14, 20 July 1935, p. 1. 5 This lengthy debate was triggered by the publication of Renzo De Felice’s controversially titled Mussolini il duce. Gli anni del consenso 1929–1936, Turin, Einaudi, 1974. Useful outlines of the debate in English can be found in: F. Andreucci, ‘“Subversiveness” and Anti-Fascism in Italy’, in R. Samuel (ed.), People’s History and Socialist Theory, London, 1981; P. Morgan, ‘The years of consent? Popular attitudes and forms of resistance to Fascism in Italy, 1925-1940’, in A. McElligot, T. Kirk (eds), Opposing Fascism. Community, Authority and Resistance in Europe, Cambridge University Press, 1999.

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6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

33 34 35 36 37

L. Passerini, Torino operaia e fascismo, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 1984. Agenda della Massaia Rurale, 1937, pp. 101–2. Interview with Isotta Falaschi on 25 March 2000. Dott. B. nessa Maria Clorinda de’ Franceschi (Fid. Prov. MMRR), ‘Organizzazione delle massaie rurali nella provincia di Pistoia. Programma-relazione’, 2 Feb 1935, ASPistoia, Gab. Pref., b.162, fasc.1280 ‘PNF Fasci Femminili’. L.L.L. (Ravenna), ‘Visita alle massaie rurali’, AMR, no. 9, 1937, p. 4. AMR, no. 5, 1936, p. 3. ‘Norme per l’inquadramento delle massaie rurali’, AMR, no. 4, 1935, p. 1. M. Guidi, ‘La donna e l’autarchia’, DF, no. 23, 10 Dec 1939, p. 1. ‘Norme per l’inquadramento’. ‘Fervida attività dei Fasci femminili’, DF, no. 10, 21 Apr 1940, p. 7. ‘Notiziario’, AMR, no. 3, 1940, p. 2. According to Giuseppe Bronzi, Arezzo had 9,932 Massaie Rurali members in 1941, slightly less than the previous year (10,794). G. Bronzi, Il fascismo aretino da Renzino a Besozzo (1921–1945), Cortona, Ed Grafica l’Etruria, 1988, p. 52. Numbers did, however, rise again after this (see Table 9.6, this volume). 54 per cent of all farms (constituting 67 per cent of all farmed land) in Arezzo province were sharecropped in 1931. See CFLA, Italia rurale. Documentario dell’agricoltura italiana, Rome, 1937, p. 296. Anon., ‘Propaganda rurale’, Giornale, no. 20, 15 Oct 1934, p. 10. Anon., ‘Aziende modello nella grande Genova’, DF, no. 4, 20 Feb 1935, p. 4. C. Severini, Agricoltura livornese in regime Fascista, CNSFLA, Leghorn, 1934-5, pp. 140–1. Ibid., p. 23. L. Marani Argnani, Le massaie rurali, Reggio Emilia, Pedrini, 1939, p. 11. T.H. Koon, Believe, Obey, Fight: Political Socialization of Youth in Fascist Italy 1922–1943, Chapel Hill, North Carolina University Press, 1985, p. 181. ‘Federazione massaie rurali’, LAF, no. 7, 25 Feb 1934, p. 2. Report sent from the PNF Federation of Palermo to Starace, dated 10 Sept 1935, ACS, PNF, SPEP, b.12, fasc. ‘Palermo’. ‘Presentazione’, PNF, Fed. Provinciale FF Novara, Per le Massaie Rurali, Novara, Tip. Cattaneo, 1940, p. 7. ‘Relazione sull’attività dei Fasci Femminili di Pistoia dal 29 ottobre 1934 al 30 aprile 1935’, ASPistoia, Gab. Pref., b.162, fasc.1280 ‘PNF Fasci Femminili’, p. 7. de’ Franceschi, ‘Organizzazione delle massaie rurali’. Various reports on this are included in ASPistoia, Gab. Pref., b.162, fasc.1280 ‘PNF Fasci Femminili’. FD 953 15 Jan 1938. See ASV, Gab. Pref. Vercelli, Ser 1, b.22, fasc. ‘Relazioni al Prefetto dell’Unione Prov Fascista dei Lavoratori, Relazioni mensili, maggio 1935’. ‘The unions are enrolling the massaie rurali through their own local Labour Exchanges. In this way they are supporting the PNF’s praiseworthy work, work which is of indisputable social and economic value.’ Mario Pelloni, ‘Relazioni al Prefetto dell’Unione Prov Fascista dei Lavoratori dell’Agricoltura’, Aug 1941, p. 4, ASV, Gab Pref Vercelli. See also report on Reggio Emilia in La mondina, no. 1, 15 May 1937, p. 7. B. Imbergamo, ‘“Si parte cantando giovinezza”: le mondine durante il fascismo (1925–1939)’, tesi di laurea, Università di Firenze, a.a. 1997–8, p. 60. Il solco fascista, 3 June 1937, cited in A. Zavaroni, ‘La donna del fascio II. Le iniziative sociali del fascismo femminile reggiano’, Almanacco, no. 34/5, 2000, p. 28. ‘Lavorazione stagionale’, Giornale, no. 19, 1 Oct 1934, p. 2. ‘Assistenza a 115 mila lavoratrici dei campi’, DF, no. 19, 1 Oct 1936, p. 1. In 1936

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38 39 40 41 42

43 44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

59

assistance was offered to pickers from the southern provinces of Agrigento, Avellino, Benevento, Bari, Brindisi, Catania, Cosenza, Catanzaro, Foggia, Frosinone, Lecce, Matera, Messina, Naples, Palermo, Perugia, Potenza, Reggio Calabria, Rieti, Rome, Siracuse, Taranto, Trapani, Terni and Viterbo. ‘Attività’, AMR, no. 3, 1939, p. 2. See, for example, the registered letter dated 14 Nov 1934 to Piacenza FF Provincial Fiduciary from Giovanni Marinelli, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.405, fasc. 64/E, ‘Sezioni Massaie Rurali’. FD 1021 26 March 1938. Interview with Asmara Salvadorini, a former sharecropper in Pisa Province, on 25 March 2000. Letter from Dino Rui, Political Secretary of Conegliano to Andrea Musicò, President of the local ONMI Committee, 1 May 1936, AST, PNF Conegliano, b.14, fasc.‘Maggio XVI’. Another letter dated 24 June 1936 from Rui to ONMI in the same file thanks them for helping encourage women to join the Massaie and Fasci Femminili. Letter from the Provincial Labour Exchange of the Fascist Union of Farmworkers to the Political Secretary of the Conegliano Fascio. (PNF Conegliano, b.21 fasc.‘Maggio 1939’.) AST, PNF Conegliano, b.12, fasc. ‘PNF Circolari Federazione anno XIII’, Circular 66. See, for example, correspondence of the Pisa FF for 1942–3 in which the Provincial Fiduciary Giuseppina De Guidi obtained permission for a certain number of massaie to have maize milled (contrary to current regulations) in order to rear chicks. (ASPisa, PNF, b.6, fasc. ‘Pratiche varie 1942’.) AST, PNF Conegliano, b.13, various letters. See, for example, the letter from Dino Rui to various local priests, 24 October 1935 in AST, PNF Conegliano, b.12 1935, fasc. ‘PNF ottobre XIII’. See, for example, the announcement from the local PNF Press Office in AST, PNF Conegliano, b.16, fasc.‘Gennaio 1937’. Letter dated 17 Aug 1935 from Gianni Zangrossi (Political Vice-Secretary) to the parish priest of Campolongo and Costa, AST, PNF Conegliano, b.11, fasc.‘Agosto 1935’. Letter to the parish priests of Costa, Campolongo, Ogliano and Scomigo, 17 May 1935 in AST, PNF Conegliano, b.13, fasc. ‘Marzo XVI’. See, for example, a copy of this letter in AST, PNF Conegliano, b.13, fasc. ‘Dic 1935’. ‘Attività’, AMR, no. 5, 1938, p. 4. P. Scoppola, ‘La chiesa e il fascismo durante il pontificato di Pio XI’, in A. Aquarone, M. Vernassa (eds), Il regime fascista, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1974, p. 214. On the Lateran Pacts (and an English translation of the actual text) see J. Pollard, The Vatican and Italian Fascism: A Study in Conflict 1929–1932, Cambridge University Press, 1985. E. Brunetta, Dal consenso all’opposizione. La società trevigiana dal 1938 al 1946, Treviso, Cierre, 1996, p. 13. See AST, PNF Conegliano, b.16, fasc.‘Gennaio 1937’. AST, Gab Pref, b.261, fasc. ‘Sacerdoti – Informazioni’. This is about Don Angelo Simonetto, Catena di Villerba. Declaration by Angelo Zancanaro. ‘The Cathedral priest does not behave in a perfectly pro-fascist manner; the others are good.’ (Report by the Fascio Secretary Francesco Pancotto to the Federal Inspector of the 3rd Zone Rag. Cav. Mario Betto, 9 Nov 1938 in AST, PNF Conegliano, b.21, fasc. ‘Novembre XVII’.) A good deal of surveillance of the Treviso clergy went on. See, for example, various

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60

61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70

71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84

items of correspondence about relations between the Church and blackshirts in Treviso which gives examples of conflict over prayers for peace and the question of dancing in ACS, PNF, SPEP, b.26, fasc. ‘Treviso’. These were 5,100 ‘donne cattoliche’, 5,517 ‘effettive’, 5,504 ‘aspiranti’, 5,461 ‘beniamine’ and 3,664 ‘fanciulle’. Total females – 25,246. They also had 4,112 adult men and 8,710 in the Catholic boys’ groups. (Report dated 31 May 1935 from Treviso Police Chief in AST, Gab. Pref., b.261, fasc. ‘Clero relazioni mensili 1936–38’.) C. Dau Novelli, ‘L’associazionismo femminile cattolico (1908-1960)’, Bollettino dell’archivio per la storia del movimento sociale cattolico in Italia, no. 2, 1998, p. 125. On pre-fascist socialism in Reggio Emilia see G. Procacci, La lotta di classe in Italia agli inizi del secolo XX, Rome, Riuniti, 1972, pp. 107-11. G. Barazzoni, M. Paterlini, M. Morstofolini, ‘La fronda agraria. Ottavio Corgini e la Camera Provinciale d’Agricoltura di Reggio Emilia’, in AAVV, Regime e società civile a Reggio Emilia 1920–1946, vol. 1, 1986, p. 296. Fed FF di Reggio nell’Emilia, Relazione delle attività. Secondo Semestre a.XVII E.F., R. Emilia, PNF, p. 3. A. Zavaroni, ‘La donna del fascio I. La donna che comprese il buon cuore di Mussolini’, Almanacco, no. 32, 1999, p. 77n. L. Marani Argnani, I Fasci femminili della provincia di Reggio nell’Emilia dal 1921 al 1940, Reggio Emilia, Pedrini, 1940. ‘Nelle Sezioni e nei Gruppi’, AMR, no. 8, 1934, p. 1. ‘Dalle provincie’, DF, no. 17, 1 Sept 1936, p. 7. M. Storchi, ‘“Tra gli insetti e le zanzare in risaia ci tocca andar”. Le mondine reggiane e il fascismo’, in Quando saremo a Reggio Emilia. Risaie padane e mondine reggiane, Correggio, Ist Alcide Cervi, 1987, p. 33. On 1 May 1936 she sent round a circular (number 47) to her local secretaries ordering that: ‘Secretaries must not impose membership on women who might eventually go to the rice fields. These women are still not definitely hired, and if and when they are hired the Unions will take care of inviting them to take out a Massaie Rurali card, if they are not already members.’ (ASRE, Gab Pref, b.52, fasc.16 ‘Fascio femminile, Prof.sa Laura Marani’.) G. Badini, L. Serra, ‘La donna? Ai fornelli’, in ‘Fatti e protagonisti del fascismo reggiano’, ‘Anni Trenta’ supplement no. 15, Il resto del carlino, 28 Dec 1982, p. 3. ‘Attività dei fasci’, DF, no. 14, 20 July 1935, p. 12. On her teaching career see A. Petrucci, G. Giovanelli, Storia dell’Istituto “Matilde di Canossa”. 140 anni di istruzione magistrale a Reggio Emilia (1860–2000), Reggio Emilia, Camellini, 2000. M. Mietto, M.G. Ruggerini, ‘“Faber est suae quisque fortunae”, Gli studenti del Liceo Classico e dell’Istituto Magistrale a Reggio Emilia’, in Contributi, no. 21–2, 1987, p. 359. Marani Argnani, Le massaie rurali, p. 4. Ibid., p. 5. FF di Reggio Emilia, Relazione sullo sviluppo della organizzazione ‘Massaie rurali’ fino al 24 aprile 1935 – XIII, Reggio Emilia, Officine Grafiche Fasciste, 1935, p. 4. Ibid., p. 6. Marani Argnani, I Fasci Femminili, p. 9. Marani Argnani, in Annuario della R.Istituto Magistrale Principessa di Napoli, 1935, pp. 93–4, cited in Zavaroni, ‘La donna del fascio II’, p. 31. Zavaroni, ‘La donna del fascio II’, p. 30. FF di Reggio Emilia, Relazione sullo sviluppo della organizzazione, p. 38. See, for example, ‘Federazione Massaie Rurali’, LAF, no. 19, 15 July 1934, p. 2. L. Marani Argnani, ‘Relazione attività 1 semestre anno XIV. 30 aprile 1936’, ASRE, Gab Pref, b.52, fasc.16 ‘Fascio femminile, Prof.sa Laura Marani’.

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85 Mietto, Ruggerini, ‘“Faber est suae quisque fortunae”’. 86 See, for example, FF di Reggio Emilia, Relazioni sullo sviluppo della organizzazione; Marani Argnani, I Fasci Femminili. 87 She remained in this position until May 1940 (when she was replaced by Nevina Beccari) by which time she was also a PNF National Inspectress. 88 Storchi, ‘Un ventennio reggiano. Attività e organizzazione del PNF a Reggio Emilia’, Contributi, no. 19–20, 1986, pp. 171–2. 89 Letter from the Provincial Head of Education to the Prefect of Reggio Emilia, 12 Nov 1938 in ASRE, Gab Pref b.52, fasc. 16 ‘Fascio femminile, Prof.sa Laura Marani’. 90 See V. De Grazia, The Culture of Consent: Mass Organization of Leisure in Fascist Italy, Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 114–24. 91 ‘Notiziario delle MR’, DF, no. 14, 15 July 1937, p. 3. 92 Starace, ‘Relazione del Segretario alla sessione invernale del Gran Consiglio del fascismo, 14–15–16 febbraio 1935’, ACS, SPD-CR, b.31, fasc. 13, PNF, p. 17. 93 V. Capelli, ‘Immagine e presenze pubblica della donna in Calabria’, Annali Cervi, no. 13, 1991, pp. 177–91. 94 ‘Problemi organizzativi. Dalle relazioni delle Delegate Provinciali’, AMR, no. 1, 1934, pp. 1. 95 Wanda Bruschi (1888–1976), a journalist (who had previously been a teacher) had, for many years, her own column in the Corriere delle Puglie (of which her husband Raffaele Gorjux was the editor) and then on the Gazzetta di Puglia (founded by her husband in 1922). A graduate with two degrees (one in History and Geography and another in Arts) she sometimes published under the pseudonym ‘Medusa’. From 1926 onwards she was Bari Provincial FF Fiduciary and the province’s ONMI Extraordinary Delegate from 1930 as well as being involved in various other organizations such as the Southern Popular Culture Board, the Red Cross and the Dante Alighieri Society. For a while she was FF Provincial Fiduciary in Rome and, in the late 1930s, she was appointed PNF National Inspectress. (See E.S., ‘Protagoniste femminili del primo novecento’, Problemi del socialismo, no. 4, 1976, n.4, p. 236; D.M.B., ‘Attività intellettuali femminili’, Almanacco, 1933, pp. 334–5.) 96 W. Gorjux, ‘Massaie rurali’, Giornale, no. 7, 5 April 1935, p. 3. (This article was reproduced, almost verbatim, in the pamphlet PNF Fed. FF Bari, Massaie Rurali, Bari, XIII.) Similar problems were noted by organizers in other parts of the South and Islands. 97 Ibid., p. 3. 98 C. Daneo, Breve storia dell’agricoltura italiana 1860–1970, Milan, A. Mondadori, 1980, p. 134. 99 Ibid., p. 3. 100 ‘Verso trecentomila . . .’, AMR, no. 9, 1935, p. 1. 101 AMR, no. 3, 1936, p. 4. 102 ‘Attività nelle provincie’, AMR, no. 3, 1936, p. 4. 103 Ibid. 104 A. Murgia, ‘Donne di Sardegna’, DF, no. 18, 15 Sept 1935, p. 5. 105 C. Fratini, ‘Donne al lavoro’, Dolomiti, 28 Feb 1943, cited in F. Vendramini, ‘Guerra e donne nel giornale Bellunese “Dolomiti”’, Protagonisti, no. 39, 1990, p. 13. 106 B. Montale, ‘La donna nel campo della scuola e della cultura’, in G. Benelli et al., La donna nella Resistenza in Liguria, Florence, Nuova Italia, 1979, p. 132.

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After 1945, the Sant’Alessio College was abandoned as the property of a defunct political party. For a while it was used by a priest for a makeshift orphanage and today the building, engulfed by the urban sprawl of Rome, has become a cultural centre, teaching electric guitar and drama to the youth of the southern Roman suburbs. The tower blocks of a modern housing estate, built on the college’s farmland, which crowd around and dwarf the original two-storey building, seem a telling symbol of the ultimate futility of the fascist ruralization campaign.1 Italy’s future was largely urban. The postwar years saw enormous change. During the ‘economic miracle’ of the 1950s, millions of peasants left the land and rural women’s lives were gradually transformed by a whole host of factors. Some moved to urban areas or went abroad. Others, at least initially, ran farms while their husbands migrated. Rising standards of living eventually brought many material improvements and consumer goods including electrification, running water, domestic appliances and television.2 Literacy rose and many of the daughters and granddaughters of massaie rurali finished their schooling. A few even reached university. After 1945 some peasant women began to vote for parties which essentially stood for the negation of many of the values promoted by the Massaie Rurali and some became involved in the, at times violent, struggles over land rights in the late 1940s. This, however, is not the end of the story for, although the rural world of the 1930s was ultimately doomed, the legacy of the fascist mobilization of rural women did linger on in the world of postwar politics. The political context of course was very different. Democracy had returned and now, for the first time, women were included too. All political parties were forced to take account of this new electorate but not all parties faced female voters with the language of modernization. Some looked to the recent past for inspiration.

1943–5 Massaie Rurali activities continued right up to the regime’s eleventh hour. As late as March 1943 a national silkfarming competition was launched.3 This was 202

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never completed as the PNF and all its ancillary organizations officially folded in July, when Mussolini was toppled by a coup d’état following the Allied landings in the South. The war, of course, was not yet over in Italy. The German army invaded 45 days later and a prolonged period of bloody ‘civil war’4 ensued in the North and Centre. Italians fought Italians as well as Germans. Die-hard fascists founded the Salò Republic with Mussolini at its head, now, in practice, basically a Nazi puppet. Unlike the majority of the National Inspectresses, Franceschini, Ferrari Del Latte and Marani Argnani all stayed loyal to Mussolini in this final phase. Ferrari Del Latte, for example, made a radio broadcast in December 1943 appealing to women to rally to Salò, and she continued her journalistic writing in Italia repubblicana.5 This, of course, was the period of the Resistance in the North and Centre. It is beyond the scope of this book to go into the many and diverse stories of peasant women’s experience of this period. Suffice to say that some did get involved in Resistance activities in a variety of ways, such as acting as couriers between partisan bands or in acts of defiance of the occupying forces like preparing the bodies of dead partisans for burial in defiance of German orders. Some did have clear political motivations but others acted in ways primarily governed by traditions of peasant society such as offering hospitality to those in need, whether fascists, Germans, Jews or partisans. Many peasants belonged to what has been termed the ‘zona grigia’ (grey zone) of those who did not make clear choices, mainly seeking to survive a difficult and complex situation.6 Often the relationship between partisans and peasants was complex as partisan bands effectively had to live off the local community. During the ’45 days’ Sant’Alessio was placed on a war footing, with its personnel considered ‘mobilized civilians’. Officials winding up the PNF’s financial affairs suggested that the school’s work could continue with its graduates assigned to provincial agricultural organizations7 but this never happened. In September 1943, the building was requisitioned by German troops.8 Farm training ceased. Massaie Rurali activities, however, did not immediately vanish everywhere. Even in this dramatic context a few refused to give up. In a kind of surreal denial of the doomed realities of the situation, a handful of Massaie sections near Turin attempted to soldier on in the face of defeat, under the new name of ‘Centro Agricolo Femminile’, run by Tilde Quarelli. Reports by the Turinese Republican Women’s Groups claimed 6,000 members in June 1944 and over 8,000 by November,9 but this is the last reference I have found and it is likely that organizing in such areas soon became impossible as Resistance activities strengthened and the end of the war approached. The ability of this initiative to survive was probably also severely compromised by the refusal of the Church to recognize the Salò Republic. The Turin Centro Agricolo was, in fact, probably unique and in practice the Massaie Rurali organization effectively died in July 1943 with the fall of Mussolini. It did not, however, vanish without trace. I wish to examine its legacy from two points of view: first to see to what extent this organization can be said to 203

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have, despite its ideology, ‘modernized’ the position of rural women; and second to trace some echoes of the fascist organization in postwar politics. The question of what impact fascist mass mobilization had on subsequent developments is to an extent a post-Cold War question. Previously, it was not easy to broach such issues without being seen as somehow belittling the Resistance and the victory of democracy. More recently, however, some are beginning to ask why democracy functioned so badly, and to reflect on the extent to which changes wrought during the ventennio shaped the functioning (and malfunctioning) of the postwar Republic.10

Modernization? In certain respects, it is possible to argue that the Massaie Rurali organization had a modernizing impact on the lives of rural women. De Grazia has suggested, for example, that better training and easier access to markets may have enhanced women’s autonomy within peasant households by increasing their earning power.11 It is difficult, however, to tell the extent to which this really did happen given the dire economic situation of many rural families and the fact that the organizers constantly stressed male authority in the home. It was, after all, the male head of household who controlled family finances. What is certain, however, is that the organization did bring women unprecedented contact with the world beyond the narrow horizons of the spaces of everyday life – the farm and home. For the first time, traditional female rural activities were presented as of national importance and this led to numerous intrusions into the rural world, intrusions which, in certain areas, especially in the parts of the South where women lived lives mainly away from the public sphere, could threaten local cultural norms.12 But even in the North the activities of the Massaie Rurali could be unsettling for rural households. Photographic sessions, participation in training courses, visits to fairs and other kinds of outings, all these were new for many who had rarely been far from their own farms. Paradoxically this could offer a chance to glimpse the relative delights of the urban lifestyle and ultimately have the opposite effect to that intended. Regina Terruzzi herself recognized the inherent contradictions in the project. In a letter to Mussolini she expressed some reservations about the organization, stating that, for the members, it might ‘complicate their lives, and almost make them unhappy’.13 The organization may have also helped rural women develop a sense of individual identity. Intriguingly, despite the great fascist emphasis on the sanctity of the unity of the family, one of the few archival documents which has survived indicating the hierarchs’ plans for the organization reveals that some saw the fact that membership was individual and personal as important. In a memo sent by the President of the Fascist Farmers’ Confederation to the PNF Secretary in 1938, he argued that one of the benefits of making the new Technical Leaders employees of the Fasci Femminili, despite the fact that their salaries were paid by the farming corporate organizations, was the desire to ‘avoid the drawback that 204

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the massaie rurali might see themselves as in some way linked to the union membership of their head of family’.14 Thus it may be that, in certain specific ways, the organization did ‘widen rural women’s sphere’ and give them more confidence, sense of self and knowledge of the wider world. Overall, however, its role as an agent of change and modernization was limited and certainly far from comparable to the impact of belonging to the Fasci Femminili or the girls’ groups. The political message of the section for rural women was fundamentally reactionary. For all its talk of ‘rational farming’, it eulogized a narrow and unchanging world, and female subordination to male authority. The virtuous rural woman was to encourage her children to stay on the land and she herself was meant to desire nothing more. The training offered by the organization, despite its modernizing language, was in what was seen as ‘fit work for women’ which meant endless toil in field and home. Hours were unimaginably long and the work often gruelling. Such work was never a target for fascist campaigns against female employment, for it was devoid of any emancipatory potential and peasant households could not survive without it. Such work was partly rendered acceptable by not calling those who did it workers. As their organization’s name demonstrates these women were presented primarily as housewives, and farming activities simply an extension of their ‘natural’ domestic and familial duties. Designed by an urban elite for the peasant masses, this demagogic, populist organization patronizingly romanticized the harsh lives of the rural poor. Instead of giving them electricity and running water, their housing was to be improved by more rigorous cleaning and floral decoration; instead of more favourable sharecropping contracts they were offered training courses and political propaganda. The fact that it was so poorly funded demonstrates that its purpose was less to actually improve the lives of rural women than to be seen to be doing so. The fascists had attempted, with the migration laws, to prevent the peasantry from flocking into cities and now they needed to show how they were helping them on the land. Economically, its impact was very limited and, despite increased access to urban markets and the emphasis on training and ‘rational’ farming, it is impossible to see it as a force for agricultural modernization. It tackled none of the big problems of Italian agriculture and was based on the idea of encouraging women to make the best of what they had, which often meant channelling their energy into unproductive marginal areas. There was no ideology of expansion. Courses were orientated towards small-scale or even subsistence farming. Rural industry was encouraged only in the shape of domestic craft manufacture, often using extremely outmoded technology. Some parts of the Massaie programme, such as the attempt to encourage the introduction of new breeds of poultry, may have led to some modest agricultural improvement but much energy was wasted on things like the encouragement of autarkic substitute crops and futile attempts to stem the hopeless decline of silk production. The modern day observer might, of course, find an organization which 205

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promoted small-scale farming using largely what would now be called ‘organic’ techniques and forms of recycling very appealing. It is important, however, to stress that twenty-first-century anxieties about the dangers of intensive cultivation and the use of chemical fertilizers are an anachronistic tool of analysis for understanding this organization. The architects of Massaie policy were unconcerned with environmental conservation. What they wanted to preserve was not the purity of nature but traditional ways of life, class hierarchies and social stability, even at the expense of economic growth. A final brake on the ‘modernizing’ impact of this organization was the passive nature of membership. Belonging to the Massaie Rurali implied no agency on the part of peasant women. Indeed, even many fascist hierarchs themselves felt that Starace’s mission, to enrol an entire nation into the Party, was simply grotesque. It is possible that, if fascism had not fallen in 1943, eventually all Italians, regardless of their political beliefs, would have ended up with a Party card, rendering it a kind of second compulsory identity card, and ultimately meaningless. Who did, however, probably gain a sense of importance through the Massaie Rurali organization were the donne fasciste, in particular the thousands of mainly primary school teachers who, as Massaie Rurali secretaries, ran local activities. Overall, therefore, as far as the peasant women are concerned, the concepts of ‘modernization’ and ‘emancipation’ may not be the most suitable yardstick for measuring the importance of this organization. Without denying the great usefulness of such an approach to understanding certain forms of political activity for women, in particular the middle-class activists of the Fasci Femminili or the clandestine actions of Communist Party militants, this approach seems less useful when applied to the role of rural women. Arguably, what is much more interesting is the way it shaped the future.

Political legacy The women who belonged to the fascist Rural Housewives section in 1943 were able to vote only three years later. The intervening years had been terrible ones with women’s lives shattered by war and occupation. This was also the period of the Resistance and many historians have quite rightly stressed the role of the Resistance as a cradle for postwar female participation in politics. The Resistance was indeed important, particularly for those who subsequently became involved in the Communist and Socialist parties. In some cases it is clear that former Massaie Rurali simply rejected the politics of the organization after 1945. Many sharecroppers, for example, voted for the Left15 and former members of the fascist organization (or at least their daughters) must have numbered among those who joined the Federmezzadri. The women’s sections of this left-wing sharecroppers’ union had 135,000 members by 1952.16 Reggio Emilia itself, despite its vanguard position in female PNF membership, became a predominantly ‘red’ province after the war. For these 206

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areas it is difficult to argue that the Massaie Rurali formed any sort of relevant precedent except in as far as the fascist organization may have established the idea, albeit in a specific, gendered and subordinate fashion, that peasant women had a legitimate place in the world of politics. It is also possible that this precedent may even have been one (although doubtless not the most important) of the factors which helped prepare the ground for female suffrage. Put simply, fascism had rendered the idea that women should be part of political activity more normal. There is a degree of continuity, furthermore, in some of the patterns of organization in that most women’s political organizations were, in the postwar era, not autonomous. Broadly speaking, in this period, political parties of Left and Right recruited women mainly into subordinate ‘women’s sections’ or ‘flanking organizations’, and politics for women often continued to be in the cause of other, mainly male, agendas – for nation, for church, for communism or indeed for anti-communism and so on. This is true even of CIF (Centro Italiano Femminile) and UDI (Unione Donne Italiane), the most important postwar women’s political organizations, since, in practice, they were closely linked to the Christian Democrat and Communist parties. A number of the activities of such postwar organizations, furthermore, were not entirely dissimilar from what had gone before. Both UDI and CIF, for example, were extremely active in welfare initiatives such as summer camps for children. It is, of course, important to recognize that there was also much discontinuity. Some in UDI, for example, conscious of the apparent similarity of their activities with the recent past, stressed that their role was to ensure the provision of something far better than fascist welfare, offering rights rather than what had been effectively charity.17 Such organizations, furthermore, offered a degree of open debate and female agency that was basically unthinkable for fascist activists who largely simply followed orders from above. Turning away from such broad (and in practice somewhat speculative) questions, much more specifically the Massaie Rurali organization was, albeit in a different guise, essentially ‘reborn’ in the 1950s. In the postwar world the fear of the socially disruptive effects of the rural–urban shift which had given rise to the ruralization campaign did not, of course, disappear. After 1945 the standard of antimodernization and the defence of traditional values of family, church and home was taken up by, amongst others, sections of the Christian Democrat Party (DC), the party that was to rule Italy for half a century after the end of the War. Many women voted for this conservative confessional party, which initially called upon the new female electorate to support them at the ballot-box in terms of the idea that it was women’s duty (rather than right) to vote in the anticommunist cause.18

The Coldiretti In the case of the smallholding peasantry the primary vehicle for Christian Democrat politics was the Confederazione Nazionale Coltivatori Diretti (Coldiretti – 207

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National Confederation of Direct Cultivators) and it was here that the legacy of the Massaie Rurali can be most clearly identified. The Coldiretti was not an actual part of the DC but a collateral organization. Founded in 1944 by the young Christian Democrat Paolo Bonomi, it was kept separate from the nascent trade union movement, instead presenting itself as an explicitly Catholic and anti-Marxist organization which represented the interests of ‘direct cultivators’. It aimed to recruit, like the Massaie Rurali, across the spectrum of peasant figures although it excluded braccianti. In practice relatively few sharecroppers joined and most of its members were small tenant farmers and small peasant proprietors, a group which became increasingly numerous with the Agrarian Reform. Embracing more than one type of peasant figure, it was more a pressure group than a trade union, lobbying the government with great success in defence of the sectoral interests of its members as well as offering welfare and training. Its substantial membership (7,593,749 by 195619) shows that it struck a chord among sections of the rural population. The links between this powerful, conservative lobby group and the Massaie Rurali can be seen in two ways. First, it could be argued that the fascist organization created a precedent for the Coldiretti’s clientelist practices. A second feature is the specific manner in which it organized women. The rapid growth of the Coldiretti was favoured by the expansion in the numbers of smallholders, by the fact that its propaganda focused on peasants whereas most trade unions were more concerned with industrial workers and, most importantly, by its links with the dominant political party. Herein lay much Coldiretti power, for Bonomi, in a position to deliver millions of votes, exerted considerable influence over early DC governments.20 At local level rural priests played a role in steering their flock towards the Catholic organization and away from the Federterra.21 Many of its critics have dubbed the Coldiretti a corporative organization22 and there were indeed a number of similarities with the fascist unions. The organization was run in an undemocratic manner and many of its leaders were former fascist trade unionists.23 Other elements of continuity with the past can be seen in the triumphalist demagogic language used by its leaders and in the lack of real debate at its conferences. It could be argued that the rather humdrum nature of the Massaie Rurali approach to politics well prepared rural women for Coldiretti membership. When they had joined a political organization for the first time, they had experienced it as ‘bread and butter politics’, a route to services, training and other benefits. Outward political allegiance was bought by the PNF for material benefits, including access to state welfare, to those who joined it. This was a politics devoid of the notion that the state is impartial. Benefits were available only to those with certain political views.24 This too was true of the Coldiretti. Even though it was supposedly a private lobby group, much of the welfare and training it offered its members was actually state funded. Through its farm training section INIPA (Istituto Nazionale Istruzione Professionale Agricola – National Institute for Professional Farming Instruction), various Ministries 208

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footed the bill for thousands of courses for Coldiretti members and the youth groups got practical training from the publicly funded Ispettorati provinciali dell’Agricoltura.25 The second link between the Massaie Rurali and the Coldiretti is considerably more specific. The example of the Massaie seems to have provided a reassuring demonstration to postwar conservatives that rural women could be safely enrolled in mass political organizations with little disruption to the home and traditional gender relations. This is suggested by the fact that, in 1953, the Coldiretti established their own women’s section. This, the Donne Rurali (Rural Women), bore many similarities to its fascist predecessor, its unacknowledged role model.

The UMC and the Coldiretti A direct (if somewhat tenuous) link can be traced between the Massaie Rurali and the Coldiretti, in the shape of the UMC. Domus rustica recommenced publication in June 1946 and at this point Annita Cernezzi Moretti and others attempted to revive the UMC itself. Soon, however, despite Cernezzi Moretti’s vehement opposition, in what was quite clearly a repeat of its earlier history, it was once again overcome by stronger political forces. Following a vote of its Central Committee in 1947, the UMC became part of the Coldiretti.26 Cernezzi Moretti disassociated herself from this and a new UMC President replaced her. The new President, Anna Clivio Kestenholz, was emblematic of the confused fragments of continuity between the various organizations for, after being involved in the original UMC,27 she had then served as Massaie Rurali Provincial Secretary in Varese.28 But none of this prevented her from sitting on the Central Committee of the reborn UMC and then becoming its new leader within the Coldiretti. Other Massaie stalwarts also resurfaced in the postwar UMC and probably followed Clivio Kestenholz, including Giuseppina Cattaneo Adorno and Maria Cerruti. Meanwhile, Cernezzi Moretti continued, exactly as she had done in the previous decade, to publish Domus rustica independently. She remained its editor until 1950 when she stepped down ‘for reasons of age’ (she was 76 years old) and handed over to Eva Tosi Faggiani. But, with only a tiny, diminishing readership and stripped of the organization which had been its lifeblood, Domus rustica could not survive for long. For a while, from May 1951, a desperate strategy was adopted of producing the magazine jointly with an ecological organization.29 The result was an uneasy cohabitation of articles about national parks with the traditional Domus rustica fare of beekeeping and domestic science. Such a bizarre mix was doomed to fail and in 1953 the magazine finally closed. Its founder died six years later, in February 1959. I have been unable to trace the fortunes of the UMC within the Coldiretti in this initial period but it is highly likely that this merger had a significant impact on the way in which the Coldiretti attempted to mobilize peasant women, once 209

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they decided to do so. To some contemporaries the link was perfectly clear. Annita Cernezzi Moretti’s obituary put this in the following terms: ‘Signora Cernezzi’s mission . . . spread quickly not only in the provinces of the Po Valley but all over Italy, which led to fascism using it as a model for their Massaie Rurali, which, in turn, were a model for all the analogous organizations of the present day large political parties.’30

Donne Rurali Admittedly at first the Coldiretti paid little attention to women. Its newspaper the Coltivatore in the late 1940s devotes little space to specifically female questions. Many women were members from the start but only in the sense that families rather than individuals joined. In December 1952, however, it was decided to set up a women’s section31 which, by June 1955, had 260,000 members.32 Considering that many peasants were by now leaving the land, this figure is far from insignificant. The similarities between this new organization and the Massaie Rurali are remarkable.33 The continuity was not in terms of the actual people who ran it but this is not particularly surprising given that ten years had elapsed. I have found no actual names which specifically link the two organizations although at local level this may have happened. Photographs of Donne Rurali organizers, in their magazine, suggest that they, including their leader Emma Schwarz, were mainly younger women who belonged to a new political generation. It is likely, however, that some of the membership belonged to both organizations in succession. Core activities of the Donne Rurali groups included domestic science and farm training (provided by INIPA), competitions and hand-outs such as cheap seed. Training was once again aimed at enabling women to do what were seen as suitable female tasks more competently. Other activities included ‘assistance to children’, educational or recreational excursions and the promotion of regional handicrafts and folklore. Mirroring its two predecessors, a magazine, Donne rurali, was produced for members, initially as part of the Coltivatore and then, from 30 December 1954, separately. In addition to technical information, this was filled with news of the good deeds of the Coldiretti and what the government was doing for agriculture, as well as lots of anti-communist propaganda. It does seem clear that this, political mobilization, was, as with the Massaie, the real aim of the organization, in this case to rally votes for the DC. Of course, times had changed and women as voters had to be called upon to take a more active interest in politics, but this was still a deeply conservative organization. Anti-urbanization messages and a stress on women’s role in stemming the rural exodus abound. Like the Massaie Rurali, its overall aim was to attempt to improve rural women’s lives without essentially changing them, except in the sense of attempting to free them a little from farmwork so that they could dedicate more time to home and family. There is much emphasis on 210

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defending the family which is presented as a cohesive unit, with women as the loyal helpmeets of their husbands. Male power in any form is never questioned and their paper even had a male editor. Nonetheless, this was not simply a carbon copy of the fascist organization. The Donne Rurali praised peace not war and they were also less patronizing to rural women. Their magazine did admit that there were problems in rural life and even that men, at times, could be difficult. This organization was also marginally more empowering than the Massaie Rurali for the peasant women themselves. Like the UMC, it placed more stress on women gaining confidence and being proud of who they were (as rural women, mothers, etc.) and many of the local organizers were actual peasant women (although once again elementary school teachers were also recruited for this role). The Donne Rurali was also much more attentive to its members, even conducting surveys for their views. Organizers were not, however, elected. It is possible to argue, therefore, that although the mass membership of the Massaie Rurali organization does not necessarily mean that millions of peasant women became committed fascists in any very meaningful sense, fascist mobilization did help shape some of the ways in which the politicians of the postwar Republic reached out to them. All this suggests that the history of this organization was more important than historians have hitherto recognized. Its legacy, in the shape of the Donne Rurali, is but one small illustration of just how difficult it was for the Resistance to ‘sweep away the past’ for women and how hard it was to shake off fascist agendas completely. Recent histories which emphasize the modernizing impact of the fascist mobilization of women miss this crucial point for, although in politically recruiting women into the PNF the fascists did, in some cases, pave the way for postwar modernization, in other respects they also created tools for postwar parties to attempt to stem such trends. All this suggests that new light on the role of women under fascism can be shed by moving away from the simple yardstick of modernization and emancipation. Instead, it might be better to view fascism as a catalyst, mobilizing women for Party and nation in a manner that emphasized reaction and subordination in some cases, and new, more modern roles in others. This dual, contradictory legacy helped shape what was to come, both opening up and limiting the future role of women in politics in the new democratic state.

Notes 1 Josz’s school fared better. It closed in 1942 but reopened in new premises in Monza in 1957. The Florence Cascine school also survived. In 1956 it had 30 female boarders following courses in rural home economics for primary school teachers. (E. Fileni, L’insegnamento agrario in Italia, Rome, Tip. Quintilly, 1956, pp. 34–5.) 2 On changes in rural women’s lives in the 1950s see A. Signorelli, ‘La condizione femminile nel tramonto della società rurale tradizionale (1945–1960)’, Annali Cervi, no. 13, 1991, pp. 249–75. 3 ‘Concorso per piccoli allevamenti bachi di seta’, DR, no. 3, 1943, p. 19. 4 On the notion that the Resistance was a civil war see C. Pavone, Una guerra civile

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5 6

7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17

18 19

1943–1945. Saggio storico sulla moralità nella Resistenza, Turin, Bollati Boringhieri, 1991. M. Fraddosio, ‘La mobilitazione femminile: i Gruppi fascisti repubblicani femminili e il SAF’, Annali della Fondazione Luigi Micheletti, 1986, p. 258. On the role of the peasantry in the Resistance see, for example, N. Revelli, Il mondo dei vinti, Turin, Einaudi, 1977; R. Absalom, ‘A Resistance to the Resistance? The Italian Peasant in History 1943–1948’, in J. Bryce, D. Thompson (eds), Moving in Measure. Essays in Honour of Brian Moloney, Hull University Press, 1989. Letter dated 20 August 1943 from the Paymaster General to the Official Receiver at the special office in Ponte Milva in Rome, dealing with PNF property, ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.351, fasc. ‘Richieste varie al liquidatore ex PNF’, p. 2. ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.260, fasc. ‘Corrispondenza varia’. Reports from the Piedmont Regional Inspectress and the Provincial Inspectress of the Turin GFFR to National Inspectress Licia Abruzzese, 7 June 1944 and 10 Nov 1944 in ASTorino, Gab. Pref., b.33/1, fasc. ‘Gruppo femminile del Fascio di Torino’. On female supporters of the Republic of Salò see M. Fraddosio, ‘La militanza femminile fascista nella Repubblica sociale italiana. Miti e organizzazione’, Storia e problemi contemporanei, no. 24, 1999, pp. 75–88; Fraddosio, ‘The Fallen Hero: the Myth of Mussolini and Fascist Women in the Italian Social Republic (1943–5)’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 31, 1996, pp. 99–124; L. Garibaldi, Le soldatesse di Mussolini, Milan, Mursia, 1995. On this see, for example, C. Levy, ‘From Fascism to “Post-Fascists”: Italian Roads to Modernity’, in R. Bessel (ed.), Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Comparisons and Contrasts, Cambridge University Press, 1996. V. De Grazia, ‘Contadine e massaie rurali durante il fascismo’, Annali Cervi, no. 13, 1991, p. 174. Vittorio Capelli puts this argument for Calabria in ‘Immagine e presenza pubblica della donna in Calabria’, Annali Cervi, no. 13, 1991, p. 185; Capelli, Il fascismo in periferia. Il caso della Calabria, Rome, Riuniti, 1992, esp. pp. 136–45. ACS, SPD–CO, 509.509. Letter from Terruzzi to Mussolini, 5 Dec 1934, cited in De Grazia, ‘Contadine e massaie rurali’, p. 175. Pro-memoria for the P.N.F. Secretary from the President of the Fascist Farmers’ Confederation, 12 Aug 1938, ACS, PNF, DN, SV, Ser II, b.125, sf.96.i, ‘Assunzione delle diplomate della scuola superiore fascista agraria di S. Alessio’. See, for example, A. Esposto, ‘Il voto delle campagne nelle regioni della mezzadria classica (1946–1953)’, Annali Cervi, no. 8, 1986, pp. 227–44. F. Albanese, ‘Qualche considerazione su mezzadre e sindacato negli anni Cinquanta’, Annali Cervi, no. 8, 1986, p. 94. On women and the Federmezzadri see also M.R. Porcaro, ‘Il diritto alla maternità e l’azione della commissione femminile della Federmezzadri’, in R. Covino, A. Grohmann, L. Tosi (eds), Uomini, economie, culture, Naples, Ed Scientifiche Italiane, 1997; R. Vigni, ‘Genny Cappelli e le sue compagne. La formazione di una classe dirigente femminile all’interno della Federmezzadri senese (1947–1957)’, tesi di laurea, Univ di Siena a.a.1995–6. P. Gabrielli, ‘Il club delle virtuose’. Udi e Cif nelle Marche dall’antifascismo alla guerra fredda, Ancona, Il lavoro editoriale, 2000, pp. 131–4. This book, unlike many previous works on UDI and CIF, pays a certain amount of attention to the legacy of fascist precedents. On this see A. Rossi Doria, Diventare cittadine. Il voto alle donne in Italia, Florence, Giunti, 1996. S. Lanaro, ‘Da contadini a italiani’, in P. Bevilacqua (ed.), Storia dell’agricoltura italiana in età contemporanea, Venice, Marsilio, 1991, vol. 3, p. 967. On the Coldiretti see also C. Barberis, Le campagne italiane dall’Ottocento a oggi, Rome–Bari, Laterza, 1999, part 3, ch. 4.

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20 G. Ciranna, ‘Un “gruppo di pressione”. La Confederazione Nazionale Coltivatori Diretti’, Nord e Sud, vol. 38, 1958, p. 19. 21 F. Piva, ‘I mezzadri veneti nel primo e nel secondo dopoguerra’, Annali Cervi, no. 8, 1986, p. 42. 22 See, for example, G. Mottura, ‘Il conflitto senza avventure. Contadini e strategia ruralista nella storia della Coldiretti’, in P.P. D’Attorre, A. De Bernardi (eds), Studi sull’agricoltura. Società rurale e modernizzazione, Milan, Feltrinelli, 1994, p. 510. 23 Ciranna, ‘Un “gruppo di pressione”’, p. 23. 24 D’Attorre made a similar argument to this when he stated that welfare and training initiatives ‘can help us understand one of the ways in which the many years of fascist union activity paved the way for the establishment of the Coldiretti after the Second World War’. (‘Un’aspetto del fascismo nelle campagne bolognesi: il sindacato negli anni della grande crisi’, Annali Cervi, no. 7, 1985, p. 223.) 25 Ciranna, ‘Un “gruppo di pressione”’, pp. 28–9. 26 The merger was announced by Cernezzi Moretti in: ‘Alle segretarie di sezione dell’Unione massaie della campagna’, DR, no. 11–12, 1947, p. 83. 27 Her mother Maddelena Kestenholz Conti had been one of the UMC’s longest standing members. 28 In this capacity she published a propagandistic booklet – A. Clivio Kestenholz (ed.), Massaie in linea, Fed FF Sez Massaie Rurali, Varese, 1941. 29 At this point it had two subtitles, both ‘Rivista ufficiale del movimento italiano per la protezione della natura – sezione di Milano’ (Official Magazine of the Italian Nature Conservation Movement – Milan Branch), as well as ‘Rivista di agricoltura e di economia domestica’ (Agricultural and Domestic Science Magazine). 30 Formigoni, ‘In Memoria Anita Cernezzi Moretti’, Bullettino, no. 15, 10 April 1959. 31 Youth groups were founded at this point too. (‘Prospettive per il 1953’, Il coltivatore, no. 7, Supplement, 31 Dec 1952.) 32 DRu, no. 7–8, 1 June 1955, p. 6. 33 This paragraph and the next two are based on information from Il coltivatore for 1952–3 and from DRu for 1954–6.

213

INDEX

agricultural education and training 30–2, 48n4; for boys 33, 138, 144; in the Coldiretti 208–9; in the Donne Rurali 210; in the FNFMR 56, 57, 69, 71; and industrialization 30; for Massaie Rurali members 78, 87, 110, 117–32, 141, 142–3, 154–5, 160, 165–6, 172, 177, 186, 194, 196, 204, 205; for Massaie Rurali organizers 88–9, 92, 142, 183 (see also Sant’Alessio); in the OND 154; in peasant families 31–2, 177; for peasant men 32; for riceworkers 24; in rural primary schools 34, 140–1; in teacher training 31, 34, 49n19, 137, 138, 139–41, 211n1; for women before fascism 30, 32–8, 41–2, 43–4, 45, 46, 47, 49n20, 179, 182; women graduates in Agriculture 35, 49n22, 143, 151n47; women’s practical farming schools 33–5, 136–8, 211n1; see also trade unions, fascist agricultural policy, fascist 12–16, 18, 124; see also ruralization agrari see landowners Agrarian Reform 208 Agricoltura razionale 117–18, 133n2 Albertini Verga, Giuseppina (‘Melisenda’) 44, 45, 52n76, 58, 66 Almanacco della donna 34, 35 almanacs and calendars for the peasantry 51n60, 115n42; Agenda della massaie rurali 111–12, 122; calendars for massaie 112–13, 184; in the FNFMR 61, 70; in the UMC 41 Altobelli, Argentina 21 Amoroso, Angela 3 AMR see L’azione delle massaie rurali

Anderloni, Gabriella 45, 167n19 ANFAL (National Fascist Association of Women Artists and Degree Holders) 68, 75n74, 82 Angelini, Franco 62, 66, 68, 74n41, 84 anti-communism 207, 210 anti-fascism 1, 2, 5n9, 59, 187 Anti-Illiteracy Agency 137 anti-migration laws 12, 15–16, 20, 205 Apulia 9, 55, 126, 179, 181, 183, 193–5 Arbizzani, Luigi 79 Arezzo 10, 110, 121, 165, 174–5, 176, 181, 197–8n18 Atina girls farming school (Scuola femminile di agricoltura e di economia domestica di Atina) 35, 47 Augusta Mussolini Women’s Farming School 141 autarky 45, 84, 85, 101–3, 105, 106, 109, 111, 112, 118, 128–30, 136, 142, 145, 205 autonomous women’s organizations, decline of 4 L’azione delle massaie rurali/La massaia rurale (AMR/MR) 44–5, 62, 64–8, 70, 85, 88, 100–110, 113, 114n11, 118, 119, 150, 154; fiction in 67–8, 88, 101, 103, 107–8; readership 71, 109–110; readers’ letters column 45, 65; religious themes in 64, 67, 68, 101; in the Second World War 105–7 Barachini, Lina 115n41 Barbagli, Marzio 11, 146, 152n67 Baronchelli Grosson, Paola (‘Donna Paola’) 107 Bergamaschi, Carlo 84

214

INDEX

Bergamo domestic science school 42, 51n65 Bollettino delle Massaie Rurali della Provincia di Pistoia 110, 115n36 Bonomi, Paolo 208 Borghia, Lucrezia 90 braccianti (landless farmworkers) 8–9, 12, 13, 14, 18–19, 21, 54, 55, 111, 117, 188–9, 190, 208; as FNFMR/Massaie members 56, 174, 176, 177, 183–4, 188–9, 193–5; see also riceworkers and olive pickers Branchini, Ida 89–90 Breda Paltrinieri, Rina 108 Brunetta, Ernesto 186–7 Bullettino dell’agricoltura. Giornale della Società agraria lombarda 37, 42, 50n48 calendars see almanacs Calvi Roncalli, Laura 85, 97n46, 98n83, 106 Caminada, Giuseppina 37 capoccia 11, 12, 21, 55 Carnevalini, Anna 90 Carosi Martinozzi Moretti, Angiola see Moretti Angiola Carosi Martinozzi, Nestore 143, 151n51 Case della massaia rurale 69, 154 Castellani, Maria 68, 147–8 Catholic Church: ideology on rural world and gender roles 185, 187; Lateran Pacts 112, 186, 187; and Republic of Salò 203; see also religion Catholic women’s organizations 4, 6n18, 23, 24, 187, 199n60, 207, 209–11 Cattaneo Adorno, Giuseppina 45, 58, 61, 65, 66, 69, 72–3n16, 103, 112, 129, 130, 209 Cattedre Ambulanti di Agricoltura 32, 34, 35, 120, 138, 142, 159, 209; and the Massaie Rurali 82, 87, 90, 119, 120; and the UMC 37, 38, 42, 48 Cavazza, Stefano 157–8 census statistics and women’s agricultural work 16–17, 27n39 Centro Agricolo Femminile 203 Centro Italiano Femminile (CIF) 207 Cernezzi, Aldo 38, 52n78 Cernezzi Moretti, Annita 38–9, 40; and AMR 65–6, 100; and the FNFMR 57, 58, 61, 68, 71; political beliefs of 33, 45, 52n78; religious beliefs of 52n77; and the UMC 37, 39, 41–5,

46, 47, 60, 209–10 Cerruti, Maria 45, 58, 209 Christian Democrat Party (DC) 207, 208, 210 Clementi, Federico 85, 115n45–6, 133n22, 145 clientelism 54, 208 Clivio Kestenholz, Anna 209, 213n27 Coldiretti (Confederazione Nazionale Coltivatori Diretti) 207–11 collocamento di classe 9 Il coltivatore 210 Communist Party 206, 207 compartecipazione 10, 117, 175 competitions 14, 23, 41, 47, 69, 85–6, 87, 101, 111, 118, 121–4, 126, 127, 131, 156, 163, 165, 166, 202–3, 210 Conegliano Veneto (Treviso) 120, 160, 167n12, 184, 185–7 consensus 3, 22, 170–2, 184–5, 189–91, 192, 196–7 Corner, Paul 14 corruption 93, 99n93 costumes, regional 3, 90, 126–7, 158, 159 cult of the Duce 59, 80, 105, 173, 189 D’Attorre, Pier Paolo 62, 72n8, 213n24 De Felice, Renzo 80, 172, 197n5 De Fort, Ester 141 De Franceschi, Maria Clorinda 182–3 De Grazia, Victoria 2, 58, 84, 204 Dei, Marcello 89 Delegated Institutions 139, 140, 149n23 demographic campaign 3, 12, 16, 22, 26n27, 105, 113, 123 Detriagache, Denise 2, 59 Dittrich-Johansen, Helga 2 domestic science 3, 22, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 41, 42, 43, 47, 57, 64, 65, 78, 103, 112, 119, 120, 139, 140, 147, 161, 165–6, 177, 182, 192, 194, 196, 210 Domus rustica 38, 42–7, 51–2n, 58, 65, 209 La donna nei campi 33, 36, 37, 43 Donne fasciste see Fasci Femminili Donne Rurali 209–11 Donne rurali (newspaper) 210–11 Dopolavoro 3–4, 81, 120, 153–4, 157–8, 163, 193, 197n1 economic miracle 202

215

INDEX

education, female 146–8, 148–9n, 202; see also agricultural education and training and Scuole Superiori Femminili empire: and consensus 189; in massaie propaganda and activities 101–3, 105, 107–8, 112, 120, 136, 144, 156, 160, 166, 184, 186; and pro-natalism 12; women’s training courses for life in 84, 85, 142; see also autarky ENIOS 117, 133n4 Ethiopian War see empire excursions and outings, for peasant women 41, 69, 154–8, 160–1, 165, 185, 204, 210 Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution 69, 93, 99n95, 143 Fabbri, Bianca 68–9 Fabriani, Maria 193 fairs and exhibitions, agricultural and handicraft 41, 101, 103, 126–7, 130, 142, 156, 166, 172, 204 Falaschi, Isotta 115n41, 197n8 Farinacci, Roberto 21 Farmwomen’s International Trophy 47 Fasci Femminili 2, 21–5, 95n21, 197; and autarky 128; Central Committee 93; class composition of 22; and the FNFMR 63–4, 78, 79; funding 22; impact of the Massaie Rurali on 91–2, 97n56, 131–2, 206; and the Massaie Rurali 77, 79, 82–3, 84, 86–92, 148, 170, 174, 182–3; and massaie training 92, 118–23, 125–6, 131, 165; membership 22, 171; membership, fees 85, 86; and modernization and emancipation 2, 205, 206; national leadership 21–2, 79, 93 (see also National Inspectresses); pay of organizers 75n59, 92–3, 96n36, 147, 150n43; power and influence of leaders of 21–2, 58, 73n18, 84, 92–4; Provincial Fiduciaries 21, 22, 78, 82–3, 84, 88, 92–3, 95n29, 119, 128, 183, 186, 189–92, 194–5; and the rural world before 1934 23–4, 79, 87, 179, 182, 183; uniform of 90–1; welfare activities of see welfare ‘fascist festival days’ 111–12, 113 Fascist Party (PNF): ancillary organizations see mass mobilizing organizations; collapse of 203; female members see Fasci Femminili, Sezione

Massaie Rurali and SOLD; membership card 184, 185, 206; Starace’s reform of 80–1, 93, 155, 206; transfer of Massaie Rurali into 78–82 fascio littorio 67, 90 Fascist Farmers Confederation 79, 82, 84, 96n44, 119, 142, 145, 150n43, 183, 204 fattoresse 10, 174, 176 Federmezzadri 206 Federterra 21, 49n20, 208 feminism 4, 21, 33, 34, 58, 107; feminist historians 2, 3; ‘practical feminism’ 23, 137 Ferrari del Latte, Rachele 66–7, 68, 75n59, 83, 104, 106–7, 112, 203 films, for peasant women 24, 153, 156, 159–60, 165, 186 First World War 7, 12, 13, 20, 38, 59, 66, 111, 139, 189; origins of women’s farm training initiatives in 36–7, 50n45; peasant women and politics during 21; widows of soldiers in 4, 128 FNFMR (National Fascist Federation of Massaie Rurali) 54–71, 79; activities 69–71; aims 56–7; funding 70–1; membership 57–8, 62–3, 188; organizers 57, 58, 61–2, 78; structure 61–2, 68–9; UMC, role in creation of 57–8, 61, 69, 76n77 Foà, Anna 35 folklore 113, 116n53, 154, 158–9, 210 Fontana, Attilio 117, 133n4 Fontana Goggia, Luigia 37, 50n45 Franceschini Clara 83–4, 85, 87, 92, 96n34–5, 97n48, 104–6, 107, 119, 203 Fratini, Carlotta 196 Frontoni, Alessandro 93 Garin, Anna 84, 96n42 Gasparo, Serafina 143 Gavazzi, Maria 90, 115n36, 134n47 gender hierarchy in peasant households 11–12, 20, 46, 104, 112, 118, 204, 210–11 gender roles in agriculture 11–12, 16–21; in the South and Islands 16–17, 19, 20, 193–4, 195 gender roles in fascist ideology 2, 146–8; in Massaie Rurali propaganda 104, 111, 112, 118, 162, 185

216

INDEX

Gentile, Emilio 167n13 Gentile, Giovanni 30–1 Gentile Reform 30–1, 146 Gibelli Foundation 42, 84n Giornale della donna/La donna fascista 22, 23, 35–6, 79, 90, 91–2, 131 girls’ sections of the Fascist Party 2, 66, 79, 154, 205; giovani fasciste 64, 83, 95n31, 159, 174, 178, 183; giovani italiane 83, 95n31 Giusti di Giardino, Nora 50n43, 69 Gorjux Bruschi, Wanda 194–5, 201n95 Gower Chapman, Charlotte 19 grammar schools, girls-only 146 Grape Festival 158 Guidi, Maria 29n74, 94n, 174 handicrafts 9, 16, 23, 78, 82, 119, 120, 126–7, 129–30, 136, 142, 144, 154, 164, 196, 205, 210 handouts 41–2, 70–1, 124–5, 165, 210; as a recruitment tool 63, 124, 172 home visitors (visitatrici fasciste) 24, 85, 91, 184 Hobsbawm, Eric 158 holiday camps for children 23, 69, 79, 84, 87, 96n36, 97n48, 104, 153, 165, 184, 191, 207 household budget, control of 11, 204 housework 16, 17–18, 46, 90, 133n2 housing, for the peasantry 8, 205 illegitimate children, campaign for the rights of 67–8, 75n67, 75n68, 75n72 Imbergamo, Barbara 3 imperialism see empire imponibile di manodopera 9, 54 ‘improved stock’ livestock distributed to peasant women 71, 118, 124, 125, 145, 146; use in training 41–2, 124 Incisa della Rocchetta, Clarice 90, 98n80, 154 INEA (Istituto Nazionale di Economia Agraria) 17, 27n35 infant mortality 17 inheritance, gender division of 17, 28n48, 154 INIPA Istituto Nazionale Professionale Agricola 208–9, 210 international agricultural conferences, Italian women’s participation in 23, 35, 36, 40, 42, 47, 60, 73n16, 149n20

international domestic science congresses: Rome (1927) 138; Berlin (1934) 52n76, 69 Ispettorati Provinciali d’Agricoltura see Cattedre Ambulanti Isola, Gianni 161, 164 Istituto Agrario Femminile di Economia Domestica Alfieri Cavour 33–4, 152n74, 211n1 Istituto Luce 159–60 Josz, Aurelia 34, 35, 136–8, 148n8, 149n9, 149n11, 149n19, 211n1 labour exchanges 53, 54, 184, 198n32 Lai, Vincenzo 81 land occupations 12, 21 landowners, large and large tenant farmers (agrari) 10–11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 26n18, 26n21, 37, 62, 117–18, 194; and the FNFMR/Massaie Rurali 70, 87, 90, 126, 174, 175, 176, 182–3, 191, 192, 194; and the UMC 37, 40, 47 land reclamation (bonifica integrale) 13, 14–15, 104, 194 Larghi, Maria 115n45, 143 latifundia 8, 15, 25n9 Lavoro agricolo fascista 64, 68 League of Nations sanctions see autarky literacy, among peasant women 109, 113, 114n33, 159, 193, 202 literacy courses 119, 133n12, 164, 166 liturgical language in fascist propaganda 155 Lombardo, Ester (Giovanna Mogavero) 33, 35, 36, 37, 48n14 Lombardo-Radice, Giuseppe 137, 141 Lombardy 30, 36, 37, 48, 55, 58, 114n33, 124, 136, 166, 178, 179, 180 Lombroso, Olga 34, 35, 37 Majer Rizzioli, Elisa 21, 22 malaria 12, 19, 28n51 Marani Argnani, Laura 78, 85, 94n, 109, 163, 178, 188, 189–92, 203 Marescalchi, Arturo 161 Marino, Tina (Quintina) 83, 92, 96n33, 102, 104, 112, 119 market economics, attitude of Massaie Rurali propaganda to 118, 127–8, 205 market stall sites for massaie 119, 126, 134n47, 173, 204 see also fairs

217

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Massaie Rurali see Sezione Massaie Rurali mass mobilizing organizations, fascist 3–4, 78, 80–2, 153–4, 171–2, 197n1 Mazzetti, Mario 81 midwives 147, 175, 176 migration and emigration 7, 8, 12, 15–16, 19–20, 107–8, 188, 202, 205 see also olive pickers and riceworkers mixed-sex activities, hostility to 164 ‘model’ rabbit and poultry units and vegetable plots 41, 118, 125–6, 155, 158, 174 Molaroni, Maria Teresa 143 La mondina 24, 29n77, 104 mondine see riceworkers Montale, Bianca 196 Monticone, Alberto 161 Moretti, Angiola 21–2, 68, 84, 85, 143, 144, 145, 150n43 motherhood, in fascist propaganda 2, 17, 23, 66, 81, 92, 101, 104, 111, 123, 162 Mussolini, Benito 3, 80, 94n, 95n22, 99n90, 141, 156, 157, 160, 184, 189, 191, 196, 203; birthplace 155–6; and Josz 137; in Massaie propaganda 101, 105, 111, 112, 122, 155–6; Mussolini’s mother 89, 155, 156; and Terruzzi 59, 67, 68, 73n29, 74n34, 75n72, 77, 204 Muzzarini, Mario 84 nation, role of massaie in 3–4, 12, 23, 56–7, 78, 87, 101–3, 105, 106, 109, 111, 128–31, 151n52, 204 National Diaries Archive 113 National Inspectresses 21, 66, 84, 85, 93, 104, 143, 163, 194, 203; pay of 75n59, 96n36, 97n48, 150n43 National Maternity Fund (Cassa della Maternità) 63, 74n52 National Rice Agency 18 Nazi Germany 12, 146, 149n19, 161, 203 Necchi 124, 134n38 Niccolini, Maria 141 Niguarda farm training school 34, 35, 49n25, 136–8, 139 nurseries, for farmworkers’ children 24, 132, 184, 196 olive pickers 19, 56, 183–4, 195, 198n37 ONB (Opera Nazionale Balilla) 140, 150n31

OND (Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro) see Dopolavoro ONMI (Opera Nazionale per la Maternità e l’Infanzia) 82, 84, 85, 86, 96n44, 97n48, 143, 147, 153; and childcare competitions 122, 123; and massaie recruitment 63, 184, 195 Orvieto Women’s Sports Academy 147 pamphlets 110–11 Passerini, Luisa 172 Pignatari, Marziola 84, 96n43 Pistoia 90, 110, 115n36, 134n47, 173, 181, 182–3 PNF see Fascist Party political propaganda, for massaie 78, 81–2, 100–113, 156–8, 160, 163, 191; appeal of 185; in massaie training 119, 120, 122, 127, 128, 142 Prampolini, Camillo 188 Predappio 155–6 priests: and the Coldiretti 208; and the Massaie Rurali 119, 156, 183, 185–7, 196 prize-giving ceremonies 47, 123, 156, 158 prizes 32, 69, 85, 86, 111, 121–3, 126, 127, 154, 164, 165, 172, 184, 189 professions for women 132, 136, 146–8 pro-natalism see demographic campaign Pugliese, Maria 89 Quarelli, Tilde 203 race laws 105 radio 69, 154, 159, 160–4, 165; collective listening 161, 163, 164; didactic dialogues 161–2; Ente Radio Rurale 161–4, 168n48; programmes for women 161, 162, 163–4, 168n51, 203; Radio rurale 163 rallies, political 24, 80, 131, 155, 156–8, 160–1, 165, 172, 178; Great Rally of Women Fascists (1937) 73n17, 90, 156, 157 Raselli Bolasco, Mercedes 78, 119 Rassegna femminile italiana 21, 22, 23 ‘rational agriculture’ 41, 46, 64, 74n41, 78, 117–18, 125, 142, 145, 205 ‘rational housework’ 90, 133n2 Razza, Luigi 55–6, 58, 60, 62, 64–5, 72n10, 75n73

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reading matter for peasant women 51n71, 109, 111, 114n31 Red Cross 21, 143, 174, 201n95 Redipuglia 155 Reggio Emilia 22, 78, 86, 88, 98n74, 109, 115n42, 124, 174, 178, 180, 183, 187–92, 206 reggitrice 11, 24, 32, 56, 104, 172–3, 177 religion: in FNFMR/Massaie activities and propaganda 64, 67, 68, 101, 111, 111–12, 113, 120, 155–6, 158, 173, 185–7; in peasant women’s lives 11, 161, 164, 186 Republic of Salò 203; Women’s Groups in 203 Resistance 1, 3, 5n2, 203, 204, 206, 211 riceworkers 18–19, 20, 28n50, 55, 56; Catholic welfare for 23, 24; and the Fasci Femminili 23–4, 79, 83, 90, 132, 182, 192; as FNFMR/Massaie Rurali members 63, 87, 178, 183, 188–9; prime mondine 24, 87, 183; strikes by 21, 24, 54 Romanaini Cardella, Giuseppina 108 Ronconi, Guglielmina 23, 103, 114n12 Rosignano Solvay (Leghorn) 175, 177 Rossi Doria, Anna 1 ruralization: advocates of before fascism 33, 36, 136; and Christian Democracy 207, 210; and the Church 186, 187; failure of fascist campaign for 15–16, 202; fascist campaign for 12–16, 30, 32; and the FNFMR/Massaie Rurali 3, 56, 57, 65, 66, 78, 101, 108, 123, 159, 194; importance of women in 81, 95n24, 101, 123, 137, 140–1, 161, 210; and the UMC 38 salariati fissi 8, 13, 17, 18, 55 Salvadorini, Asmara 198n41 Salvatici, Silvia 3, 12, 17, 18, 90–1 Salvi, Laura 138–9, 149n20 Sant’Alessio Training College 96n40, 136–148; closure of 202, 203; courses for Massaie Rurali Provincial Secretaries in 142; curriculum 139–40, 144–5; demand for places 143–4; directors 136–9, 143; entrance qualifications 139, 143; fees 139, 144; funding 150n44; origins 136–8; regulations 139, 146 Santillana, Emilia 36, 49n32, 50n41

Saraceno, Chiara 90 Sardinia 17, 69–70, 71, 126, 179, 182, 195–6 sbracciantizzazione 13–14, 54 Scafati, Giulio 114n11 School Charter 31, 108, 146–7 schoolteachers 89, 144, 151n61; as agents of ruralization 140–1; in the Donne Rurali 211; in the Fasci Femminili 22, 93; in the FNFMR 61–2, 63; in the Massaie Rurali 88–9, 119, 142, 143, 175, 176, 182, 183, 185, 192, 193, 206; in the UMC 37, 40, 43 Schwarz, Emma 210 Scoppola, Pietro 186 Scuole Superiori Femminili 139, 145, 147–8, 152n76; see also Sant’Alessio Second World War 202–3; activities of Massaie Rurali in 88, 107, 127, 130–32; agriculture during 20–1, 107; Massaie Rurali membership during 185, 196; propaganda for massaie during 105–7; radio broadcasts during 163, 203; women’s agricultural work during 20–1, 132; work of Fasci Femminili in 93, 107, 131–2 Serpieri, Arrigo 14–15, 27n35, 194 ‘Serpieri coefficient’ 17 servants 18, 19, 23, 29n74, 46, 65, 87, 175, 176, 196 sewing machines 69, 71, 88, 121, 124–5, 134n38, 154, 166n9 Sezione Agraria of the Fascio Nazionale Femminile 36, 37 Sezione Massaie Rurali: aims 3, 77–8, 81–2, 95n24, 118, 128–9, 130, 206, 210; in fascist ceremonies 90–1, 101–2, 122–3, 131, 155–9, 160–1, 178, 185–6; folding of 202–3; funding 85–6, 122, 125–6, 134n38, 142, 150n44, 154, 166n8, 178; leisure activities in 153–4; impact on members lives of 159, 197, 203–7; legacy of 203–11; membership, composition of 172–8, 183–4, 188–9, 195–6; membership, regional differences in 178–96; membership fees 85; middle-class women, role in see Fasci Femminili; and modernization 4, 118, 204–6; Nucleus Leaders 83, 87–8, 97n62; organizers, class background 88–90, 143, 183, 192; propaganda see political propaganda;

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Sezione Massaie Rurali – continued Provincial Secretaries 78, 83, 88, 89–90, 94n7, 98n75, 121, 142, 163, 183; reasons for joining 170–2, 173, 179, 182–7, 189–92, 194–6; recruitment methods 178–9, 182–5, 189–96; in Reggio Emilia 86, 88, 109, 124, 174, 178, 180, 183, 187–92; role of peasant women in 87–8, 94, 206; Section Secretaries 83, 88–9, 121, 142, 173, 192, 206; in the South and Islands 117, 119, 124, 127, 132, 141, 142, 153, 164–6, 178, 192–6, 204; structure 82–5, 86–94; Technical Committee 84–5, 93, 96–7n, 118, 163; training programme see agricultural education and training; uniform 3, 90–1, 92, 99n90, 155, 195; welfare programme see welfare sharecroppers 8, 9–11, 12–14, 15, 16, 17–18, 20–1, 111, 188; and the FNFMR/Massaie Rurali 54–5, 56, 70, 123, 129, 172–3, 174–5, 178, 183, 195, 205; and left-wing politics 8, 10–11, 21, 206; training for 31–2, 120, 177, 194 Sicily 9, 17, 19; FNFMR/Massaie Rurali in 61, 86, 95n25, 142, 164–6, 178, 179, 181–2, 193 silkfarming 16, 34, 35, 64, 69, 71, 79, 112, 119, 122, 123–4, 127, 130, 165, 202, 205 sites of memory 155 Slaughter, Jane 2 smallholders and small leaseholders 8, 9, 11, 12, 13–14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20–1, 54, 56, 63, 79, 173, 174, 177, 188, 194, 207–8 socialism 7–8, 8–9, 10, 13, 21, 23, 58, 60, 187–8, 191, 206 Società Agraria di Lombardia 37, 42 SOLD (Sezione Operaie e Lavoranti a Domicilio) 2, 5n6, 84, 131, 134n38, 166, 171, 190 sports: female 1, 83, 140, 147; in the OND 153 Starace, Achille 22, 42, 80–1, 84, 87, 93, 99n90, 121, 162, 192, 206 state, women’s role in 2 Stelluti Scala Frascara, Itta 84 strikes 12, 21, 23–4, 29n76, 53, 54 suffrage, female 1, 21, 197, 202, 207, 210 Suter Mazzoni, Ines 191

Taylorism 117, 128 teachers, see schoolteachers Technical Leaders 84, 121, 132, 136, 142–3, 146, 166, 150n44, 152n68, 166, 196, 204 Terruzzi, Paolo 58, 59, 61, 74n34 Terruzzi, Regina 36, 58–61, 73n17, 73n19, 73n20, 73n29, 74n34, 75n56, 75n67, 75n68, 75n71; and AMR 61, 65–8, 100, 107; and the FNFMR 58, 60–1, 68, 70, 75n73, 76n82, 92; and the Massaie Rurali 77, 93, 204; and the UMC 40, 47, 60; see also illegitimate children Tosi Faggiani, Eva 209 trade unions, Catholic 8, 25n5, 188, 190 trade unions, fascist 3, 24, 53–6, 60, 61, 62, 70, 76n83, 79–80, 81, 82, 94–5n16, 95n17, 204–5, 208, 213n24; and AMR/MR 64, 66, 68, 85, 100; female members of 54–6, 63; and Massaie Rurali recruitment 183–4, 189, 195, 198n32, 200n70; and Massaie Rurali training 87, 119, 120, 121, 130–1, 142, 150n44, 160; and welfare see welfare trade unions, socialist/communist 8, 9, 21, 25n5, 190, 206 Turati, Augusto 22 Turati, Filippo 58 Unione Agricola Femminile 36–7 UDI (Unione Donne Italiane) 207 UMC (Unione delle Massaie della Campagna) 36, 37–48; activities 41–2, 47; aims 37–8, 47, 50n50; correspondence course 43–4, 51–2n72; funding 40; membership 37, 39–41; organizers 37, 40, 42; postwar revival of 4, 209–10; role in creation of FNFMR 42, 47–8, 53, 57–8, 61, 63–4, 65–6, 68, 69, 70, 76n77, 111, 179, 184; structure 38, 62; and Terruzzi 60; see also Cernezzi Moretti, Annita and Domus rustica Unione Massaie d’Italia 37 Valle Monti, Luisa 46, 52n84 Valvassori, Carolina 33–4, 49n19, 69 Vercelli 18, 58, 110, 135n69, 160, 180, 183 Vita femminile 37

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Vitali, Ornello 16, 179, 196 Viviani Della Robbia, Bianca 69, 75–76n74 Wedding Ring Day (giornata della fede) 101–2, 185, 187, 191 welfare: and the Fasci Femminili 2, 21, 22–4, 83, 86, 87, 132, 183–4; and fascist unions 54, 55–6, 72n8, 79, 213n24; and feminism 23; and the FNFMR 56, 63, 71; and the Massaie Rurali 86, 78, 94, 107, 131, 132, 153,

165, 184, 191, 195, 196, 208; new female professions in 1–2, 47; in the post-war period 207, 208 wetnurses 19–20, 28n54 Wheat, Battle for 14, 15, 19, 23, 32, 61, 101, 104, 129 women’s employment, fascist legislation against 2, 59, 104–5, 147–8, 205 women’s politicization, impact of Massaie Rurali on 206–11 workloads, of peasant women 17, 21, 45, 205

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