Workers in Risorgimento Bologna

Abstract

Although historians have revisited the Risorgimento in recent years, adding significantly more sophistication to their analyses, scholars continue to have little sense of how the Italian lower classes experienced national unification. At the same time, traditional labour history, as one field that might correct this oversight, seldom looks back before unification. This study suggests the two fields would both benefit by examining labour during the decades of the Risorgimento. Despite widespread affection for Garibaldi, the popular hero of the Risorgimento, labourers were seldom engaged in the politics of nation-making. However, the development of strikes and associations in the north-central city of Bologna during the last years of the Risorgimento suggests that labourers were adapting to and making use of changes in the political atmosphere in pressing their own demands.