Hands joined, hearts divided. The Italian mutual assistance societies in São Paulo during the First Republic: their training, their struggles, their festivals

Abstract

The author gives an overview of the Italian mutualism in São Paulo since its origins, during the Brazilian First Republic. He investigates the making of the Italian mutual-aid societies, so as the associations where Italian migrants composed the most part, the ties with the Italian associational tradition of the regions where they came from, its political attitudes and differences, its relationship with the working-class movement and with the world of labour, by its organizational characteristics of sociability, recreation or fight. Builder of a multiple and politically characterized Italian identity, these societies concurred in creating - and were also an expression of - the making of a working-class identity.

Mutual-aid societies; ethnic societies; Italian migration; labour movement