Lavoro a domicilio e relazioni di genere negli anni Cinquanta. Appunti sul caso bolognese

Although industrial homework is not a new topic in Italian labour and women’s historiography, its impact on 1950s gender relations has not yet been fully analysed in a urban perspective. The article explores the spread of industrial homework in the 1950s and its effect on the Italian urban areas, focusing on the city of Bologna where female employment in manufacturing was especially high. The relationship between the Bolognese economic structure and the spread of homework in the 1950s is addressed together with the different aspects of the relationship between gender and homework, including the feminization of homeworkers, the gender relations within homeworkers’ family and the neighbourhood, the (un)gendered memories and representation of homeworkers. Furthermore, homeworkers’ material working condition are analysed along with forms of self-organization and the struggles they promoted to deal with those conditions.