Entrare in fabbrica / andare a bottega. Modelli, percorsi e agenzie dell’accesso al lavoro a Firenze fra artigianato e industria (1861-1922).

The article analyzes the problem of employment in Florence during the second half of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth centuries: the role of personal and family networks, formal and informal channels, the interpersonal exchanges through which workers had access to employment. Focus on Florence has the advantage of highlighting the problem of employment mar- ket in a city where two forms of work, industrial one and craftsmanship, were signifi- cantly present in a period of intense transformation. The antithesis proposed in the title between “Get into the factory” and “going to the workshop” must be read in light of this dichotomy. This opposition must be understood, however, not as a net contrast between the two systems of employment but rather as a continuous line on which his- torically they are not only situations that faithfully interpret one of the two polarities, but also a diversified series of combinations between the two opposing poles.