Potere e lotta delle mondariso vercellesi ai primi del Novecento

Abstract

Between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, the women rice weeders gained political visibility and participated in the construction of a new emancipatory and egalitarian law. From their first claims that were limited to wage increases to
their demand for an eight-hour working day in the rice fields, these women engaged themselves in local and national political life, learning to to turn the confining rules and laws of the very legislation that enchained them into weapons to claim new rights. Their fight and their successes are celebrated in various rice field songs, the texts of which allow us to reflect on the existence of a symbiotic link between the socialist party and these heroic women, who took on the double role of teaching socialism to other workers and exercising authority over the governing bodies of the new party.