Posa di lavoro. Donne al lavoro nelle immagini degli Archivi Alinari. Catalogo della mostra. Ediz. illustrata

The eighty pictures in this exhibition cover the varied types of women's work in Italy in a period ranging from the late nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century. These sixty years of history are marked by the profound changes in the world of women's work that began as early as the end of the nineteenth century. Women's work, up to then mainly limited to the domestic sphere, begins to break through these boundaries and assert itself in the world at large. Actually women's work has always played an important role in the Italian economy. Here these photographs present us with a picture of a whole world of the so-called "minor" occupations, traditional in nature and sometimes archaic, that existed side by side with the new occupations in industry and commerce, or in the service sector.
The exhibition is organized according to types of work, from agriculture to industry. The service sector and activities involving assistance and teaching are particularly interesting. The two introductory essays by Silvia Salvatici and Luigi Tomassini provide a general outline of the development of women's work in that period.