Vaporini e socialismo. Le memorie di Gaetano Vianello, organizzatore dei portuali veneziani

In this paper, we publish the first pages of the autobiographical memoirs of Gaetano Vianello, organiser of Venetian dock workers for about thirty years, from the end of the 19th century to the advent of fascism. The text was printed in a cyclostyled edition in 1971 by Giuseppe Gaddi; today it is almost unknown. The author recalls the social context of his native island of Giudecca, his own work experiences as a child and young man, and the birth of working-class associations in Venice at the end of the 19th century (Società di mutuo soccorso tra operai, Scuola Libera Popolare, Camera del Lavoro, Partito socialista).