Le società di mutuo soccorso nella provincia di Reggio Calabria tra l'Unità d'Italia e il terremoto del 1908

This work describes, through archival documents, the activities of the numerous mutual aid companies in the province of Reggio Calabria after the Unification of Italy. Since the 1880s, the political aspect seems to prevail over that of solidarity with the bourgeois groups that try to control its work for electoral purposes and the Prefectures called to verify that they did not have anti-government tendencies. The companies of mutual aid have however represented one of the first forms of social aggregation which has allowed the popular class to develop a first awareness of their rights even in the Italian Mezzogiorno.