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If Eight Hours Seem Too Few

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03 July 1991

This book is the first to present a vivid and accurate picture of the thousands of women who worked weeding the rice fields in northern Italy during the early part of the nineteenth century. It explores a wide range of issues including the political, economic, and social history of Italy; labor legislation; the role of the judicial system; the sexual division of labor; family structure; class conflict between the rural proletariat and the politically influential capitalist farmers; work-related diseases; internal migration of labor; and child labor.
The author provides penetrating insights into the Socialist Party's efforts to wrest women workers from the influence of the Catholic Church; the history of Italian feminism and the campaign for the vote; and finally, the workers' opposition to Italy's entrance into World War I. She analyzes the weeders' relations with labor organizers; their desire to preserve their autonomy; and their decisions regarding labor actions; and she highlights similarities between the weeders' experiences and those of other women workers and labor organizers in Europe and the U. S..


Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Formation of a Female Labor Force in the Rice Fields
2. Weeders' Lives
3. The Early Stage of Mobilization: Protest Actions, Socialist Propaganda, and the Weeders' Response in 1901
4. The First Results of Mobilization
5. Years of Progress, Years of Action, 1903-6
6. Holding the Line, 1907-10
7. Withstanding Agrarian Militancy and Wars, 1911-15
8. Weeders' Consciousness as Women and Workers
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index