Page 57 - Mellinato, Giulio, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime Port Cities: The Northern Adriaticin a Comparative Perspective. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
P. 57
Porters in the Eighteenth-century Port City of Trieste ...
becoming porters. All this was evidenced by Trieste police officers, who
kept records of newcomers and issued residence and economic permits
in the city. These records, which were quite approximate due to the high
mobility of the population and the insufficient police apparatus, have
not been preserved in the police archives. Therefore, at the moment it is
not possible to estimate the numerical extent of these temporary pres-
ences (Čeč and Kalc 2010; Kalc 2008).
Table 3.1: Facchini in the 1775 Trieste census, by gender and origin
Origin Male Female Together
N% N% N%
Trieste 35 11.2 13 13.1 48 11.7
Immigrants 277 88.8 86 86.9 363 88.3
118 37.8 42 42.4 160 38.9
Carniola 75 24.0 36 36.4 111 27.0
Gorizia region 38 12.2 41 10.0
Friuli 14 4.5 3 3.0 14 3.4
Veneto 0 0.0 10 2.4
Istria 6 1.9 4 4.0 27 6.6
Other 26 8.3 1 1.1 411 100.0
Total 312 100.0 99 100.0
Source: BCT, AD, CG, 1775
On the one hand, the number of porters housed in the city was the
result of the growing attractiveness and receptivity of the city’s unskilled
labour market. Secondly, their arrival was the result of the stratification
of peasant society in the urban hinterland, and the fragmentation of fam-
ilies whose individual members separated themselves from the domestic
economic environment, searching for alternative life paths in the city. At
the same time, they were the result of a tendency towards individual eco-
nomic independence which, through urbanization and integration into
the urban economy, wore away the social marginalization in the plac-
es of origin. These processes have led to more or less successful, and not
always stable, rooting inside the urban environment. Most immigrants
initially set foot in the city’s labour market temporarily or occasional-
ly, and in time they settled in the city. The transition was mostly individ-
ual and, unlike the aforementioned city examples, systemically uncon-
57
becoming porters. All this was evidenced by Trieste police officers, who
kept records of newcomers and issued residence and economic permits
in the city. These records, which were quite approximate due to the high
mobility of the population and the insufficient police apparatus, have
not been preserved in the police archives. Therefore, at the moment it is
not possible to estimate the numerical extent of these temporary pres-
ences (Čeč and Kalc 2010; Kalc 2008).
Table 3.1: Facchini in the 1775 Trieste census, by gender and origin
Origin Male Female Together
N% N% N%
Trieste 35 11.2 13 13.1 48 11.7
Immigrants 277 88.8 86 86.9 363 88.3
118 37.8 42 42.4 160 38.9
Carniola 75 24.0 36 36.4 111 27.0
Gorizia region 38 12.2 41 10.0
Friuli 14 4.5 3 3.0 14 3.4
Veneto 0 0.0 10 2.4
Istria 6 1.9 4 4.0 27 6.6
Other 26 8.3 1 1.1 411 100.0
Total 312 100.0 99 100.0
Source: BCT, AD, CG, 1775
On the one hand, the number of porters housed in the city was the
result of the growing attractiveness and receptivity of the city’s unskilled
labour market. Secondly, their arrival was the result of the stratification
of peasant society in the urban hinterland, and the fragmentation of fam-
ilies whose individual members separated themselves from the domestic
economic environment, searching for alternative life paths in the city. At
the same time, they were the result of a tendency towards individual eco-
nomic independence which, through urbanization and integration into
the urban economy, wore away the social marginalization in the plac-
es of origin. These processes have led to more or less successful, and not
always stable, rooting inside the urban environment. Most immigrants
initially set foot in the city’s labour market temporarily or occasional-
ly, and in time they settled in the city. The transition was mostly individ-
ual and, unlike the aforementioned city examples, systemically uncon-
57
