Page 60 - 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. 60
plex Gateways
Table 3.3: Facchini in the 1775 Trieste census, by gender and employment
Kind of facchini Male Female Total
N% N% N%
Market facchini 155 49.7 248 60.3
Private facchini 93 93.9
Public facchini 94 30.1 0 0.0 94 22.9
Specialized 43 13.8 0 0.0 43 10.5
20 6.4 6 6.1 26 6.3
Total 312 100.0 411 100.0
99 100.0
Source: BCT, AD, CG, 1775
The market porters were the most numerous. They freely offered
themselves on the market day by day. There were 248, or 60 percent, of
them. As many as 37 percent of these were women. They appear in the ar-
chival sources with the terms facchino, facchino di piazza (market porter),
facchino di giornata (daily porter), and porta sacco (sack porter). The latter
name refers to a sack that was used to carry various bulk goods, and was
usually carried with them as a working tool together with a kind of apron
or harness. Sack porters, or porta sacco, were mainly women (three-quar-
ters of all sack porters and 87 percent of all female porters) who had an
advantage over men in grain transshipment (BCT, AD, AP, Giornali di
Polizia, 19 December 1774). Certain goods were transshipped in baskets
and these workers were called porta cesto. Although the data collected do
not provide elements for defining more precisely the differences in the
position of these workers, there is a clear line between the permanent
employees of the companies and private individuals or those who served
public institutions, and those whose earnings depended on the daily la-
bour market. This last category of porters was numerically the most var-
iable and socially fragile. During the months of busiest port traffic, it
multiplied with the arrival of temporary porters. At times when there
was a shortage of work, however, the livelihood of this kind of workforce
thinned, and in many cases fell below the subsistance. During the win-
ter months, as the police administration pointed out, the delay of ships,
which could not land at the piers due to bad weather, could mean star-
vation for many porters’ families (BCT, AD, AP, Giornali di Polizia, 1
December 1774).
Compared to market porters, the privately employed ones seemed
a kind of professional elite. Their stronger economic and social position
60
Table 3.3: Facchini in the 1775 Trieste census, by gender and employment
Kind of facchini Male Female Total
N% N% N%
Market facchini 155 49.7 248 60.3
Private facchini 93 93.9
Public facchini 94 30.1 0 0.0 94 22.9
Specialized 43 13.8 0 0.0 43 10.5
20 6.4 6 6.1 26 6.3
Total 312 100.0 411 100.0
99 100.0
Source: BCT, AD, CG, 1775
The market porters were the most numerous. They freely offered
themselves on the market day by day. There were 248, or 60 percent, of
them. As many as 37 percent of these were women. They appear in the ar-
chival sources with the terms facchino, facchino di piazza (market porter),
facchino di giornata (daily porter), and porta sacco (sack porter). The latter
name refers to a sack that was used to carry various bulk goods, and was
usually carried with them as a working tool together with a kind of apron
or harness. Sack porters, or porta sacco, were mainly women (three-quar-
ters of all sack porters and 87 percent of all female porters) who had an
advantage over men in grain transshipment (BCT, AD, AP, Giornali di
Polizia, 19 December 1774). Certain goods were transshipped in baskets
and these workers were called porta cesto. Although the data collected do
not provide elements for defining more precisely the differences in the
position of these workers, there is a clear line between the permanent
employees of the companies and private individuals or those who served
public institutions, and those whose earnings depended on the daily la-
bour market. This last category of porters was numerically the most var-
iable and socially fragile. During the months of busiest port traffic, it
multiplied with the arrival of temporary porters. At times when there
was a shortage of work, however, the livelihood of this kind of workforce
thinned, and in many cases fell below the subsistance. During the win-
ter months, as the police administration pointed out, the delay of ships,
which could not land at the piers due to bad weather, could mean star-
vation for many porters’ families (BCT, AD, AP, Giornali di Polizia, 1
December 1774).
Compared to market porters, the privately employed ones seemed
a kind of professional elite. Their stronger economic and social position
60
