Il vino e lo scolaro: l’alcoolismo infantile dall’Italia liberale al fascismo

Abstract

The issue of alcoholism among Italy’s subaltern classes began to attract attention particularly towards the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, a concern that was further accentuated by a rapid increase in the consumption of alcoholic beverages. It was primarily the socialist movement that initiated its own propaganda campaign aimed at alerting the working classes to the dangers associated with the abuse of alcoholic substances, also detailing the dire effects these substances had on children. Prior to the Great War, publications in the scientific and popular domains increasingly addressed this topic, as physicians, pedagogues, and educational authorities became actively involved in condemning the scourge of childhood alcoholism—a phenomenon that alarmingly afflicted a high percentage of the elementary school population and had severe repercussions on both the health of the students and their school attendance. However, the anti-alcoholism law enacted in 1913 did not implement substantial measures to address the issue, and in the aftermath of the World War I, the situation in certain instances was exacerbated by the challenging social and nutritional conditions of the period. Despite these circumstances, neither the post-war governments nor the newly established Fascist regime were able to act coherently and effectively in countering the phenomenon of childhood alcoholism.