FACING GENDER BARRIERS UNDER FASCISM: FEMALE STUDENTS AND GRADUATES AT THE TURIN HIGH SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS IN THE 1930s AND 1940s

In Italy during the interwar period the “Istituti Superiori di Scienze Economiche e Commerciali” (bound to became, in 1935, Faculties of business and economics) played a crucial role in training skilled professionals in the main productive sectors, in the context of the transformation process of the Italian economy. Thanks to the fact that the admission criteria were less restrictive than those prevailing at the university, these higher education colleges were an important factor of social mobility in Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At the same time, they were predominantly a male institution: most of the students and all the teaching staff, with few exceptions, were men. The role of women was nevertheless significant: several female students won scholarships, graduated cum laude and presented dissertations which were considered worthy of publication. In a context in which the professional opportunities at executive levels for women graduates were severely constrained, many female graduates became teachers in secondary schools. In the 1930s however, dominated by a very conservative view of the role of women in the economy and society, the fascist regime tried to limit the teaching of women in disciplines characterized by higher prestige, such as commercial law, economics and public finance. This paper, based on unpublished documents and data stored in the historical archives of the University of Turin, on personal correspondence and on the University’s yearbooks, aims to reconstruct the academic curricula, the institutional constraints and the professional achievements of the women who graduated in business and economics at the “Istituto Superiore di Scienze Economiche e Commerciali”, then Faculty of business and economics of Turin. It also examines individual cases of female graduates at this institution who were able, in a very difficult context, to carry out innovative research activity and to start university work: amongst them, Olga Rivarono Deaglio, Danila Dellacasa and Costanza Costantino.