2.+History

=THE DEVELOPMENT OFTHE TEXTILE INDUSTRY IN THE ALTO MILANESE AREA=

THE ORIGINS
The "Alto Milanese" area, comprising the area north of Milan and the Basso Varesotto (the southern part of the Varese province), saw an early and widespread diffusion of manufacturing activities, the first stage in the process of industrialization. The origins of these activities are to be found in a series of disadvantageous conditions, including the poor quality of agricultural fields: poorly fertile with rocky subsoil, unable to retain water and surrounded by the moors. The low levels of agricultural income, since the beginning of the modern age, forced the inhabitants to seek additional income outside agriculture that would allow them to survive. This led to the upsurge in many home-based manufacturing activities (spinning and weaving of wool, flax and cotton, silkworm breeding, processing of leather and iron wire).The system of home-based production was coordinated by merchants, generally landowners who were not particularly wealthy, who in turn tried to integrate the modest income of their lands. They were the ones who supplied the peasants with raw materials or semi-finished goods and were responsible for collecting the finished product, often carrying out an extensive trade activity, which reached even the most remote villages. The use of peasant workers allowed them to keep wages below the minimum levels, thus making their products very competitive.

Around the middle of the eighteenth century the Alto-Milanese manufacturing industry began to specialize in cotton production, particularly fustian and bombazine, low value products, which gradually found several buyers in the rural market, by this point inclined to replace the traditional wool dresses with these products, more practical and cheaper. Historical documents show that in 1767 there were very few houses without looms, and almost 7,000 people worked in the sector. With the cotton industry specialization, other activities, such as the breeding of silkworms and production of wire, declined. This system of home-based working still did not represent the first phase of capitalist industrial development, because it remained decentralized in the countryside, due to the absence of mechanization. The factory constituted for merchants a sort of completion for their business (often accompanied by income from land), because of this, capital investment was scarce, penalizing the quality of the product and the ability for technological innovation. At the same time it guaranteed a greater margin of flexibility, especially in times of market crisis, which also had to deal with the customs policies, not always favourable, imposed by the Austrian and Napoleonic domination. Things began to change in the years after the Restoration, as the customs protectionism made it cheaper to purchase raw materials than semi-finished products. The first mechanical spinning machinery then started to appear, although still decentralized in rural areas in order to take advantage of the hydraulic power of the river Olona, as investments for the steam engine were deemed too costly and the cost of the coal that was needed to power them was too high. With the passing of years the factories for spinning employed larger and larger groups of the population: at the middle of the ‘800 the towns of Gallarate and Busto had about 47,000 inhabitants and 20,000 of these were employed in the textile sector. It was mostly women and children who worked in this sector in order that the agricultural activities of rural households could continue to be carried out by the men; although men were also employed in manufacturing, since they were weaving when they were at home.

Taking advantage of such organizational system, this period saw the beginning of the economic rise of those who, in the second half of the century, would become the great dynasties of cotton manufacturing: Crespi, Turati, Candiani, Ottolini, Ponti, Cantoni and Airoldi. The weaving sector remained extremely backward, continuing to be based on manual work at home. The families of textile entrepreneurs viewed the mechanization of weaving with a certain trepidation, as it would require significant capital investment. A pioneer in this sense was Costanzo Cantoni, who built the first mechanized weaving mill with departments for dyeing and bleaching the yarn, beside his spinning mill in Legnano in 1854, thus creating a vertical integration of all the stages of yarn processing.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
The first years after the unification of Italy were not easy for the Altomilanese textile sector. The liberal economic policy of the Kingdom of Italy wiped out all of the protective customs charges; furthermore, the American Civil War (1861-65) resulted in the arrest of imports of raw cotton and the price of the raw material on the European markets underwent a sharp rise. In 1862, a third of the looms in Busto remained idle and the local spinning mills suffered a major recession. The subsequent introduction of the cultivation of cotton in the South part of the Italian peninsula limited in part the devastating effects of the crisis, enabling the Lombardy textile mills to continue to operate up until 1872 by resorting to using Italian cotton. The real growth however was determined by the complete mechanization of the textile sector, which was now functioned using steam power, thus ending its dependence on rivers and canals.

With the rise to power of the left-wing, the textile industry was able to take advantage of a series of protectionist measures, which guaranteed the control of the entire domestic market. Within twenty years (1876-96) the number of spindles increased by 85%, the mechanical looms quintupled, while the hand looms fell by 70%. The complete mechanization of the cotton process gave rise to a real industrial system, which also included additional processing and finishes: such as: the dyeing, bleaching and printing of yarns and fabrics. Many spinning and weaving factories had their own bleaching departments and dye-works, thus implementing a complete and rational production cycle.

The growth of the area was characterised also by the emergence of other activities. In 1875 the Cantoni-Krumm mechanical engineering company was founded in Legnano, this later became Franco Tosi. The development of the metal-mechanical sector saw a massive employment of male workers, which also increased in the cotton sector, especially in the areas of dyeing, bleaching and printing. The female workers of peasant families continued to remain the protagonists of spinning and weaving. The entrance of the men into the local manual workforce gradually brought about changes in relations with employers. The entrepreneur initially tried to contain the pressures of workers’ demands, often through implementing a policy of paternalistic intervention (factory shops, housing for employees, vocational schools), which not only compensated for a policy of very low wages, but above all installed a relationship of fidelity between the workers and the owner of the company. The economic vitality of the areawas also demonstrated by the spread of the branches of the //Cassa di Risparmio delle province Lombarde// (Savings Bank of the province of Lombardy); in 1873 the Banca di Busto Arsizio was founded. In 1883 the //Associazione Cotoniera// and the Milan Cotton Exchange were set up and in 1894 the //Unione Bustese industriali Tessili// (Busto Arsizio Textile industry Union) was founded.



One of the most important innovations of the period was the conquest of foreign markets (North Africa, Asia Minor, Turkey, Eastern Europe). In this, the textile entrepreneurs of the Alto-Milanese area followed in the footsteps of Enrico Dell'Acqua (1851-1910), who had begun the export of local products to Latin America, where many Italian immigrants lived. In this way the sector entered fully into the economy of international trade.

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
During the years from the turn of the century up until 1907 (which ended with a general economic crisis), the industrialization of the Alto Milanese area recorded a decisive and irreversible progress, in terms of both quantity (increase in the number of factories and workers) and of quality, and, with the development of new sectors (automobiles, aeronautics, chemicals and footwear), it also achieved a more advanced level of production methods and a further expansion of foreign markets. It's interesting to note that the economic importance of the territory was in no way overshadowed by the development of the Milanese industrial giants (such as Pirelli, Alfa, Falck and Breda), given that the area now possessed both a capacity for investment and the entrepreneurial resources sufficient to enable it to withstand the internal competition. The substantial capital resources and the greater sensitivity towards technological development allowed key innovations, including the progressive exploitation of the electricity provided by the Vizzola Ticino hydroelectric power station.The modern Northrop automated looms started to become widely used in weaving and this allowed a worker to simultaneously control between 12 to 20 frames, compared to 2 frames with the first mechanical models.

The overall picture was by now dominated by large or medium-large sized companies, many of which owned factories in various locations within the area. There was no lack also of flourishing smaller businesses, with up to one hundred employees, which often carried out work on behalf of the larger companies. The cotton industry exploited to the maximum its propensity to export to foreign markets, thus managing to contain the risks of overproduction. The growth of the businesses called for a continuous capital investment, therefore there was a move away from the individual owner towards the establishment of joint-stock companies, in which, however, the family group retained its priority role. The workers’ claims became increasingly substantial, with workers often joining the Socialist party, and they set up a //Camere del Lavoro// (a sort of local trade union association) in Busto and in Gallarate. Levels of social conflict remained relatively low, but in 1914 the election of the socialist mayor Carlo Azimonti was a clear sign of the changing times and of the necessity for a careful mediation between the different social classes. The outbreak of World War I on the one hand marked the closure of foreign trade and a decrease in domestic consumption, but the drop in private demand was offset by public demand. In fact, the cotton mills of the area managed to secure important military supply contracts.

The immediate post-war period was characterized by the significant social conflict of the so-called "red years" (1919-1920), which also saw protests by the workers in the Alto Milanese area, often involving the occupation of factories on the part of workers, in order to obtain wage rises and an eight-hour working day. The social tensions ended in 1920 and succeeded in delivering significant improvements for the workers. The textile sector resumed its expansion, managing to exceed its pre-war economic levels. Factory sizes grew, exports increased, and important technical innovation was introduced in the dyeing, bleaching and printing sectors; advances in chemistry led to the creation of the first synthetic fibres. Signs of crisis occurred when the fascist regime introduced the //Quota 90//, because the revaluation of the lira rendered Italian products less competitive in the foreign market. The general economic crisis of the '30s, following the collapse of the American Stock Exchange, closed the vital outlet of international trade, forcing entrepreneurs to fall back exclusively on the domestic market. Not all factories, however, were able to withstand the competition, and there were numerous cases of bankruptcy. The negative trend was further compromised by the economic sanctions imposed on Italy by the League of Nations, following the campaign in Ethiopia (1935) and, above all, by the autarchic policy of fascism, which prohibited the processing of imported raw materials, including cotton. This resulted in an increase in the production of synthetic fibres and the resorting to alternative raw materials, such as hemp. The Second World War brought a drastic reduction in domestic consumption, temporarily offset by government contracts. The war didn’t however bring particular destruction to the industrial plants.

After the war, the sector was able to benefit from U.S. aid under the Marshall Plan, which allowed free import of raw cotton. The processed materials, however, had to be resold to the populations of the International Agency for very low prices. In the liberal post-war markets the Italian textile industry was no longer able to withstand the international competition, which was becoming increasingly dominated by certain developing countries. At the same time trade union pressure became more aggressive, aimed primarily towards increasing wages. In the nineteen-fifties and sixties the most important phenomenon was the birth of small textile companies, often owned by ex-employees, who purchased used machinery from their former employers in order to start up their own businesses, generally in the form of family business. Thus numerous artisan laboratories were created; these maintained close ties with the large cotton manufacturers, as the latter often sub-contracted out certain phases of the processing of their products to the new micro-entrepreneurs. This form of decentralization of production increased during the 1960s and 70s, characterized also by the cessation of certain activities such as textile spinning, while knitwear and hosiery manufacture were added to the existing weaving activity; clothing manufacturing companies were also set up, some of which went on to become part of the Italian fashion industry, with high quality products. The dye-works sector saw significant growth, as did other sectors connected to the textiles industry, such as the chemical and mechanical sectors. By this point a real industrial district had been born, with a myriad of medium-sized, small and sometimes tiny companies, forming part of an extensive network of relationships and supported by local institutions (professional associations and local government), which encourage training initiatives and the promotion of the local product.