As sociedades italianas de Mútuo Socorro em Porto Alegre e as iniciativas de escolarização e italianidade dos migrantes do início do século ao início da Primeira Guerra Mundial (1900-1914)

A little explored chapter in the history of Italian immigrants in Porto Alegre is the one related to the contribution of mutual aid associations to the development of Italian schooling and ethnic culture in the capital of Rio Grande do Sul in the years between the first decade of the twentieth century until the outbreak of the First World War. In fact, at the beginning of the new century, in the context of the stabilisation of the presence of migrant nuclei in the urban reality, there was a significant revival of associative life with a mutualistic character in the urban context of the capital associated with the commitment to spread education among the children of immigrants. The role and function of ethnic sociability, promoted by the representatives of the Italian bourgeois elite present in the city, meets with the support of the same Italian diplomatic consular authorities, who identify in associationism a useful strategy for the defence of Italianness and the assimilation processes of Italians in the face of their Brazilian nationalisation. The commitment to the development of the schools was rooted within a broader federative perspective within the associative world, which, however, was to be conditioned and limited by strong accents of conflict even with the consuls. Through the use of unpublished sources, both archival and printed, the contribution intends to shed light on the characteristics and dynamics that accompanied the initiatives for literacy and Italian culture promoted by the urban ethnic mutualist association in Porto Alegre.