Literacy, migrations and professions in Venice in the first half of the 19th Century

Abstract

The essay is a first exposition of a broader and more detailed research focused on the literacy in Venice during the first half of the 19th Century. The research is based on the elaboration of the data contained in the marriage certificates celebrated between 1815 and 1820 and between 1850 and 1855. The first cohort of spouses has a good level of male literacy: more than 3/5 of the spouses sign their marriage certificate despite the feeble offer of public elementary schools before 1821. By contrast, female literacy has a really low rate, such as only a third of the women is able to sign a marriage act. The cohort 1850-1855 shows modest increases in both male and female literacy: about 3/4 of the spouses and just under half of the brides sign their own name. Subsequently, the essay analyses the trends of literacy indices under the spectrum of the population mobility, the marriage models and the socio-professional structure. Data from both cohorts show that marriages between individuals from different parishes and different professional groups promote higher levels of literacy. The distribution of the literacy among socio-professional groups shows that the fleeble progress in literacy between the two cohorts is due to the persistence of social barriers that hinder the access to the alphabet to the lower socioeconomical groups. Regarding the brides, economic weakness is combined with the persistence of prejudices about women's education. Although Venice had a good network of public schools in the mid-nineteenth century, social and cultural barriers forced the poorest quarter of spouses and more than half of brides into illiteracy.