Archives
We will regularly present scholarly papers and movement ephemera, both contemporary and historical, addressed to the concerns of the site. We welcome contributions in any language! Please reach out if you would like to suggest materials for inclusion.
Be sure to sign up for our mailing list to receive notifications when new featured articles are posted. In the meantime, we present a selection of historical images and texts largely drawn from Lotta Femminista and Italian branches of the Wages for Housework movement. Scroll through the images below for campaign imagery from Lotta Femminista and the Wages for Housework movements. We have also included some of the key texts from these movements, many of which are currently being translated. Some of the these documents and much more can be found in the Archivio Mariarosa Dalla Costa in the Biblioteca Civica di Padova. In addition, the Pembroke Center Archives at Brown University include other related collections.
Key Italian Texts
The original Italian edition of Potere femminile e sovversione sociale by Mariarosa Dalla Costa, with “Il posto della donna” by Selma James, was published by Marsilio Editori in early 1972. The text is better known in its English language translation, later the same year as “The Power of Women and Subversion of the Community.” Click on the cover image or CLICK HERE to open the document in a new tab.
L’arcano della riproduzione. Casalinghe, prostitute, operai e capitale, was written by Leopoldina Fortunati throughout the 1970s and originally published by Marsilio Editori in 1981. The work represents Leopoldina Fortunati’s efforts throughout the previous decade to think through Marxist categories as applied to the restructuring of reproduction in the twentieth century. The work was published in an abridged English translation by Autonomedia in 1995 and rereleased in an unabridged form with updated notes and commentary by Verso Books in 2024. Click on the cover image or CLICK HERE to open the original document in a new tab.
Originally published by Edizioni delle donne in 1978, Un lavoro d’amore is Giovanna Franca Dalla Costa’s classic study of the relation between sexual violence and women’s status as unpaid workers within the home. An English translation of the work was published by Autonomedia in 2008. Click on the cover image or CLICK HERE to open the original document in a new tab.
Le operaie della casa (1974–1977)
Brutto ciao, Direzioni di marcia delle donne negli ultimi 30 anni pairs essays by Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Leopoldina Fortunati. Published by Edizioni delle donne in 1977, the work is a classic marxian-feminist analysis of the relation between labor migration, reproduction, and women’s refusal. We are in the process of translating Fortunati’s essay from the collection on women’s work refusal in post-war Italy. Click on the cover image or CLICK HERE to open the original document in a new tab.
Published in five issues between 1974 and 1977, Le operaie della casa was the main journal of Lotta femminista per il salario al lavoro domestico, publishing important texts authored by local members of the movement and the Wages for Housework movement internationally. Click on the cover images below to open a PDF of each issue in a new tab.
Il Grande Calibano. Storia del corpo sociale ribelle nella prima fase del capitale was published by Franco Angeli in 1983. The work chronicled three centuries of transition from the late Middle Ages to the advent of Industrial Capitalism through studies of changing mores of sexuality, childhood, gender roles, and the violence of the witch hunts and enclosures. Written by Silvia Federici and Leopoldina Fortunati, the work became one basis for the former’s work Caliban and the Witch. Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation, first published by Autonomedia in 1998. Leopoldina Fortunati’s contributions to the work are currently being translated. Click on the cover image or CLICK HERE to open the original document in a new tab.
L’offensiva and Il personale è politico were the first two collections of works by Lotta Femminista to be released by an official publisher in 1972 and 1973. They include a remarkable collection of texts, some authored individually, others collectively by group members, and many originally released as cheaply produced cyclostyled pamphlets as an essential part of movement building. Click on the cover images to open the original documents in a new tab of CLICK HERE for L’offensiva and CLICK HERE for Il personale è politico.
New York Wages for Housework Texts
Many of the writings and publications of the New York Wages for Housework Committee are included in Arlen Austin and Silvia Federici eds. The New York Wages for Housework Committee 1972-1976: History, Theory, Documents, (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 2019). The work is available from Autonomedia here.
To view and download the book below, the document has been divided into four sections to preserve image quality and manage file size:
