Abstract

Through a case study, the research contributes to answering the question as to why, despite all the historical evidence, we still have to speak of «denied history» to refer to the contribution of women in the construction of a new idea of the city and a different role of urban planning in the social dimension, in the years between the «Italian dream» and the beginning of the cultural change, just before 1968. The topic had been at the center of national cultural and political debate for quite some time, and the (Unione donne italiane) Udi had played a prominent role in its dissemination and enrichment; however, the representation of women at that historical moment continued to refer to only one dimension of their lives, the one displayed in the house, portrayed as the engine of the new economy and excluded from the construction of public space and social life in which women were instead expert due to their historical destiny. The research proposes to focus on this critical and systematically underestimated node of women’s participation in the construction of democracy, by reconnecting the national historical-political scenario with the micro-history of a small local community, made up almost exclusively of single women with children in a medium-sized town in the northeastern part of the peninsula that, not only experimented with a series of innovative socializing practices of organizing home life and neighborhood space, but tried to put into practice the Udi’s urgings to have a voice, to bring their practical experience to the debate on the organization of the city and its services.