Abstract

This essay explores the beginnings of Italian cultural industry, aiming at tracing a survey – in its highlights and without claim of completeness – of the women writers and journalists active in magazines and popular literature from 1930 up to the postwar period, focusing in particular on Antonietta Drago (1902-1992), Mura (1892-1940) and Irene Brin (1911-1969). The burgeonings of popular literature, that sees films and fashion at its centre, induce a strong request of professional writing and open unexpected possibilities of employment. «Blue collars of the typing machine» of sorts, they are able to produce novels – mostly with a romantic plot –, translations, articles, reviews, actresses’ biographies, and reports on folk culture one after another. Unrecognized producers in the Italian cultural industry, many of these women have felt into oblivion, together with the fleeting volume of their writings, nonetheless precious when the social history of the country is at stake. Starting from the writings about cinema, the essay intends to highlight the importance of these texts and the central role played by these authors in the frame of the emergency of modernity and in shaping the lifestyle of Italian women.