Storie sepolte nella storia. La vita derelitta dell'infanzia migrante, tra inchieste, narrativa e autobiografie (1861-1914)

The book analyses from a historical-pedagogical perspective the lives of migrant boys and girls between the Unification of Italy and the Great War, those miniature adults, as they were still considered at the time, too young to make choices but old enough to be put to work. It is precisely the phenomenon of child exploitation that has contributed to delineating not only the history, but the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and this research, drawing from the various sources of the history of education, attempts to shed light on these events not by dwelling only on mere quantitative information, but by analysing the contents of the investigations and placing side by side the image of migrant minors that emerged from the literary and autobiographical heritage. By interweaving multiple plots, the essay aims to restore the image of the migrant child from historical 'reality' (official documents, enquiries, investigations) by comparing it with that of fiction, highlighting similarities and discrepancies.