THE AGE OF TOBACCO

When tobacco was grown in Ginosa.

It was cultivated throughout our area and in Salento, Ginosa was well known at the time for the cultivation of tobacco.

The men opened the earth and the women had to prepare the holes where to put the plants, also helped by the children who placed them in the furrows.

Tobacco needed a lot of water and damp earth, and obviously a lot of effort.

It "struggled" (this is the exact term) from 12 to 15 hours a day, a seasonal job that led people to leave home to earn a small modest sum to get by, even in bad hygienic conditions. About five hundred thousand women employed in Umbria, Veneto and especially Puglia and Basilicata.

Women workers claimed for years the right to better living conditions due to a very backward south, protests were seen in Campi Salentina, Galatina, Maglie up to the great revolt in 1935 in Tricase, here the workers, together with the whole community they clashed violently with the public force.

After the Second World War, production intensified and together with this also strikes and protests for the protection of health, women protagonists of trade union battles between the 1950s and 1960s for democracy, the defense of women's rights and the recognition of diseases professional.