Investigation of a woman above suspicion

Archivissima is a festival promoting and celebrating the world of archives. Over the years it has attracted thousands of people into the treasure rooms storing our public and private heritage. Now in its fourth edition, the festival this year is dedicated to women in archives and as part of the theme we went back to explore the golden years of the fairgrounds through the photographic, documentary, cinematographic, and sound holdings of the Fondazione Fiera Milano archives, in search of the women who left an important mark on change and emancipation.

Among all the many people who brought the fairgrounds to life every year, where were the women?
What did they bring to the fairgrounds and what was their role in that real yet fantastical world?

Let’s stop and take the time to dig deeper into the holdings of the Fondazione Fiera Milano archives to trace their story—a story made of progress and setbacks, as told by contemporary photographs and reports that lead us to one special woman in particular, who marked a turning point in the history of the fairgrounds.

Lighting the way for us in our archival investigation is a woman whose way with words brings colour and life to a world gone by. Mariapia Beltrami was one of few women to forge a career in the male-dominated universe of 1950s journalism. Her articles for the fairgrounds’ official paper transport us directly back into the excitement of the pavilions of the time, with their spaceships, futuristic architectures, technological discoveries, and crowds of eager visitors.
From Il Giornale della Fiera, 1952: “Why do you think Galvani prodded those poor flayed frogs and Edison so laboriously imprisoned that little yellow coil of electricity in the glass of his first, rudimentary light bulb? To give light to humans and life to electricity companies, perhaps? To light up homes and roads, ballrooms and attics, Buckingham Palace and the red star on the Kremlin’s pinnacle? The truth is that electricity was discovered—and variously applied by technology and then mastered by industry—so that on April nights in a certain city in a certain country people could raise to the moon the shimmers of a thousand colours, the beating of a thousand incandescences, the flickers of a thousand flames without fire.”

With the light of her torch, and unmistakeable style, we are now ready to delve into the photographs of the women who made the history of the Milan Fair and discover the stars of the microcosm that the world of the fairgrounds was of Italian society as a whole—and not only, considering the international nature of the event—in a postwar era of unprecedented change.

From the 1920s until the outbreak of war, the archives show how the role of women was largely relegated to the picturesque backdrop of women in traditional costume at the service of power and wielded as a propaganda tool—especially after the League of Nations voted to impose sanctions on Fascist Italy in response to the regime’s invasion of Ethiopia (the sanctions were applied from November 18th, 1935 to July 14th, 1936).

Women gradually emerged from the shadows into a new, less passive role that would last well into the postwar era, with the advent of the hostess. Presented as “users” of the products on show, they would become a classic fixture of stands that advertised a specific brand or product model.
Particularly telling is a promotional image for PAS safes, dated 1951. In it, three ladies dressed in the sober elegance of straight knee-length skirts are enclosed in an enormous vault.
The contrast between their demure smiles and the sense of claustrophobia elicited by the heavy iron vault advertised speaks to us of a time when women were compelled to make the best of a bad bargain.

In the 1960s, the hostess became a crucial figure in the life of the fairgrounds. Versed in English, French, and German, they would assist foreign tourists and often escort around the stands international buyers who had come to Milan for business deals and to assess the latest advances on show.
In her military-style uniform, the interpreters in these photographs have the serious look of someone who is never caught off guard. The flags on their left sleeve, however, are not the symbols of the armies she fights for, but show the languages they speak.

The postwar economic boom ushered in an advanced stage of capitalism in Italian society, as income levels and living standards rose and became stabilized. In this framework, households serve the function of consumption, expressing demand for the goods supplied by the production system, in its role of balancing needs and resources
In practice, those tasks were performed by the mother-housewife, whose work within the domestic walls constituted a full-time job, albeit one without social acknowledgement or financial reward.

Housewives could be defined as household administrators and expert consumers—roles of significant privilege and meaning as they were initially performed by middle-class women, in an age when working-class women were mostly out of the home on the labour market.

So who should we choose as the most representative female face of the Milan Fair? It is impossible to say—the voice of women is a collective voice that finds its strength in unity.

Perhaps only the archive can help us find an answer that respects that premiss…

A piece by the writer Dino Buzzati, published by the Corriere della Sera on April 14th, 1970, can help us unravel the mystery and put us on the right path.
Curiously, it reads more like a screenplay for a film, than a newspaper article.
It starts like this: “Outside the gates of the fairgrounds. Various crowds. Mostly male. Lots of lean men in dark suits and sunglasses carrying “executive”-style briefcases.
Flags. A festive air. It is the morning of the opening day. Milan in person holds a sort of press conference.

Milan speaks up: “So, dear friends, for the forty-eighth time this morning, I woke up feeling different from yesterday, more enterprising, more optimistic. Only the Fair, I must confess, gives me this joie de vivre. But, hold on, I still haven’t seen her in person… Franci! Franci!” (The secretary-general Mr Michele Franci, cavaliere del lavoro, steps up). Franci: “I know… it’s the same story every year… it never seems possible that she’ll be ready by the scheduled day… she always keeps us on edge… but then she’s always on time… So, dear Milan, there’s nothing to fear even today.”

Milan: “[…] Um, listen, Franci, the authorities will be arriving soon and there’s still no sign of the Fair… there’s no way she can make it by now… You tell me how we can save face…” Franci: “But she’s always been on time!”  Milan: “Unless she’s already here, in the crowd… Do you know what she’s wearing?” Franci: “I don’t know what she’s wearing today… Last time I saw her, last year, she was wearing a blue-grey skirt suit, very smart, with just a diamond broach on her lapel…” Milan: “Mini-skirt?” Franci: “Oh no. I tell you, it was a very smart suit. Times have changed since when she’d turn up dressed as a farmer’s wife…”

The dialogue continues in Buzzati’s irresistible prose until a Businessman speaks up—in the 1980s they would have called him a yuppie. He steps away from a large crowd of others like himself and approaches Milan speaking six different languages all at once to raise a precise doubt.

Businessman: “Pardon me, sirs, if I interrupt. But are you quite sure she is dressed as a lady?” Franci: “What do you mean?” Businessman: “I mean, are you quite sure your dear, lovely Fair is always a lady?”

And with that specious question posed by Buzzati’s Businessman we have the enlightenment we were after: the woman we are looking for, that symbol of progress, transformation, emancipation, sisterhood, style, and strength, is none other than the Fair itself!

If you are a podcast fan, you can listen to this story right here (or on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Music, or Deezer), narrated by the voice of Valentina De Poli, who has chosen to dedicate an entire episode of the first season of the Italian Archive Sound Atlas, an on-demand audio project curated by Promemoria for Archivissima 2020, to the Fiera Milano Archive—and to the women who have helped make its fortunes.