The Indústria Social cooperative

A collective experience in the constitutional monarchy

Abstract

In this article, we focus on the history of the Indútria Social cooperative, an collective experience in the Portuguese workers' world, which emerged from a strike movement carried out between 1872 and 1873. For decades the Cooperative Indústria Social was an industrial establishment in the iron sector, with great relevance in the History of the Work. Using the newspapers, the correspondence of the socialists and the industrial survey of 1881, we approached the origin of the factory, the management model, the industrial heritage, the production, the working conditions and, not least, what this experience represented as a sign of the arrival of new times in industry and Portuguese society. This paper deepens the influence and links between the labor movement and the factory.