From manufacturing to centralized industry: the case of the province of Pisa from the 19th to the 20th century

This article aims to highlight the particular socio-economic situation of the Province of Pisa from the nineteenth to the first half of the twentieth century; in this area, heavily populated and heterogeneous for morphological and geopedological characteristics, there has been a widespread industrialization; centralized industry coexisted with artisan production and proto-industry, until the formation of industrial districts. The paper examines some productive sectors and various factories, as hydraulic mills, crushers, brick kilns, textile mills, tanneries, manufactures of furniture; small and medium industries coexist with a number of large-scale centralized industries, such as Saint Gobain glassworks, or the Piaggio motorworks, and some chemical and pharmaceutical industry