Lydia Toraldo Serra’s political cimmunication

A study of the archives of one of the first female majors in Calabria

Abstract

June 1946 is generally remembered as the time when Italian women participated for the first time in an electoral consultation. In reality, as early as the spring of the same year, women’s suffrage was exercised through administrative elections: an occurrence where women were voters and elected. On the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of women’s suffrage, the families of the first women mayors elected in Calabria made their private archives available, which have never been consulted for scientific purposes, in view of the recovery of biographical memories of great historical–social interest. A significant case is, in this regard, Lydia Toraldo Serra, who administered Tropea from 1946 to 1960. Her archive contains, among other materials, a rich documentation on her public and political communication. Her multiple mandates also allow for a diachronic comparison between several electoral campaigns.