developed on 7 January 1869). Meanwhile, some handicraft shops had become larger and were turned into factories that employed hundreds of workers: for instance, nail blacksmiths became big managers and started producing iron beds and furniture that were sold even abroad, so that San Giovanni in Persiceto merited the name of little Manchester of the Emilia. Over the last decades of the 19th Century public education was expanded, the traditional classical education was substituted by a technical school, the (Company for mutual aid) among handicraft and factory workers was founded; during Carnival in 1874 the first fancy dress convoys were held, in 1876 the (Gymnastical Society of Persiceto); in 1877 the Cassa di Risparmio was opened to the public and ten years later the railway track between Bologna and Persiceto of the railroad Bologna/Verona was opened. The past 150 years of Persiceto have seen pitched fights for land; the working classes shifted then from rebellion into organization: after the Comune of Paris (1871) in 1872 a new section of the Fascio operaio organized by the former Garibaldi soldier Teobaldo Buggini was established, a close friend of Andrea Costa; in 1873 the first strike by local factory workers was recorded; in 1874 internationalists of Persiceto tried to take part into the bakunian movement of Bologna; after the slump of the Anarchical International Movement the ('Workers' compensation society', the first local egalitarian socialist group) and in 1891 the that worked until the 1970s of the Novecento. In 1892 the 1st of May was celebrated for the first time with a private meeting. In 1893 the socialist section was founded. In 1896 an electoral committee to back up the socialist candidate to the (House of Representatives) was established. In 1898 the socialists regained the management of the by now run by liberals. At the beginning of the 20th centur,y the first resistance unions of blue collars and farmers were founded; the foundation of the ('Metalworkers' cooperative') traces back to 1904 and it could escape the hostile interferences of the fascist regime. In the 1980s it reached high productivity and trading levels (the mark COM is known all around the world). The modern political parties that developed their propaganda even with the help of many famous local papers turned out to be particularly lively and quarrelsome. In 1904 in the borough of San Giovanni in Persiceto for the first time a socialist representative was