Al caffè: conversazioni dal vero [At the Café: Honest Conversations]. Paterson: Libreria Sociologica, [n.d.]
Title
Al caffè: conversazioni dal vero [At the Café: Honest Conversations]. Paterson: Libreria Sociologica, [n.d.]
Description
The Libreria Sociologica (Sociological Bookstore) in Paterson was both a publisher and a bookstore that stocked one of the richest and most varied assortments of inexpensive books and pamphlets for anarchists and socialists in the U.S. These include social novels and dramas, as well as political tracts such as this one, in the form of a political conversation among five fictional characters. It was founded in 1903 by noted anarchist Ninfa Baronio and her companion, silkweaver Firmino Gallo. The Collection has a half dozen or more actual publications by the Libreria Sociologica, q.v.
After emigrating from Piemonte to Paterson, Baronio helped found Paterson's anarchist Gruppo Diritto all'Esistenza (Right to an Existence Group); co-founded a local feminist group and performed in feminist plays; and, with Gallo, with whom she had six children, ran the Libreria Sociologica, said by historian Kenyon Zimmer to be "America's richest storehouse of extreme radical literature."
The Libreria Sociologica was also a place where local anarchists gathered and bought Italian, French, and American anarchist literature, as well as Communist publications such as The New York Communist, Soviet Russia and The Revolutionary Age. In the back room, the Slovenian anarchist Franz Widmar operated his L'Era Nuova (New Era) press.
In 1912, Firmino Gallo was arrested for displaying an anti-imperialist cartoon by Ludovico Caminita, q.v., in the bookstore window; th two of them were charged with inciting hostility against a foreign government.
See Guglielmo, Living the Revolution in the Bibliography for the history of Baronio, Maria Roda and other important Italian women radicals in New York in that era.
Probably the greatest of anarchists both in Italy and in the U.S., Enrico Malatesta believed that while anarchists could not be syndicalists, they could use syndicalist tactics to achieve their goals, and thus could have a role in the development of the Industrial Workers of the World (see works of Faggi, De Ciampis (Il Proletario), Ebert, Vincent St. John, Giuseppe Cannata, Meledandri, Buttis and others in the Collection).
The literary form of this work, as the title suggests, presents a series of conversations between a bourgeois and a student filled with anarchist ideas, and others with varied political opinions. Such conversations in narrative or occasionally dramatic form were a common way of educating and influencing the working men and women whom these writers sought to reach. This kind of presentation contrasted with the more theoretical and philosophical tracts of writers like Renzo Novatore (q.v.).
After emigrating from Piemonte to Paterson, Baronio helped found Paterson's anarchist Gruppo Diritto all'Esistenza (Right to an Existence Group); co-founded a local feminist group and performed in feminist plays; and, with Gallo, with whom she had six children, ran the Libreria Sociologica, said by historian Kenyon Zimmer to be "America's richest storehouse of extreme radical literature."
The Libreria Sociologica was also a place where local anarchists gathered and bought Italian, French, and American anarchist literature, as well as Communist publications such as The New York Communist, Soviet Russia and The Revolutionary Age. In the back room, the Slovenian anarchist Franz Widmar operated his L'Era Nuova (New Era) press.
In 1912, Firmino Gallo was arrested for displaying an anti-imperialist cartoon by Ludovico Caminita, q.v., in the bookstore window; th two of them were charged with inciting hostility against a foreign government.
See Guglielmo, Living the Revolution in the Bibliography for the history of Baronio, Maria Roda and other important Italian women radicals in New York in that era.
Probably the greatest of anarchists both in Italy and in the U.S., Enrico Malatesta believed that while anarchists could not be syndicalists, they could use syndicalist tactics to achieve their goals, and thus could have a role in the development of the Industrial Workers of the World (see works of Faggi, De Ciampis (Il Proletario), Ebert, Vincent St. John, Giuseppe Cannata, Meledandri, Buttis and others in the Collection).
The literary form of this work, as the title suggests, presents a series of conversations between a bourgeois and a student filled with anarchist ideas, and others with varied political opinions. Such conversations in narrative or occasionally dramatic form were a common way of educating and influencing the working men and women whom these writers sought to reach. This kind of presentation contrasted with the more theoretical and philosophical tracts of writers like Renzo Novatore (q.v.).
Creator
Errico Malatesta
Publisher
Libreria Sociologica
Date
[n.d.]
Format
18 x 12cm; 59 p.
Language
Italian
Citation
Errico Malatesta, “Al caffè: conversazioni dal vero [At the Café: Honest Conversations]. Paterson: Libreria Sociologica, [n.d.],” Italian-Language American Imprints: The Periconi Collection, accessed December 12, 2025, https://italianamericanimprints.omeka.net/items/show/209.
Comments