New sources of cultural history of education: Italian trademark pictures as vehicles of colonial prejudices during the Fascist era

Résumé

This paper uses an effective contextualisation of the images used in registered trademarks,
to demonstrate how heuristic developments can go beyond the already-studied link between
material history and trademarks history (Hamilton 2009). It analyzes the meaning
of a series of Italian trademark pictures with regards to the cultural environment which
produced them and on which they impacted. It argued that those images played a role as
indirect education factor as far as they strengthened stereotypes already promoted by institutional
racism.This contributes to a better understanding of the Italian colonial prejudices
in the 20th century (Gabrielli 2013; Labanca 2000; Triulzi 1999; Castelli 1998).