A Associação de Classe dos Industriais de Padarias do Porto na Crise das Subsistências

The present article intends to scrutinize the role of the Class Association of the Bakery Industrialists of Oporto in the course of the Livelihoods Crisis as a consequence of the First World War. It is an enquiry into the activity of a class association that was heavily involved in the daily life of its community and also in the instability caused by that conflict. Previous studies have mostly referred only to the consumer, his role and his difficulties, neglecting the producers’ association, which for obvious reasons has considerable importance in food supply. With the help of a vast bibliography, periodicals and the funds of the Arquivo Distrital do Porto, we will try to understand how the association dealt with the countless difficulties in the supply of raw materials to the bakeries of the city, which obviously strangled the commercial circuits, and above all, how it faced the enormous pressure from ordinary citizens seeking to guarantee the fundamental pillar of their diet.