Sordevolo

Surdeivu

The waters from Elvo stream and its many tributaries were the fortune of the village. Since the year 1000, the village was invested, with Graglia and Muzzano, of the rights to collect the water. In 1574 the Statutes of Sordevolo’s Community speak of regulations for the use of the water of Roggia Molinaria, Elvo’s tributary in location Ula. Around 1600, the village started industrialisation and with it offered occupation to the inhabitants, while the other villages of the valley saw their children emigrating. Another wealth was wood, but as the raw material was somewhat insufficient, it was not sufficient to stop emigration and this was at it peak at the end of 1800.

 Sordevolo felt the influence of the Marian religiousness. When in 1659 the first stone was placed for the Graglia’s Santuary, the village wanted to participate to the construction costs and, still in 1600s, seven churches were constructed or enlarged, using specialised, or not, workers from the village or from Graglia. The 1700s saw the start of  industrialisation and the Ambrosetti became big wool industrialists.

  
There were three types of inhabitants: the farmers, inhabiting in part the central  area, in part in the numerous farmsteads toward Prera and San Grato, or in the lower valley farms. Then followed the factory workers spending all their life in the various woll plants like Ambrosetti, Maja, Sormano, Vercellone. Only few had a cios, a small vegetable garden big enough to increase the income and support the family. Finally there was the middle-class made of lawyers, notaries, doctors; and the industrialists who constucted big mansions, like the Serafino Vercellone building, use now as the Council Office. Numerous big villas were also constructed along the road to Pollone or in Robiola.

Toward the middle of 1800s a Workers Society, named “L’Alpina”, enlarged and developed the pre-existing Society of the weavers, “La Perseveranza”, founded in 1863, by contributing and financing the evening school called “la sesta” (the sixth class), were they taught notions of mathematics and design. In 1888 la Scuola dei Padri di Famiglia (the school for fathers) was opened, and here came to teach the well remembered teacher Maria Peano who taught in Sordevolo for more then 40 years.

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The economic and educational situation of Sordevolo, rich with work and industriousness, toned down the emigration flux. Some industrialists were the one to emigrate: the brothers Bona, adviced by Quintino Sella, took over a factory in Caselle Torinese and opened another in Carignano.

The biographies from Sordevolo are 156, 8.5% of the inhabitants in 1911, with a great variety of trades and destinations. 39% emigrated to France, 29.6% to the United States, 15.1% to South America, 11% to Switzerlasnd, 4.1% to other European countries and 0.6% to Africa and Asia. The most frequent family names are Pedrazzo, Pivano, Fogliano, Chiappo, Rosso, Negro e Maggia. The oldest emigrants are Giuseppe Negro, 1837, carpenter in Paris, Giuseppe Antonio Pugno, 1838, expert in steam propulsion on military boats, and Luigi Chiappo, 1839, blacksmith in the United States.