Associacionisme educatiu i cultural. L'Ateneu Obrer i el Círcol Catòlic de Badalona (1879-1936)

This book gives a green light to the boost of the Ateneu Obrer and the Círcol Catòlic de Badalona, from its formation of the previous quarter of the 19th century to the Civil War. The social, cultural and formative relevance of both identities overcomes the local frame and it allows the extension of the general Catalan knowledge, thanks to its configuration as a formal sociability with certain cultural and educational processes addressed to the associates and open for the population. The book studies how these entities supply an educational provision, how they interpret the reality in which they live in trough their own press and how they structure recreation and the cultural and sporting activities that they promote. The search also contributes to recover the historical memory of the dynamism of the civil society of Badalona and by Catalan extension, in an eminently industrial city subjected to intense and accelerated economical, demographic, political and trade union changes before the civil tragedy and the collapse of 1939. Above all, it disseminates the civic example that the vitality of the popular, urban culture implies in order to put into practice an original response that make up for the shortcomings of the State in the educational field, in the promotion of culture and in the improvement of the quality of life.