Daily Life under Salazar

Fatima, Fado, Football—the “Three Fs” of the Salazar regime, a formula in which ideology, religion, and mass entertainment were woven into a single system of control. But behind this formula lay an everyday reality in which the women of Setúbal packed sardines into tin cans from dawn to dusk, children marched in Mocidade Portuguesa uniforms, and men in the fishing quarters of Troino and Fontainhas put out to sea knowing that on shore not only their wives awaited them, but also PIDE informers.

Education under Estado Novo

The Single Textbook and State Control

The education system was one of the regime’s principal instruments for ideologically shaping the new generation. Compulsory schooling was limited to the 4th grade of primary school—enough, in the regime’s view, for the working population. Higher education remained the privilege of a narrow circle.

Key features of the Salazarist school:

• A single state textbook—all schools used the same approved curriculum, permitting no deviation
• Saturday catechism (doutrina)—weekly classes in the fundamentals of Catholic faith were a compulsory part of the school program
• School inspectors—monitored strict adherence to approved curricula and identified teachers with “suspicious” views
• Ideological education—Portuguese history was taught as a story of glorious victories and Catholic mission

In Setúbal—a city of workers and fishermen—the restriction of education to the 4th grade meant that the overwhelming majority of the population had no chance of social mobility. Children of factory workers frequently began working without even completing this minimum.

Mocidade Portuguesa

Mocidade Portuguesa (Portuguese Youth)—the regime’s youth organization, founded in 1936 and dissolved only after the Carnation Revolution in 1974. Membership was mandatory for children and adolescents aged 7 to 14.

The organization was divided into age groups:

In Setúbal, Mocidade Portuguesa was an especially significant instrument: the regime sought to capture the youth of this working-class city before they fell under the influence of underground leftist organizations. Children marched through the streets while their mothers worked in the canning factories and their fathers were at sea.

Church and State

Salazar and Catholicism

António de Oliveira Salazar was a former seminarian who did not complete his priestly education. This biographical fact was woven into the very fabric of the regime: the 1933 Constitution was grounded in papal encyclicals, particularly “Rerum Novarum” (1891) and “Quadragesimo Anno” (1931), which defined the principles of Catholic corporatism.

The Church under Estado Novo performed several functions:

• Regime legitimation—the Church’s blessing lent the dictatorship moral authority
• Social control—parish priests knew everything about everyone; confession served as an additional information channel
• Ideology—the triad “Deus, Pátria, Família” placed God first
• Education—Saturday catechism shaped worldview from childhood

“Three Fs”: Fatima, Fado, Football

The formula “Fátima, Fado, Futebol” is an ironic but accurate characterization of three pillars on which the regime built its control over mass consciousness:

• Fatima—the cult of the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima (1917) was actively exploited by the regime as proof of Portugal’s chosenness and its Catholic mission
• Fado—traditional music of “saudade” (longing) that celebrated resignation and acceptance of fate, fitting perfectly into an ideology of submission
• Football—mass entertainment that distracted the population from political questions

In working-class Setúbal, this formula met with mixed success: religiosity was less deep than in rural Portugal, and football—though popular—could not replace the struggle for labor rights.

Women of Setúbal

The Factory as World

The role of women in Setúbal’s life under Estado Novo was exceptional. Approximately 80% of the city’s population was connected in one way or another to the canning industry, while 95% of factory workers were women and children.

The scale was enormous:

• 1912—of 106 canning factories in all of Portugal, 42 were in Setúbal
• 1920—approximately 130 factories operated in the city with roughly 10,000 workers
• 1918–1981—the Setúbal Municipal Archive holds 10,912 worker registration cards from the canning factories—a unique documentary collection recording the fates of thousands of people

The life of a conserveira worker was dictated by the factory siren. When fishing vessels returned with their catch, the siren summoned workers—at any hour of the day or night. Between the factory, home, and church—within this triangle an entire life unfolded.

The Double Burden

The women of Setúbal bore a double burden:

• At the factory—grueling physical labor for 12–16 hours, piecework pay, no social protections
• At home—running the household, raising children, waiting for husbands to return from sea

Meanwhile, the Estado Novo regime ideologically promoted the image of women as guardians of the home. The reality of working-class Setúbal, where women formed the backbone of the productive force, entirely contradicted this propaganda.

The Fishing Quarters

Troino and Fontainhas

The Troino and Fontainhas quarters—historic fishing districts of Setúbal—were a microcosm of daily life under Estado Novo. Here lived families whose way of life was defined by the sea and the factory:

• Men went to sea to fish, using among other methods the traditional arte xávega technique—a beach seine cast from a boat and hauled ashore by the entire crew
• Women worked in the canning factories or processed the catch
• Children helped both, often at the expense of their education

The fishing quarters were simultaneously the poorest and most tightly knit neighborhoods in the city. Mutual aid was not a virtue but a condition of survival. Yet precisely this solidarity made them a target of close PIDE scrutiny: the secret police embedded informers in taverns and on quays, monitoring any conversations about politics, strikes, or underground activity.

PIDE and Everyday Fear

The Atmosphere of Surveillance

PIDE—the regime’s secret police—operated in Setúbal with particular intensity, given the city’s working-class and “red” character. Daily life under Estado Novo was permeated by an atmosphere of suspicion:

• In factories—informers among workers reported any conversations, expressions of dissatisfaction, jokes about the regime
• In taverns—drinking too much and saying a careless word meant risking one’s freedom
• In church—even confession did not guarantee secrecy: [UNVERIFIED] some priests, according to veterans’ recollections, cooperated with PIDE
• At home—the walls of the barracas were thin; neighbors heard everything

The result was an erosion of trust. People grew accustomed to silence, to not discussing politics, to not asking questions. This silent conformism—one of the most destructive consequences of Estado Novo—penetrated the very fabric of daily life.

Resistance in Everyday Life

The Underground “Avante!”

Despite all-pervasive control, Setúbal remained one of the principal centers of resistance. The city was a stronghold of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), operating deep underground.

PCP underground cells distributed the newspaper “Avante!”—the party’s illegal publication, printed at clandestine presses. To receive a copy of “Avante!” meant not merely reading forbidden news—it was an act of political resistance punishable by arrest and imprisonment.

Quiet Resistance

Beyond organized underground activity, there existed many forms of quiet, everyday resistance:

• Work slowdowns at factories—a collective but hard-to-prove form of protest
• Word-of-mouth information—what could not be printed
• Aid to families of the arrested—collecting food, looking after children
• Preserving memory—stories of strikes, repressions, and fallen comrades passed from generation to generation

A Symbol: Avenida Álvaro Cunhal

Today one of Setúbal’s streets bears the name of Álvaro Cunhal—longtime leader of the PCP, who spent years in the underground and in Estado Novo prisons. This name is a symbol that the everyday resistance of working-class Setúbal was not in vain. A street that under the dictatorship would have borne the name of a regime “hero” now commemorates those who fought for freedom amid daily fear.

Key Dates

See Also

• Estado Novo and Setúbal—general overview of the dictatorship in the city
• The Canning Industry—the factories that defined daily life
• “Red City”: Political History of Setúbal—underground resistance
• Carnation Revolution—the end of everyday fear
• Fishing Culture—the way of life in the fishing quarters
• Michel Giacometti Museum of Labor—repository of memory about daily life