Initially Bergantino, a village in the Po Valley, was a community of farmers. Now it is a centre for the design and construction of fairground and amusement park rides. It is internationally renowned. This industry first developed in the 1920s and 1930s. This was a period of economic depression. In the post war years it continued to evolve. Nowadays the place has an international reputation. Bergantino was the hub of a growth in popularity of the spectacular fairground ride. Families like Bacchiega, Fabbri, Favalli, Gardini and Protti belong to the most famous names in the Italian and European travelling and luna park communities. During the depression of the Thirties, some Bergantino families switched from farming to the design and construction of rides of various sorts. In the 1930s and 1940s, the constructors travelled their machines both in northern Italy as well as Calabria and Sicily far to the south. As the reputation of Bergantino grew, certain families specialised in constructing and supplying machines rather than travelling them. Others continued to travel the piazzas of the peninsula. The tradition of the travelling fair and its offshoot the amusement park or Luna Park was well established in Italy. It took the Bergantino families many years to establish themselves firmly. There was competition from other centres of production like Venice and Modena. The Bergantino industry encompasses all aspects of the production of the rides. The design, the engineering, the mechanical know-how, the artwork: Bergantino supplies it all! Individual family stories reveal both the similarity and the particularity of each journey. The family itself was in all cases the origin and motor behind all the developing businesses. The intervention of the Second World War meant that adult men were called up for service. Some never returned, others were imprisoned. The women were the cement holding the family businesses together. They dealt with repairs, accounts and employing casual labour to help with building up. Tommaso Zaghini interviewed the local showmen and women. These talks revealed one major similarity: the fairground ride yielded a far better standard of living than working the land. Vanna Protti recounts that her father (like several other ride constructors a bicycle mechanic), was often paid in sacks of flour or salamis. The rides brought Bergantino prosperity.