While working in Turin, where the population suffered many of the ill effects of industrialization and urbanization, he dedicated his life to the betterment and education of street children, juvenile delinquents, and other disadvantaged youth.

[8] Together with Maria Domenica Mazzarello, he founded the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, now commonly known as the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco, a religious congregation of nuns dedicated to the care and education of poor girls.

He is one of the pioneers of mutual aid societies that were initiated as collaborative financial support to young migrant Catholic workers in the city of Turin.

In 1850, he drew up regulations to assist apprentices and their companions when any of them was involuntarily without work or fell ill.[9] On 18 April 1869, a year after the construction of the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians in Turin, Bosco established the Association of Mary Help of Christians (ADMA), connecting it with commitments easily fulfilled by most common people, to the spirituality and the mission of the Salesian Congregation.

He was born in a time of great shortage and famine in the Piedmontese countryside, following the devastation wrought by the Napoleonic Wars and drought in 1817.

[20] When travelling entertainers performed at a local feast in the nearby hills, he watched and studied the jugglers' tricks and the acrobats' secrets.

His early years were spent as a shepherd,[3] and he received his first instruction from Don Calosso who "was impressed by John’s memory and understanding of the sermons he had heard at a parish mission in a nearby Church.

[3] After ordination, Bosco went to Turin, where Cafasso headed the Institute of Saint Francis of Assisi, which provided higher education for the diocesan priests.

During his studies, Bosco accompanied Cafasso in visiting the prisons and became concerned regarding the recidivism of young offenders.

Because of population growth and migration to the city, Bosco found the traditional methods of parish ministry to be inefficient.

He did not give up, and in May 1847, he gave shelter to a young boy from Valencia in one of the three rooms he was renting in the slums of Valdocco, where he was living with his mother.

After only two months based in the church of St. Martin, the entire neighbourhood expressed its annoyance with the noise coming from the boys at play.

Rumours also circulated that the meetings conducted by the priest with his boys were dangerous; their recreation could be turned into a revolution against the government.

[33][34] While Rattazzi was pushing a bill through the Sardinian legislature to suppress religious orders, he advised Bosco on how to get around the law.

[33] Bosco had been thinking about that problem too and had been slowly organizing his helpers into a loose Congregation of St. Francis de Sales.

[38] His actions, which had been described by the Italian historian Roberto Petoia as having "manifest blackmailing intentions",[39] ended only after the intervention of the then prime minister, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour.

The Marquis de Cavour, the chief of police in Turin, regarded the open-air catechisms as overtly political and a threat to the state and was highly suspicious of Bosco's support for the powers of the papacy.

In 1859, Bosco selected the experienced priest Vittorio Alasonatti, 15 seminarians, and one high school boy and formed them into the Society of St. Francis de Sales.

Bosco nevertheless eagerly read the Italian edition of the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith and used this magazine to illustrate his Cattolico Provveduto (1853) and his Month of May booklets (1858).

When Bosco founded the Salesian Society, the thought of the missions still obsessed him but completely lacked the financial means.

In late 1874, Bosco received letters from the Argentine consul at Savona requesting that he accept an Italian parish in Buenos Aires and a school for boys at San Nicolas de Los Arroyos.

[45] Upon his return to Turin, Bosco wrote down the address as a polished essay under the title The Preventive System in the Education of the Youth, which was published in 1877 and in which he included in the initial draft of the Rule for the Salesian Order.

[46] It espoused the values of reason, religion, and loving kindness with a goal of producing "good Christians and honest citizens".

[48] Though Bosco's written works were little known outside of his own order and the subscribers of his Salesian Bulletin, which he founded in 1877, he wrote frequently and voluminously.

He penned the 1881 A Compendium of Italian History from the Fall of the Roman Empire, which was translated and updated by John Daniel Morell and noted by scholars for its cultural importance on the knowledge base of ancient to modern civilization.

Pius XI beatified Bosco on 2 June 1929 and canonised him on Easter Sunday (1 April) 1934, when he was given the title of "Father and Teacher of Youth".

On 30 January 2002, Silvio Mantelli petitioned Pope John Paul II to declare Bosco formally to the patron of stage magicians.

[56] Bosco's work was carried on by an early pupil, collaborator, and companion, Michael Rua, who was appointed rector major of the Salesian Society by Pope Leo XIII in 1888.

[2] Bosco is the patron saint of Brasília, which he supposedly foresaw in a dream concerning an extraordinary new civilization that would flourish in central Brazil.

Many educational institutions are named after him, in countries as diverse as Australia, Belgium, India, the Philippines, Pakistan, Lebanon and the United States.