This Exhibition will explore Italian Imigration to the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The primary sources displayed will depict the mass numbers of Italian immigrants who came to the United States, what life was like for some of these newcomers to the United States, and the hardhips and adversity they had to deal with from a nation they were not yet regulars to. This project will encompass the overall Italian immigrant experience, and will allow a better understanding of how Italian-Americans made their way into this country socially, economically, and geographically.It will show the struggle as well as the progression that Italian immigrants had to work through to become accepted and welcomed into the United States of America.
Over the course of United States history, from 1880 to 1950 in particular, immigration is important because it has made a big impact on the makeup of the country and has helped shape the United States into the nation it is today. People from all over the world have immigrated to the United states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and one of the largest immigrant groups came from Italy. Italians, like many immigrants during these centuries, had reasons for coming to the US and had to go through many hardships and progressions in order to eventually flourish and live comfortably.
Before 1880, there were about 300,000 Italian immigrants living in the United States (Foerster 1919, 323). Most of them were craftsmen or machine operators from Northern Italy. That number would shoot up from 1880 until 1915 where about 3,000,000 immigrated to the US as part of the 13,000,000 that left Italy during that time. These immigrants were predominantly from Southern Italy and included mostly farmers (Choate 2008, 12).
Causes of this mass immigration started around 1881 with issues economically and due to competition in agriculture. As Southern Italy was a big distributer for wine, a disease hit their grape supply and issues with soil disrupted their ability to make their product (Bankston 2015 286). This particularly hit the farmers and other agricultural workers of Italy the hardest to a point where they could not provide for their families or even afford housing. At the same time, the cost of living in Italy was much higher than in the US as Italy demanded much higher rent and a lot less employment (Bankston 2015, 285). This led to widespread poverty especially among Southern Italy that left families desperate and in search for new opportunities. Many of these Italians decided to make a move to the United States because there was demand for work following the Civil War (Bankston 2015, 286). Return immigration also became popular for Italians for these decades. Immigrants from Italy would come to the United States to earn jobs and receive higher wages so that they could then go back to Italy and be able to afford and acquire land. This was popular enough, that by 1911 about 11 percent of the Italian immigrants to the US returned to Italy to purchase their new land (Foerster 1919, 32). Other reasons for leaving Italy included political issues. The Italian government came down on the people of Italy and in doing so, restricted political views so that they would attempt to do away or limit any kind of socialist views (Mangione 1992, 60). Also, a tariff was agreed on by Italy and France on Italian wines which were a big source of multiple Italian’s income (Mangione 1992, 60).
These Italians immigrants that went to the United States and escaped Italy were not necessarily able to escape hardship as well. Coming not as a surprise to anyone at all, race played its part in some of these upcoming problems. A confusion to label these uncommon and slightly darker white people came about. Many earlier Americans decided to refer to these Italian immigrants not as white or negro, but as “dago,” a racially prejudice word to describe these slightly different people. These “dagoes” would ultimately be placed between white and black people in the social hierarchy ladder (Luconi 2016, 188). This would continue through socially and economically up through the 1920’s as these prejudices lead to people blaming them for taking jobs and some wouldn’t hire them do to the racism that came along with it (Luconi 2016, 188).
As most of these Italians were from southern Italy and predominantly farmers, a lack of skills for those who couldn’t get a job in agriculture as well as a lack of education and ability to speak the English language brought along other hardships (Fellin 2014, 292-310). Many of them were forced to live in low-income housing in the city where there were mostly factory and industrial work was able to be supplied and they were not equipped for work and therefore higher wages (Fellin 2014, 292-310).
This project will examine the hardships of Italian immigrants both in Italy leading to their departure, and in the US and being a minority. By breaking down these hardships in education and skill, language, and prejudices, a better understanding of the Italian immigrant experience will come about. It will also explain how their experience is different from the earlier settlers of the US and other immigrants to the US. With an emphasis on Italian immigrants as opposed to all immigrants, a sense of evolving and social role will be made clear.
Not all immigration stories are the same between the immigrants of the US from separate countries. Each experience makes them unique from one another as being the minority meant different things for immigrants from different countries. This project will exploit those differences and the culture of Italian immigrants will be made clearer as the project shows you how their settling in this country originated.
With a timeline set from 1880-1950, this project will be dealing with the era of mass European immigration. This time period will encompass both the era of New Immigration in the earlier years and will conclude with the World War 2 era. This project will mention the many ways Italian immigrants were victims of prejudice and how they translated into hardships economically, socially, and politically. To use political struggles as an example, Italian immigrants either were unable to or struggled to vote due to their inability to learn English (Luconi 2015, 12). This will be brought into further fruition with voting ballots from the early twentieth century that use only the English language and limit the say of Italian Immigrants in local and state elections.