Chicago and its suburbs have a historical population of Italian Americans. As of 2000, about 500,000 in the Chicago area identified themselves as being Italian descent.[1]
The first Italian to come to what would become Chicago was Enrico (Henri) Tonti, who was from Gaeta in Lazio region of central Italy. He was a soldier in service of the French. In the Fall of 1680, Tonti was in the la Salle Expedition and 2nd in command of the company. He and Father Membré, passed through the Chicago portage from the Illinois valley to go to Green Bay (having reached the Illinois River with La Salle by way of the Kankakee portage). On Jan. 7, 1682, Tonti met La Salle at Chicago, and together with a group of 21 additional Frenchmen and 30 Indians they used the portage on their way to the Mississippi, the mouth of which they reached on April 9, 1682.[citation needed] In 1697, Henri Tonti, Michel Accault, and François de la Forêt received permission from Governor Frontenac to establish a fortified trading post at Chicagou managed by Pierre de Liette, Tonti's cousin, a Franco-Italian, which lasted until c.1705. De Liette kept a journal of his experiences living with the Illinois natives for those years he lived with them at the Chicago trading post. De Liette divided his time from 1691 to 1705 between the Miami at Chicago and the Illinois at Fort St. Louis de Pimiteoui, Peoria, which he had helped build. In Chicago, he ran a trading post in partnership with François Daupin de la Forêt, Michel Accault, and Henri de Tonti [located probably near today's Tribune Tower] which he had to close, leaving in 1705 after the king revoked his trading license; continued as French commander and trader in the Illinois country until 1720. From Liette's memoirs: "Most beautiful, you begin to see its fertility at Chicago, unwooded prairies, requiring only to be turned up by the plow, most temperate climate."[citation needed]
In the 1850s, Italians settled in Chicago. Originally, most were Genoese. The first generation worked primarily as merchants, restaurateurs, and fruit sellers. Some worked in the plaster industry.[2] The plaster workers originated from Lucca.[3]
A second wave of immigration,[2] this time from rural areas in southern and central Italy,[3] arrived between 1880 and 1914. As of 2014, most Italian Americans in Chicago were descended from this immigration wave,[2] which consisted mainly of young men, mostly illiterate and low-income.[3] In 1920, Chicago had the third-largest ethnic Italian population in the nation, surpassed only by New York City and Philadelphia.[2]
Rudolph J. Vecoli wrote that Al Capone had damaged the reputation of the Italian community in Chicago.[1]
Chicago Italians' businesses advertising, 1962
Dominic Candeloro, author of Italians in Chicago, 1945-2005, stated that "ballpark" estimates were that between 1945 and 2005, 25,000 Italians, including recent immigrants from Calabria, Apulia, and Sicily, arrived in Chicago.[4] The Italians who came in this wave were more nationalistic, entrepreneurial and educated than those of previous waves. The Italians settled in Addison, Berwyn, Elmwood Park, Melrose Park, Norridge, Westchester and elsewhere. But now many Italian residents of Elmwood Park and Melrose Park have moved out of the area and the area now has an increase of Hispanics living there which has started sometime in the 80s and 90s. Many of the Italian residents grew old and died and new Italian residents have not moved into those towns. Candeloro wrote that they "rescued Italian American life in the city from a total meltdown, injected new enthusiasm into dying institutions and new organizations like the Italian Cultural Center".[4]
In the post-World War II era, many Little Italies in Chicago disappeared.[2] Some were demolished to make way for new institutions and structures. The University of Illinois Chicago, highways, and public housing replaced former Italian neighborhoods. This caused increasing numbers of Italians to move to suburbs west of Chicago.[1]
In 1970, there were 202,373 Italian immigrants and children of Italian immigrants living in the Chicago area, making up about 3% of the total population. By 1970, a majority of the ethnic Italians in the Chicago area lived in suburban communities such as Berwyn, Cicero, and Oak Park. That year, Rudolph J. Vacoli stated that "vestiges" of former Italian American communities within Chicago still existed.[1]
Geography
As of 1980, 20,000 of the 138,000 ethnic Italians in the City of Chicago lived in Belmont-Cragin, Dunning, and Montclare areas, giving them the highest concentrations of ethnic Italians.[2]
The area at the intersection of 24th Street and Oakley Avenue, southwest of the Chicago Loop, had a group of people from Tuscany, with many from Bagni di Lucca, Montecatini Terme, and Ponte Buggianese. Many of the residents of this area worked at the McCormick Reaper plant. A man who grew up in the neighborhood, Peter Venturelli, wrote a dissertation about it. Candeloro wrote that this area was "perhaps the best preserved Little Italy" in Chicago in the year 1990.[5]
The first Italian American community in Chicago was located near what is now the Merchandise Mart in the Near North Side and had residents from Genoa and Lucca. An area known as "Little Hell" and "Little Sicily" in the Near North Side had, by 1920, 20,000 Italian Americans and Italian immigrants.[6]
The Grand Crossing area had Calabrian migrants, and the area at the intersection of 69th Street and Hermitage had migrants from Salerno. Roseland had an Italian community from Piedmont. Pullman had an Italian community originating from the Altopiano di Asiago, Veneto; many of the residents were brickmakers.[5]
In 1907, the Italian-American Chamber of Commerce, an organization promoting US-Italy trade, opened.[2]
Historical clubs included the Amasenese Society, the Maroons Soccer Club, and the Mazzini-Verdi Society.[2]
Vecoli wrote that Chicago has 150 Italian organizations. In 1945, the Italian Welfare Council opened, providing recreational, educational, and social services. In 1952, it was replaced by the Italian American Civic Committee, an umbrella organization which sponsors the annual Columbus Day parade.[1]
Media
Beginning in 1960, the newspaper Fra Noi was published. By the 1950s/1960s, Italian television and radio programs were available.[1]
In previous eras, there were radio programs available for the Italians, with around twelve in the Italian language.[2]
Dominic Candeloro stated that, in the City of Chicago, few Italians have been elected to major offices because "The number of Italians in the larger electoral units has never been great enough to challenge successfully other ethnic groups, and the Mafia image has made it difficult for Italian politicians in larger districts"[2] Candeloro added, "There has never been even a serious Italian candidate for mayor of Chicago."[2]
Jerome Cosentino, an ethnic Italian from Chicago, was elected Illinois State Treasurer, becoming the first to hold a statewide office in Illinois.[2]
Italian Chicago native Ralph C. Capparelli was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives and served for 33 years (13th and 16th District) from 1971 to 2004.
In 1996, Al Salvi ran for one of Illinois' US Senate seats, but lost.[2]
Religion
The Italian community was and still is predominantly Catholic. Vecoli wrote that "A few Italian inner-city parishes remain, but most were either dissolved or turned over to incoming groups."[1] This was a result in many moving out to the suburbs and the influx of Catholics from other ethnicities.
The Church of the Assumption opened in the first Italian neighborhood in 1881. It was the first Italian Catholic church in Chicago. The Scalabrian Church of Santa Maria Incoronata served Italians living in what is now Chinatown. In the 1980s, the church became a mission of the St. Theresa Church as a way to serve Chinese people. Dominic Candeloro wrote that once the church changed into being a mission, it was no longer the "focal center" of the Italian community there.[6] The religious institutions in the West Side of Chicago serving Italians included a hospital (founded by Mother Cabrini) and the Our Lady of Pompeii and Holy Guardian Angel Churches.[6]
The community at 69th and Hermitage attended the St. Mary of St. Carmel Church. The Italians in Pullman and Roseland attended the Scalabrian Church of St. Anthony of Padua. The local church in Chicago Heights was San Rocco, which opened in 1906 and was closed by Archbishop of Chicago Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in 1990. The Blue Island Italian settlement was served by the church of San Donatus.[5]
Italian religious street festivals have long occurred in Chicago and, as of the 1990s, several still continued.[2]
The Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo (Scalabrini Fathers) had several institutions in the western suburbs. The order operated institutions for ethnic and religious purposes. The order operated the Italian Cultural Center at Casa Italia,[1] located in Stone Park,[9] the Sacred Heart Seminary in Melrose Park,[10] and the Villa Scalabrini Nursing and Rehabilitation Center (formerly Villa Scalabrini Home for the Aged),[1] located in Northlake.[11] The villa, which opened in 1951, was first proposed in 1945.[2]
Melrose Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is a suburb of Chicago. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 24,796.
Italian Americans are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. According to the Italian American Studies Association, the current population is about 18 million, an increase from 16 million in 2010, corresponding to about 5.4% of the total population of the United States. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas, with significant communities also residing in many other major U.S. metropolitan areas.
Frances Xavier Cabrini, also called Mother Cabrini, was an Italian-American Catholic religious sister. She founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a religious institute that was a major support to her fellow Italian immigrants to the United States. She was the first U.S. citizen to be canonized a saint by the Catholic Church, on July 7, 1946.
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Little Italy, sometimes combined with University Village into one neighborhood, is on the Near West Side of Chicago, Illinois. The current boundaries of Little Italy are Ashland Avenue on the west and Interstate 90/94 on the east, the Eisenhower Expressway on the north and Roosevelt to the south. It lies between the east side of the University of Illinois at Chicago campus in the Illinois Medical District and the west side of the University of Illinois at Chicago campus. The community was once predominantly Italian immigrants but now is made up of diverse ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds as a result of immigration, urban renewal, gentrification and the growth of the resident student and faculty population of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Its Italian-American heritage is primarily evident in the Italian-American restaurants that once lined Taylor Street. The neighborhood is home to the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame as well as the historic Roman Catholic churches Our Lady of Pompeii, Notre Dame de Chicago, and Holy Family.
Fort Chécagou, or Fort Chicago, was a purported seventeenth-century fort that may have been located in what is now northeastern Illinois. The name has become associated with a myth that the French continuously maintained a military garrison at a fort near the mouth of the Chicago River, and the future site of the city of Chicago on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. Some sources mention that the fort was built in 1685, and that Henri de Tonti sent his aide, Pierre-Charles de Liette, as commander of the fort through 1702. Although this fort was marked on a number of eighteenth century maps of the area, there is no evidence that it ever existed at the described location, but may have instead actually been located at the mouth of the St. Joseph River, on the southeastern shore of Lake Michigan.
The Pilsen Historic District is a historic district located in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. Pilsen is a neighborhood made up of the residential sections of the Lower West Side community area of Chicago. It is recognized as one of the few neighborhoods in Chicago that still has buildings that survived the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Pilsen was formally founded in 1878 making the neighborhood a factor in the political and economic change planned in Chicago. In the late 19th century Pilsen was inhabited by Czech immigrants who named the district after Pilsen, the fourth largest city in Czechia. The population also included in smaller numbers other ethnic groups from the Austro-Hungarian Empire including Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats and Austrians, as well as immigrants of Polish and Lithuanian heritage. In 1934 majority of Poles, Croatians, Lithuanians, and Italians sustained Pilsen, making it an ethnic working-class neighborhood.
Pierre-Charles de Liette was an Italian who moved to French North America and enrolled there as a French soldier. He served as an aide to Henri de Tonti, as commandant at Fort Saint-Louis and Chécagou, and as a captain in the colonial regular troops from 1687 to 1729. He was also Commandant of the Illinois Country from 1702 to 1718.
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Our Lady of Pompeii Church, or more formally, the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Pompeii, is a Catholic parish church located in the South Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, in the United States. The church is staffed by Scalabrini Fathers, while the Our Lady of Pompeii School is staffed by Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is located across from Father Demo Square, which is named for the church's third pastor, Antonio Demo.
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↑ "Home." Casa Italia Italian Cultural Center Chicago. Retrieved on March 14, 2014. "Casa Italia | 3800 Division Street | Stone Park, IL 60165" and "Italian Cultural Center at Casa Italia | 1621 N. 39th Ave. | Stone Park, IL 60165"
↑ "May 10, 1937." Chicago Tribune. Retrieved on March 14, 2014. "The new Sacred Heart seminary of the Fathers of St. Charles Borromeo in Melrose Park is dedicated."
Candeloro, Dominic. Italians in Chicago, 1945-2005 (Illinois Collection, Images of America). Arcadia Publishing, 2010. ISBN0738583642, 9780738583648.
Candeloro, Dominic. "Chicago's Italians: A Survey of the Ethnic Factor, 1850–1990." In: Jones, Peter d'Alroy and Melvin G. Holli. Ethnic Chicago: A Multicultural Portrait. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1995. p.229–259. ISBN0802870538, 9780802870537.
Catrambone, Kathy and Ellen Shubart. Taylor Street: Chicago's Little Italy (Images of America). Arcadia Publishing, 2007. ISBN0738551074, 9780738551074.
Gardaphé, Fred L. and Dominic Candeloro. Reconstructing Italians in Chicago: Thirty Authors in Search of Roots and Branches. Italian Cultural Center at Casa Italia (Chicago), October 5, 2011. ISBN0983553807, 9780983553809.
Guglielmo, Thomas A. "Encountering the color line in the everyday: Italians in interwar Chicago." Journal of American Ethnic History (2004): 45-77. online
Hunt, Caroline Louisa. The Italians in Chicago: A social and economic study (Volume 9 of Special report of the Commissioner of Labor). United States Bureau of Labor. Government Printing Office, 1897.
Nelli, Humbert S. Italians in Chicago, 1880-1930: a study in ethnic mobility, Volume 2 (Urban life in America Series). Oxford University Press, 1970.
Vecoli, Rudolph J. "Chicago's Italians prior to World War I: A Study of Their Social and Economic Adjustment." Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1962.
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