Italians in America before 1880 included a number of explorers, starting with Christopher Columbus who discovered Puerto Rico on November 19, 1493. There also were a few small settlements.[3] The first Italian to be registered as residing in the area corresponding to the current U.S. was Pietro Cesare Alberti,[4] commonly regarded as the first Italian American, a Venetian seaman who, in 1635, settled in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, what would eventually become New York City. Enrico Tonti, together with the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, explored the Great Lakes region. Tonti founded the first European settlement in Illinois in 1679 and in Arkansas in 1683, known as Poste de Arkansea, making him "The Father of Arkansas".[1][2] With LaSalle, he co-founded New Orleans, and was governor of the Louisiana Territory for the next 20 years. His brother Alfonso Tonti, with French explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, was the co-founder of Detroit in 1701, and was its acting colonial governor for 12 years. The Taliaferro family (originally Tagliaferro), believed to have roots in Venice, was one of the First Families to settle Virginia. In 1773–1785, Filippo Mazzei, a physician and was a close friend and confidant of Thomas Jefferson. He published a pamphlet containing the phrase, which Jefferson incorporated essentially intact into the Declaration of Independence: "All men are by nature equally free and independent. Such equality is necessary in order to create a free government. All men must be equal to each other in natural law". Italian Americans served in the American Revolutionary War both as soldiers and officers. Francesco Vigo aided the colonial forces of George Rogers Clark by serving as one of the foremost financiers of the Revolution in the frontier Northwest. Later, he was a co-founder of Vincennes University in Indiana.
In 1833, Lorenzo Da Ponte, formerly Mozart's librettist, and a naturalized U.S. citizen, founded the first opera house in the United States, the Italian Opera House in New York City, which was the predecessor of the New York Academy of Music and of the New York Metropolitan Opera. He was the first professor of Italian literature at Columbia University, and with Manuel Garcia, the first to introduce Italian opera to America. Between 5,000 and 10,000 Italian Americans fought in the American Civil War. The Garibaldi Guard recruited volunteers for the Union Army from Italy and other European countries to form the 39th New York Infantry. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Giuseppe Garibaldi was a very popular figure. The great majority of Italian Americans, for both demographic and ideological reasons, served in the Union Army (including generals Edward Ferrero and Francis B. Spinola). Some Americans of Italian descent from the Southern states fought in the Confederate Army, such as General William B. Taliaferro (of English-American and Anglo-Italian descent) and P. G. T. Beauregard. In 1866 Constantino Brumidi completed the frescoed interior of the United States Capitol dome in Washington, and spent the rest of his life executing still other artworks to beautify the Capitol. The first Columbus Day celebration took place on October 12, 1792, when the Columbian Order of New York, better known as Tammany Hall, held an event to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the historic landing. The Columbus Obelisk in Baltimore was erected in 1792. Many Italian Americans observe Columbus Day as a celebration of their heritage and not of Columbus himself, and the day was celebrated in New York City on October 12, 1866.
Giovanni Martino or Giovanni Martini, also known as John Martin was a soldier and trumpeter who served both in Italy with Giuseppe Garibaldi and in the United States Army, famously in the 7th Cavalry Regiment under George Armstrong Custer, where he became known as the only survivor from Custer's company at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. An immigrant, Antonio Meucci, brought with him a concept for the telephone. He is credited by many researchers with being the first to demonstrate the principle of the telephone in a patent caveat he submitted to the U.S. Patent Office in 1871; however, considerable controversy existed relative to the priority of invention, with Alexander Graham Bell also being accorded this distinction. (In 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution on Meucci (H.R. 269) declaring that "his work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged."). In 1870, prior to the large wave of Italian immigrants to the United States, there were fewer than 25,000 Italian immigrants in America, many of them Northern Italian refugees from the wars that accompanied the Risorgimento—the struggle for Italian reunification and independence from foreign rule which ended in 1870. Immigration began to increase during the 1870s, when more than twice as many Italians immigrated than during the five previous decades combined. The 1870s were followed by the greatest surge of immigration, which occurred between 1880 and 1914 and brought more than 4 million Italians to the United States.
Age of Discovery
The Italian explorer Christopher Columbus leads an expedition to the New World, 1492. His voyages are celebrated as the discovery of the Americas from a European perspective, and they opened a new era in the history of humankind and sustained contact between the two worlds.
Born in the Republic of Genoa, Columbus was a navigator who sailed in search of a westward route to India, China, Japan and the Spice Islands thought to be the East Asian source of spices and other precious oriental goods obtainable only through arduous overland routes.[6] Columbus was partly inspired by 13th-century Italian explorer Marco Polo in his ambition to explore Asia. His initial belief that he had reached "the Indies" has resulted in the name "West Indies" being attached to the Bahamas and the islands of the Caribbean. At the time of Columbus's voyages, the Americas were inhabited by Indigenous Americans, and Columbus later participated in the beginning of the Spanish conquest of the Americas.
Christopher Columbus House in Genoa, Italy, an 18th-century reconstruction of the house in which Columbus grew up. The original was likely destroyed during the 1684 bombardment of Genoa.Giovanni da Verrazzano's voyage of 1524. The Italian explorer was the first documented European to enter New York Harbor and the Hudson River.A statue of the Italian explorer John Cabot gazing across Bonavista Bay in eastern NewfoundlandWorld map of Waldseemüller (Germany, 1507), which first used the name America (in the lower-left section, over South America). The name America derives from the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci.
Another Italian, John Cabot (Italian: Giovanni Caboto[dʒoˈvannikaˈbɔːto]), together with his son Sebastian, explored the eastern seaboard of North America for Henry VII in the early 16th century. The historian Alwyn Ruddock worked on Cabot and his era for 35 years. She suggested that Cabot and his expedition successfully returned to England in the spring of 1500. She claimed their return followed an epic two-year exploration of the east coast of North America, south into the Chesapeake Bay area and perhaps as far as the Spanish territories in the Caribbean. Her evidence included the well-known world map of the Spanish cartographer Juan de la Cosa. His chart included the North American coast and seas "discovered by the English" between 1497 and 1500.[11]
The Cabot Project at the University of Bristol was organized in 2009 to search for the evidence on which Ruddock's claims rest, as well as to undertake related studies of Cabot and his expeditions.[12] The lead researchers on the project, Evan Jones and Margaret Condon, claim to have found further evidence to support aspects of Ruddock's case, including some of the information she intended to use to argue for a successful return of the 1498 expedition to Bristol. These appear to place John Cabot in London by May 1500, although Jones and Condon have yet to publish their documentation.
The project is collaborating on an archaeological excavation at the community of Carbonear, Newfoundland, located at Conception Bay and believed the likely location for Carbonariis's possible mission settlement. The Archaeology of Historic Carbonear Project, carried out by Memorial University of Newfoundland, has conducted summer fieldwork each season since 2011. So far, it has found evidence of planter habitation since the late 17th century and of trade with Spain through Bilbao, including a Spanish coin minted in Peru.[13][14]
In 1524 the Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano (Italian:[dʒoˈvannida(v)verratˈtsaːno]) was the first European to explore the Atlantic coast of North America between Florida and New Brunswick in 1524.[15] The geographic information derived from this voyage significantly influenced 16th-century cartographers.[16] Despite his discoveries, Verrazzano's reputation did not proliferate as much as other explorers of that era. For example, Verrazzano gave the European name Francesca to the new land that he had seen, in accordance with contemporary practices, after the French king in whose name he sailed. That and other names he bestowed on features he discovered have not survived.
Verrazzano's reputation was particularly obscure in New York City, where the 1609 voyage of Henry Hudson on behalf of the Dutch Republic came to be regarded as the de facto start of European exploration of New York. It was only by a great effort in the 1950s and 1960s that Verrazzano's name and reputation were re-established as the European discoverer of the harbour, during an effort to name the newly built Narrows bridge after him.[17]
The Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci (Italian:[ameˈriːɡoveˈsputtʃi]) first demonstrated in about 1501 that the New World was not Asia as initially conjectured but a different continent (America is named after him).[10] Between 1497 and 1504, Vespucci participated in at least two voyages of the Age of Discovery, first on behalf of Spain (1499–1500) and then for Portugal (1501–1502). In 1503 and 1505, two booklets were published under his name, containing colourful descriptions of these explorations and other alleged voyages. Both publications were extremely popular and widely read across much of Europe. Although historians still dispute the authorship and veracity of these accounts, at the time they were instrumental in raising awareness of the new discoveries and enhancing the reputation of Vespucci as an explorer and navigator.
Vespucci claimed to have understood, back in 1501 during his Portuguese expedition, that Brazil was part of a fourth continent unknown to Europeans, which he called the "New World". The claim inspired cartographer Martin Waldseemüller to recognize Vespucci's accomplishments in 1507 by applying the Latinized form "America" for the first time to a map showing the New World. Other cartographers followed suit, and by 1538 the tradition of marking the name "America" on maps of the newly discovered continents was secure. It is unknown whether Vespucci was ever aware of these honours. In 1505, he was made a subject of Castile by royal decree and in 1508, he was appointed to the newly created position of piloto mayor (master navigator) for Spain's Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) in Seville, a post he held until his death in 1512.
A number of Italian navigators and explorers in the employ of Spain and France were involved in exploring and mapping their territories, and in establishing settlements; but this did not lead to the permanent presence of Italians in America. In 1539 Marco da Nizza explored the territory that later became the states of Arizona and New Mexico.
The first Italian to be registered as residing in the area corresponding to the current U.S. was Pietro Cesare Alberti,[4] commonly regarded as the first Italian American, a Venetian seaman who, in 1635, settled in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, what would eventually become New York City. Pietro Alberti was born on the island of Lido at Malamocco[18] in 1608 at the height of Venice's commercial power. hese troops carried with them a particularly virulent strain of bubonic plague. The plague spread rapidly, killing 46,000 of the city's 140,000 residents. The immense decline in Venice's population led to a similar decline in its commercial power. During the Thirty Years' War troops from the Netherlands were stationed in Malamocco, a small hamlet on the island of the Lido of Venice. Because the Albertis' power was derived from the success of Venetian traders, Pietro decided at the age of 27 to seek a new life in the New World.
Alberti was the first of millions of Italian Americans who would later form part of American culture. A small stone in New York City's Battery Park, near the bronze statue of Giovanni da Verrazzano, commemorates Pietro Alberti's arrival and declares June 2 to be "Alberti Day".[19] Over the centuries, the family name Alberti had variations in spelling like Albertis, Alburtus, Alburtis and Burtis. Indeed, nearly every American bearing the surnames Burtis and Alburtis can trace their ancestry back to Peter Caesar Alberti.[20]
A small wave of Protestants, known as Waldensians, who were of French and northern Italian heritage (specifically Piedmontese), occurred during the 17th century. The first Waldensians began arriving around 1640, with the majority coming between 1654 and 1663.[21] They spread out across what was then called New Netherland, and what would become New York, New Jersey and the Lower Delaware River regions. The total American Waldensian population that immigrated to New Netherland is currently unknown; however, a 1671 Dutch record indicates that, in 1656 alone, the Duchy of Savoy near Turin, Italy, had exiled 300 Waldensians due to their Protestant faith.
Enrico Tonti (Henri de Tonti), together with the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, explored the Great Lakes region. Tonti founded the first European settlement in Illinois in 1679 and in Arkansas in 1683, known as Poste de Arkansea, making him "The Father of Arkansas".[1][2] With LaSalle, he co-founded New Orleans, and was governor of the Louisiana Territory for the next 20 years. His brother Alfonso Tonti, with French explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, was the co-founder of Detroit in 1701, and was its acting colonial governor for 12 years. Enrico Tonti was one of the first explorers to navigate and sail the upper Great Lakes. He also sailed the Illinois and the Mississippi, to its mouth and thereupon claimed the length of the Mississippi for Louis XIV of France.[22] He is credited with founding the settlement that would become Peoria, Illinois.
Spain and France were Catholic countries and sent many missionaries to convert the native American population. Included among these missionaries were numerous Italians. In 1519–25, Alessandro Geraldini was the first Catholic bishop in the Americas, at Santo Domingo. Father François-Joseph Bressani (Francesco Giuseppe Bressani) labored among the Algonquin and Huron peoples in the early 17th century. The southwest and California were explored and mapped by Italian Jesuit priest Eusebio Kino (Chino) in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. His statue, commissioned by the state of Arizona, is displayed in the United States Capitol Visitor Center.
A colonial merchant, Francis Ferrari of Genoa, was naturalized as a citizen of Rhode Island in 1752.[26] He died in 1753 and in his will speaks of Genoa, his ownership of three ships, cargo of wine and his wife Mary,[27] who went on to own one of the oldest coffee houses in America, the Merchant Coffee House of New York on Wall Street at Water St. Her Merchant Coffee House moved across Wall Street in 1772, retaining the same name and patronage.[28] In 1774–1775 Pietro Sodi[it] was the first famous Italian ballet master to come to the United States.
Today, the descendants of the Alberti-Burtis, Taliaferro, Fonda, Reggio and other early families are found all across the United States.[29]
This period saw a small stream of new arrivals from Italy. Some brought skills in agriculture and the making of glass, silk and wine, while others brought skills as musicians.[30]
In 1773–1785, Filippo Mazzei, a physician, philosopher, diplomat, and author, was a close friend and confidant of Thomas Jefferson. He published a pamphlet containing the phrase, which Jefferson incorporated essentially intact into the Declaration of Independence:[31]
Tutti gli uomini sono per natura egualmente liberi e indipendenti. Quest'eguaglianza è necessaria per costituire un governo libero. Bisogna che ognuno sia uguale all'altro nel diritto naturale.
Translated by Jefferson as follow:
All men are by nature equally free and independent. Such equality is necessary in order to create a free government. All men must be equal to each other in natural law
Mazzei practiced medicine in Italy and the Middle East for several years before moving to London in 1755 to take up a mercantile career as an importer. In London, he worked as a teacher of Italian language.[32] While in London he met the Americans Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. While doing work for Franklin, Mazzei shared his idea of importing Tuscan products, wine and olive trees, to the New World. They convinced him to undertake his next venture.
On September 2, 1773, Mazzei boarded a ship from Livorno to the Colony of Virginia, bringing with him plants, seeds, silkworms, and 10 farmers from Lucca. He visited Jefferson at his estate, and the two became good friends. Jefferson gave Mazzei an allotment of land for an experimental plantation. Mazzei purchased more land adjoining this gift of acreage and established a plantation he named Colle. They shared an interest in politics and liberal values, and maintained an active correspondence for the rest of Mazzei's life. The contribution of Filippo Mazzei to the U.S. Declaration of Independence was acknowledged by John F. Kennedy in his book A Nation of Immigrants, in which he states that:[33]
The great doctrine 'All men are created equal'[34][35] and incorporated into the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson, was paraphrased from the writing of Philip Mazzei, an Italian-born patriot and pamphleteer, who was a close friend of Jefferson. A few alleged scholars try to discredit Mazzei as the creator of this statement and idea, saying that "there is no mention of it anywhere until after the Declaration was published". This phrase appears in Italian in Mazzei's own hand, written in Italian, several years prior to the writing of the Declaration of Independence. Mazzei and Jefferson often exchanged ideas about true liberty and freedom. No one man can take complete credit for the ideals of American democracy.
There is a strong association between Italian-American cuisine and the history of winemaking in the United States. Many Italian wines were first introduced to the United States in the late 18th century. Italian vintners were first brought to the state of Florida in 1766 by Dr. Andrew Turnbull, a British Consul at Smyrna (now İzmir). Filippo Mazzei also cultivate vineyards, olives, and other Mediterranean fruit with the help of Italians.[37]
In 1801, Philip Trajetta (Filippo Traetta) established the nation's first conservatory of music in Boston, where, in the first half of the century, organist Charles Nolcini and conductor Louis Ostinelli were also active.[40] In 1805 Thomas Jefferson recruited a group of musicians from Sicily to form a military band, later to become the nucleus of the U.S. Marine Band. The musicians included the young Venerando Pulizzi, who became the first Italian director of the band, and served in this capacity from 1816 to 1827.[41]Francesco Maria Scala, an Italian-born naturalized American citizen, was one of the most important and influential directors of the U.S. Marine Band, from 1855 to 1871, and was credited with the instrumental organization the band still maintains. Joseph Lucchesi, the third Italian leader of the U.S. Marine Band, served from 1844 to 1846.[42] The first opera house in the country opened in 1833 in New York through the efforts of Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart's former librettist, who had immigrated to America and had become the first professor of Italian at Columbia College in 1825.
During this period Italian explorers continued to be active in the West. Alessandro Malaspina undertook a voyage around the world from 1786 to 1788, then, from 1789 to 1794, a scientific expedition (the Malaspina Expedition) throughout the Pacific Ocean, exploring and mapping much of the west coast of the Americas from Cape Horn to the Gulf of Alaska, crossing to Guam and the Philippines, and stopping in New Zealand, Australia, and Tonga. In 1822–23 the headwater region of the Mississippi was explored by Giacomo Beltrami in the territory that was later to become Minnesota, which named a county in his honor. In the U.S. Giacomo Beltrami also began visiting a number of cities. He eventually began a voyage down the Ohio River with the intention of following it to the Mississippi and then south to New Orleans, Louisiana. While on board he met with the prominent United States Indian agent, Lawrence Taliaferro, who was planning to travel upriver on the Mississippi. Beltrami soon became obsessed with the idea of finding the river's source. In 1823, the two later joined with Stephen H. Long as they traveled upriver to Fort Saint Anthony.
Joseph Rosati was named the first Catholic bishop of St. Louis in 1824. In 1830–64 Samuel Mazzuchelli, a missionary and expert in Indian languages, ministered to European colonists and Native Americans in Wisconsin and Iowa for 34 years and, after his death, was declared Venerable by the Catholic Church. Father Charles Constantine Pise, a Jesuit, served as Chaplain of the Senate from 1832 to 1833,[43][44] the only Catholic priest ever chosen to serve in this capacity.
In 1833, Lorenzo Da Ponte, formerly Mozart's librettist, and a naturalized U.S. citizen, founded the first opera house in the United States, the Italian Opera House in New York City, which was the predecessor of the New York Academy of Music and of the New York Metropolitan Opera. He was the first professor of Italian literature at Columbia University, and with Manuel Garcia, the first to introduce Italian opera to America.[45][46] Da Ponte was also a close friend of Mozart and Casanova.[45][47]
Missionaries of the Jesuit and Franciscan orders were active in many parts of America. Italian Jesuits founded numerous missions, schools and two colleges in the west. Giovanni Nobili founded the Santa Clara College (now Santa Clara University) in 1851. The St. Ignatius Academy (now University of San Francisco) was established by Anthony Maraschi in 1855. The Italian Jesuits also laid the foundation for the wine-making industry that would later flourish in California. In the east, the Italian Franciscans founded hospitals, orphanages, schools, and the St. Bonaventure College (now St. Bonaventure University), established by Panfilo da Magliano in 1858.
In 1837, John Phinizy (Finizzi) became the mayor of Augusta, Georgia. Samuel Wilds Trotti of South Carolina was the first Italian American to serve in the United States House of Representatives.[48] Born in Barnwell, South Carolina, Trotti attended the common schools. He graduated from South Carolina College (now University of South Carolina) at Columbia in 1832. He studied law and was admitted to the bar. He served in the Seminole War. Trotti served as member of the State house of representatives from 1840 to 1841 from 1852 to 1855. He was elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-seventh Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Sampson H. Butler and served from December 17, 1842, to March 3, 1843.
In 1849, Francesco, de Casale began publishing the Italian American newspaper L'Eco d'Italia in New York, the first of many to eventually follow. In 1848, Francis Ramacciotti, piano string inventor and manufacturer, immigrated to the U.S. from Tuscany.
The Garibaldi Guard recruited volunteers for the Union Army from Italy and other European countries to form the 39th New York Infantry.[50] At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Giuseppe Garibaldi was a very popular figure. The 39th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, of whose 350 members were Italian, was nicknamed Garibaldi Guard in his honor. The unit wore red shirts and bersaglieri plumes. They carried with them both a Union Flag as well as an Italian flag with the words Dio e popolo, meaning "God and people."[51] In 1861 Garibaldi himself volunteered his services to President Abraham Lincoln. Garibaldi was offered a Major General's commission in the U.S. Army through the letter from Secretary of State William H. Seward to H. S. Sanford, the U.S. Minister at Brussels, July 17, 1861.[52]
Most of the Italian-Americans who joined the Union Army were recruited from New York City. Many Italians of note were interested in the war and joined the army, reaching positions of authority. Brigadier General Edward Ferrero was the original commander of the 51st New York Regiment.[53] He commanded both brigades and divisions in the eastern and western theaters of war and later commanded a division of the United States Colored Troops. Colonel Enrico Fardella, of the same and later of the 85th New York regiment, was made a brevet brigadier general when the war ended. Francis B. Spinola recruited four regiments in New York, was soon appointed Brigadier General by President Abraham Lincoln and given command of the Spinola Brigade. Later he commanded another unit, the famed Excelsior Brigade.
Colonel Luigi Palma di Cesnola, a former Italian and British soldier and veteran of the Crimean War, commanded the 4th New York Cavalry and would rise to become one of the highest ranking Italian officer in the Union Army.[54] He established a military school in New York City where many young Italians were trained and later served in the Union army. Di Cesnola received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Battle of Aldie.[55] Two more famous examples were Francesco Casale and Luigi Tinelli, who were instrumental in the formation of the 39th New York Infantry Regiment. According to one evaluation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, there were over 200 Italians who served as officers in the U.S. army.[56] At least 260 Italian Americans fought as sailors in the Union Navy.[57]
Several Italian American soldiers of the Confederate States Army were veterans from the Army of the Two Sicilies who had fought against Giuseppe Garibaldi in, and were captured during, the Expedition of the Thousand as part of the unification of Italy. They were released after a treaty between Garibaldi and Chatham Roberdeau Wheat. In December 1860 and few months of 1861, these volunteers were transported to New Orleans with the ships Elisabetta, Olyphant, Utile, Charles & Jane, Washington and Franklin.[58] Most Confederate Italian Americans had settled in Louisiana. The militia of Louisiana had an Italian Guards Battalion that became part of its 6th Regiment.[59] Following the protests of many soldiers, who did not feel like Italian citizens since they fought against the unification of Italy, it was renamed 6th Regiment, European Brigade in 1862.
Beginning in 1863, Italian immigrants were one of the principal groups of unskilled laborers, along with the Irish, that built the Transcontinental Railroad west from Omaha, Nebraska.[63]
In 1866 Constantino Brumidi completed the frescoed interior of the United States Capitol dome in Washington, and spent the rest of his life executing still other artworks to beautify the Capitol. His first art work in the Capitol Building was in the meeting room of the House Committee on Agriculture. At first he received eight dollars a day, which Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War of the United States, helped increase to ten dollars. His work attracting much favorable attention, he was given further commissions, and gradually settled into the position of a Government painter. His chief work in Washington was done in the rotunda of the Capitol and included The Apotheosis of Washington in the dome and the Frieze of American History, which contains allegorical scenes from American history. His artistic vision was influenced by the wall paintings of Pompeii and ancient Rome, as well as the classical revivals that characterized the Renaissance and Baroque periods.[64][65] His work in the rotunda was left unfinished at his death, but he had decorated many other sections of the building, most notably hallways in the Senate side of the Capitol now known as the Brumidi Corridors. Filippo Costaggini continued painting the frieze over the next 8 years based on the sketches Brumidi left; however, there was no sketch left for the final panel, which remained empty until 1953, when Allyn Cox designed and painted it.[66]
The first Columbus Day celebration took place on October 12, 1792, when the Columbian Order of New York, better known as Tammany Hall, held an event to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the historic landing.[69] The Columbus Obelisk in Baltimore was erected in 1792. Many Italian Americans observe Columbus Day as a celebration of their heritage and not of Columbus himself, and the day was celebrated in New York City on October 12, 1866.[70] The day was first enshrined as a legal holiday in the United States through the lobbying of Angelo Noce, a first-generation American, in Denver.[71] For the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's voyage in 1892, following lynchings in New Orleans, where a mob had murdered 11 Italian immigrants, President Benjamin Harrison declared Columbus Day as a one-time national celebration.[72][73] The proclamation was part of a wider effort after the lynching incident to placate Italian Americans and ease diplomatic tensions with Italy.[72]
Carlo Gentile, known professionally in his lifetime as Charles Gentile, was a photographer. After travelling the world, he settled in Victoria, British Columbia, for a few years, photographing diverse subjects including the gold fields. In 1867, he moved to California, and lived a restless existence with frequent moves between California and Arizona. In 1871, he purchased a young boy named Wassaja, later named Carlos Montezuma, for 30 silver dollars. In the midst of their travels, they participated in a Wild West Show starring Buffalo Bill. Gentile continued the pursuit of his photographic career in Chicago, while publishing a series of newspapers along with maintaining a weekly magazine.
An immigrant, Antonio Meucci, brought with him a concept for the telephone. He is credited by many researchers with being the first to demonstrate the principle of the telephone in a patent caveat he submitted to the U.S. Patent Office in 1871; however, considerable controversy existed relative to the priority of invention, with Alexander Graham Bell also being accorded this distinction. (In 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution on Meucci (H.R. 269) declaring that "his work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged.")[74]
During this period, Italian Americans established a number of institutions of higher learning. Las Vegas College (now Regis University) was established by a group of exiled Italian Jesuits in 1877 in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The Jesuit Giuseppe Cataldo, founded Gonzaga College (now Gonzaga University) in Spokane, Washington in 1887. In 1886, Rabbi Sabato Morais, a Jewish Italian immigrant, was one of the founders and first president of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York. Also during this period, there was a growing presence of Italian Americans in higher education. Vincenzo Botta was a distinguished professor of Italian at New York University from 1856 to 1894,[75] and Gaetano Lanza was a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for over 40 years, beginning in 1871.[76]
Anthony Ghio became the mayor of Texarkana, Texas in 1880. Francis B. Spinola, the first Italian American to be elected to the United States House of Representatives, serving as a representative from New York from 1887 to 1891. He also served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Following the war, Spinola was a banker and insurance agent and became an influential figure among the rapidly growing Italian immigrant community in the New York City area. He was again a member of the State Assembly (New York Co., 16th D.) in 1877, 1881 and 1883.
Italian emigration per region from 1876 to 1900 and from 1901 to 1915
In 1870, prior to the large wave of Italian immigrants to the United States, there were fewer than 25,000 Italian immigrants in America, many of them Northern Italian refugees from the wars that accompanied the Risorgimento—the struggle for Italian reunification and independence from foreign rule which ended in 1870.[77]
Immigration began to increase during the 1870s, when more than twice as many Italians immigrated than during the five previous decades combined.[78][79] From 1880 to 1914, 13 million Italians migrated out of Italy,[80] making Italy the scene of one of the largest voluntary emigrations in recorded world history.[81]
During this period of mass migration, 4 million Italians arrived in the United States, 3 million of them between 1900 and 1914.[82] They came for the most part from southern Italy: the provinces of Abruzzo, Campania, Apulia, Basilicata, and Calabria and from the island of Sicily.[83] Most planned to stay a few years, then take their earnings and return home. According to historian Thomas J. Archdeacon, 46% of the Italians who entered the U.S. between 1899 and 1924 permanently returned home.[84]
A painting of Enrico Tonti being stabbed during peace negotiations in the Iroquois Village on January 2, 1680, by George Catlin
The first Italian to come to what would become Chicago was Enrico 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. In 1697, Enrico 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 Enrico 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."
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.[85] The plaster workers originated from Lucca.[86]
The first Italian American in Detroit was Alfonso Tonti, a Frenchman with an Italian immigrant father. He was the second-in-command of Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, who established Detroit in 1701. Tonti's child, born in 1703, was the first ethnic European child born in Detroit. Tonti became the commander of the Detroit fort after Cadillac left to return to France.[87]
In order to preserve the fur trade, the French administrators and the British administrators discouraged immigration, so the Italian population had slow growth. Growth in immigration increased after Detroit became a part of the United States and the Erie Canal had been constructed. Armando Delicato, author of Italians in Detroit, wrote that Italian immigration to Detroit "lagged behind other cities in the East".[87]
he first Italian to reside in New York was Pietro Cesare Alberti,[4] a Venetian seaman who, in 1635, settled in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam that would eventually become New York. A small wave of Protestants, known as Waldensians, who were of French and northern Italian heritage (specifically Piedmontese), occurred during the 17th century, with the majority coming between 1654 and 1663.[88] A 1671 Dutch record indicates that, in 1656 alone, the Duchy of Savoy near Turin, Italy, had exiled 300 Waldensians due to their Protestant faith.
Silvio Pellico, who wrote in "Breve soggiorno in Milano di Battistino Barometro" that some Italian immigrants were going to Philadelphia
During the 18th Century Colonial Era of the United States, the few Italian immigrants to come to Philadelphia came in small numbers and from higher class backgrounds, and these few Italians were often considered to be accomplished in business, art, and music.[89] Some early Italian settlements appeared in South Philadelphia. In contrast to the vast majority of Italian immigrants to Philadelphia that arrived much later and originated from impoverished areas of Southern Italy, Italian immigrants from this period predominantly originated from wealthier areas in Northern Italy and towns within Genoa Province, Liguria,[90] including Genoa and Chiavari, while only a small number came from Veneto.[91]
Donna J. Di Giacomo, author of Italians in Philadelphia, wrote that the first population was "in much smaller numbers" than the mass immigrant groups of the late 19th Century and 20th Century.[90] At the time, many educated Americans had a positive view of classical culture, and thus their view of Northern Italian immigrants was more positive.[92] Among the immigrants of this first period, Lorenzo Da Ponte, who immigrated in 1804, helped introduce Italian Opera in America.[93]
In 1819 Silvio Pellico wrote in "Breve soggiorno in Milano di Battistino Barometro" that some Italian immigrants were going to Philadelphia.[94] Charles L. Flynn Jr. of Assumption College stated in his book review of Building Little Italy that the Philadelphia Italian "community" didn't actually form until the 1850s and 1860s, when it achieved enough size to do so. There were 117 Philadelphia residents at the time known to have been born in Italy.[95] By the 1870 census this increased to 517, with 82% of them living in South Philadelphia.[94]
France began colonizing the Americas in the 16th century and continued into the following centuries as it established a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere. France established colonies in much of eastern North America, on several Caribbean islands, and in South America. Most colonies were developed to export products such as fish, rice, sugar, and furs.
Giovanni da Verrazzano was an Italian (Florentine) explorer of North America, who led most of his later expeditions, including the one to America, in the service of King Francis I of France.
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.
Henri de Tonti, also spelled Henri de Tonty, was an Italian-born French military officer, explorer, and voyageur who assisted René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, with North American exploration and colonization from 1678 to 1686. de Tonti was one of the first explorers to navigate and sail the upper Great Lakes. He also sailed the Illinois and the Mississippi, to its mouth and thereupon claimed the length of the Mississippi for Louis XIV of France. He is credited with founding the settlement that would become Peoria, Illinois. De Tonti established the first permanent European settlement in the lower Mississippi valley, known as Poste de Arkansea, making him "The Father of Arkansas".
The Redshirts, also called the Red coats, are volunteers who followed the Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi during his campaigns. The name derived from the colour of their shirts or loose-fitting blouses that the volunteers, usually called Garibaldini, wore in lieu of a uniform.
Anti-Italianism or Italophobia is a negative attitude regarding Italian people or people with Italian ancestry, often expressed through the use of prejudice, discrimination or stereotypes. Often stemming from xenophobia, anti-Catholic sentiment and job security issues, it manifested itself in varying degrees in a number of countries to which Italians had immigrated in large numbers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and after WWII. Its opposite is Italophilia, which is admiration of Italy, its people, and its culture.
Filippo Mazzei, also known in English as Philip Mazzei and sometimes erroneously cited as Philip Mazzie, was an Italian physician, philosopher, diplomat, winemaker, merchant, promoter of liberty and author. A close friend of Thomas Jefferson, he was a strong supporter of the American Revolution and the American colonies' war for independence from Britain.
The Italian diaspora is the large-scale emigration of Italians from Italy.
Sicilian Americans are Italian Americans who are fully or partially of Sicilian descent, whose ancestors were Sicilians who emigrated to United States during the Italian diaspora, or Sicilian-born people in U.S. They are a large ethnic group in the United States.
Il Progresso Italo-Americano was an Italian-language daily newspaper in the United States, published in New York City from 1880 to 1988, when it was shut down due to a union dispute. In 1989, most journalists of Il Progresso reunited to create a new daily, America Oggi. In the early 20th century Il Progresso was the most popular of New York's Italian newspapers, selling anywhere from 90,000 to 100,000 copies every day.
Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi was an Italian general, revolutionary and republican. He contributed to Italian unification (Risorgimento) and the creation of the Kingdom of Italy. He is considered to be one of Italy's "fathers of the fatherland", along with Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, Victor Emmanuel II of Italy and Giuseppe Mazzini. Garibaldi is also known as the "Hero of the Two Worlds" because of his military enterprises in South America and Europe.
Sister Margherita Marchione was an American Roman Catholic sister, writer, teacher and apologeticist, who dedicated herself in her later years to the defense of Pope Pius XII.
The Giuseppe Verdi Monument is a sculpture honoring composer Giuseppe Verdi in Verdi Square Park in Manhattan, New York City. The statue was created by Italian sculptor Pasquale Civiletti.
Italian Americans in the Civil War are the Italian people and people of Italian descent, living in the United States, who served and fought in the American Civil War, mostly on the side of the Union. A contingent of soldiers from the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies fought on the Confederate side, with most of these having been former prisoners of war who had fought against Giuseppe Garibaldi during his invasion of the Two Sicilies. Between 5,000 and 10,000 Italian Americans fought in the civil war.
Carlo Barsotti was an Italian-American newspaper and bank owner. He was born in Pisa, Grand Duchy of Tuscany, in 1850 and died in New Jersey, United States, in 1927.
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. As of 2023, this figure had increased to 573,170, making the Italian community in Chicagoland the 3rd largest in the US after New York and Philadelphia, and just slightly larger than that of Boston.
Pietro Bandini was an Italian Catholic priest and missionary to the United States who was prominent in the Italian American community. He began his career as a Jesuit missionary in the Western United States, where he worked with Native American tribes, and went on to establish the Saint Raphael Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants and Our Lady of Pompeii Church in New York City. He led a group of Italians to Sunnyside Plantation in Arkansas in the hopes of establishing an immigrant colony and later founded the city of Tontitown with them. For his work on immigration, he was lauded by Pope Pius X and the Queen Mother Margherita.
The 6th Louisiana Infantry Regiment, sometimes 6th Regiment, European Brigade, originally the Italian Guards Battalion, and commonly referred to as the Garibaldi Legion in honor of the Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi, was a militia that fought for the Confederate Army in Louisiana during the American Civil War. They were well known for showing their ethnic pride by wearing cocked hats with plumes in the Italian national colors as well as adopting the red uniform worn by Garibaldi's soldiers.
↑ Though the modern state of Italy had yet to be established, the Latin equivalent of the term Italian had been in use for natives of the region since antiquity. See Pliny the Elder, Letters 9.23.
↑ Praga, Corinna; Laura Monac (1992). Una Giornata nella Città[A Day in the City] (in Italian). Genoa: Sagep Editrice. p.14.
↑ Preste, Alfredo; Alessandro Torti; Remo Viazzi (1997). "Casa di Colombo". Sei itinerari in Portoria[Six itineraries in Portoria](PDF) (in Italian). Genova: Grafiche Frassicomo. Archived(PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022.
↑ Castelnovi Michele, Rotta verso la Cina: "les Indes en Kathaye" obiettivo della prima spedizione di Verrazzano, tra illusione e catacresi, in “Miscellanea di Storia delle Esplorazioni” XLII, Genova, Bozzi, 2017, pp. 45–78
↑ Arthur, Stanley Clisby; Huchet de Kernion, George Campbell (1998). Old families of Louisiana. Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Pub. Co. ISBN1565544560. OCLC44521358.
↑ Filippo Mazzei, The Virginia Gazette, 1774. Translated by a friend and neighbor, Thomas Jefferson:
Tutti gli uomini sono per natura egualmente liberi e indipendenti. Quest'eguaglianza è necessaria per costituire un governo libero. Bisogna che ognuno sia uguale all'altro nel diritto naturale.
Translated by Jefferson as follow:
All men are by nature equally free and independent. Such equality is necessary in order to create a free government. All men must be equal to each other in natural law
↑ According to Resolution 175 of the 103rd Congress: the phrase in the Declaration of Independence 'All men are created equal', was suggested by the Italian patriot and immigrant Filippo Mazzei.
↑ "About". Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, College of William and Mary. Archived from the original on 2013-10-05. Retrieved 2019-06-17.
↑ Alduino, Frank W.; Coles, David J. (2007). Sons of Garibaldi in Blue & Gray: Italians in the American Civil War. Youngstown, NY: Cambria Press. p.285. ISBN9781934043806.
↑ Wagner, Anthony; Andrus, F.S. (1969). "The Origin of the Family of Taliaferro". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 77 (1): 22–25.
↑ Arthur, Stanley Clisby; Huchet de Kernion, George Campbell (1998). Old families of Louisiana. Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Pub. Co. ISBN1565544560. OCLC44521358.
↑ Vincent A. Lapomarda, "Higher Education", in The Italian American Experience: An Encyclopedia, ed. Salvatore LaGumina (New York: Garland, 2000), p.286.
↑ Rosanne Martorella, "Science", in The Italian American Experience: An Encyclopedia, ed. Salvatore LaGumina (New York: Garland, 2000), p.583.
1 2 Delicato, Armando. Italians in Detroit (Images of America: a history of American life in images and texts). Arcadia Publishing, 2005. ISBN0738539856, 9780738539850, p. 7.
↑ Memorials of the Huguenots in America, by Ammon Stapleton, page 42
↑ Luconi, Stefano (University of Florence). "Building Little Italy: Philadelphia's Italians before Mass Migration" (Book Review). Italica, 1 April 1999, Vol.76(1), pp.121–122. CITED: p. 122.
↑ Varbero, Richard A. "Building Little Italy: Philadelphia's Italians before Mass Migration" (Book Review). The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 1 July 1999, Vol.123(3), pp.258–259. CITED: p. 258. "We learn that at first Philadelphians, like much of the English-speaking world, were receptive to the idea of Italy and its culture, visualizing the Italians as symbolic of classical culture. This attitude waned perceptibly as the less attractive features of 19th-century migrants emerged and newspapers focused on organ grinders, the exploiters of children, and the instances of violence involving Italians."
1 2 Luconi, Stefano "Building Little Italy: Philadelphia's Italians before Mass Migration" (Book Review). Italica, 1 April 1999, Vol.76(1), pp.121–122. CITED: p. 121.
↑ Flynn, Charles L. "Building Little Italy: Philadelphia's Italians Before Mass Migration" (Book Review). Italian Americana, 2000, Vol.18(1), pp.110–111. CITED: p. 110.
Further reading
Connell, William J. and Stanislao Pugliese, eds., The Routledge History of Italian Americans (2018)
De Ville, John. "Italians in the United States." The Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) vol 8 online
Rolle, Andrew F. The immigrant upraised: Italian adventurers and colonists in an expanding America (Oklahoma UP, 1968)
Russo, John Paul. "When They Were Few: Italians in America, 1800–1850" in William J. Connell, and Stanislao Pugliese, eds., The Routledge History of Italian Americans (2018) pp. 54-68.
Vecchio, Diane C. Merchants, Midwives, and Laboring Women: Italian Migrants in Urban America (2006).
Historiography
Bushman, Claudia L. America discovers Columbus: How an Italian explorer became an American hero (1992). full text online; also see online book review
Cordasco, Francesco. Italians in the United States: an annotated bibliography of doctoral dissertations completed at American universities, with a handlist of selected published bibliographies, related reference materials, and guide books for Italian emigrants (1981) online
Cordasco, Francesco. Italian Americans: a guide to information sources (Gale 1978) online
Schlereth, Thomas J. "Columbia, Columbus, and Columbianism." Journal of American History 79.3 (1992): 937–968. online
Primary sources
Moquin, Wayne, ed. A Documentary History of Italian Americans (1974) online
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
