GWU PROFESSOR ANBINDER DESCRIBES THE LIVES OF EARLY ITALIAN IMMIGRANTS

For our third program of the year, we were very pleased to have as our speaker at the May 31, 2015 meeting Dr. Tyler Anbinder, a professor of History at George Washington University and acclaimed author. He talked to us about the early Italian immigrants who came to America during the period from 1880 to 1924, when more than 3 million Italians immigrated to the U.S.

About 90 AMHS members and friends came to enjoy a delicious lunch catered by Fontina Grille and then hear Professor Anbinder’s very interesting presentation. Specifically, he used period photographs to illustrate his talk, as he looked at why Italians left Italy in such large numbers, what their lives were like in the United States, and the reception they got from native-born Americans. Professor Anbinder began by telling us that while in college, he spent his junior year abroad in Florence and he has visited Italy eight times. He became interested in the early immigration to America by the various ethnic groups, earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University and authored a book entitled “Five Points:

The Nineteenth Century New York City Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections and Became the World’s Most Notorious Slum.” He also was a historical consultant to Martin Scorsese for the making of the movie, “The Gangs of New York.” The program came about through Lynn Sorbara who had heard Dr. Anbinder speak and who had read his book which was so meaningful to her since her family emigrated from Sicily to New York City and so she knew about the Five Points story.

Since so many of the Italian immigrants came to New York City and settled in the Five Points neighborhood which eventually became Little Italy (nowadays it’s Chinatown), Dr. Anbinder described for us what life was like there in those early days, and he showed us some of the old historical photos of the time to illustrate the points he was making. Life in those early days was surely harsh for many, and during the 1820s until the early 1900s, Five Points was the nation’s first “urban renewal project.” Conditions were so bleak that reformers of the era tried to bring attention to the overcrowded, unsanitary and dangerous conditions.

Professor Anbinder explained that one of the reformers, a man named Jacob Riis, wanted to photograph the dark interiors of the tenements so he improvised by firing a pistol with blanks so that the fire from the muzzle would light up a room enough for him to photograph it. After describing the living conditions, Professor Anbinder talked about the working conditions, especially the sweatshops where there was a distinct pecking order and where workers were paid by piecework. He also elaborated on the padroni system whereby labor contractors would fill orders for cheap labor and send the immigrant men from New York City to faraway jobs such as in the mines of Colorado or West Virginia, and the railroads out West.

Professor Anbinder explained that the immigrants would pass along information to relatives or friends in their hometowns in Italy so that they would know about the specific Mulberry Street address of the combination bank/employment agency for their region. Eventually Mulberry Street became known as “the Italian Wall Street.” He noted that Italian day laborers built the New York subway system, and he told us that a man from L’Aquila in Abruzzo named Pascal D’Angelo wrote a memoir, “Son of Italy” in 1924 about the harsh living conditions immigrants endured during the early part of the 20th century, and he later became a poet as well.

As for the women, Professor Anbinder said that by the 1900s, women were mainly garment workers and then office workers, and they also worked at home making lace and artificial flowers. He said it was important to these early immigrants to keep alive their religious traditions and we saw as an example the photo of the Feast of San Rocco in Bandit’s Roost. In the question-and-answer period after Dr. Anbinder’s talk, Dick DiBuono noted that not all immigrants faced such harsh conditions and in fact his own grandparents in Massachusetts became successful relatively quickly. But as Dr. Anbinder pointed out, this was not the case for many. In my own case, it reminded me that my grandparents who came from Italy in the early 1900s, pulled up stakes and moved back to Italy because the work here was very hard, the harsh winters were very cold, learning English was not easy, and they were 4 homesick. Fortunately there are many success stories of the early immigrants which were forged decades ago.

Nowadays everybody loves Italian food, fashion, art, culture and lifestyle, but as Dr. Anbinder’s talk reminded us, it’s good to remember the struggles of those early immigrants and the debt of gratitude we owe them. A special thank you goes to Hospitality Chair Dr. Lynn Sorbara for suggesting Dr. Anbinder as our speaker and for facilitating the delicious lunch from Fontina Grille. We also thank everyone who helped set up for the meeting, served food, cleaned up, and donated prizes for the raffle. Speaking of raffle, we wish to thank everyone who participated in the raffle; we raised $167.00 for the AMHS Annual Scholarship Fund.