The second most popular immigrant group to enter New York City in the late 19th century was the Italians. If one looks back to the number of Italian immigrants in 1850, they would find less than 1,000 according to the city’s official count. Then, when immigration for Italians was at its peak in between 1880 and 1914, over 250,000 Italians stepped into the city. By 1920, 391,000 foreign-born Italians inhabited the city, equaling more than the Irish and German combined. Unlike Jews, it was rare for Italian families to come all at once. Most of the time, men came alone with aspirations to make enough money to head back to their home in Italy, and by agricultural land. At some points, the number of Italians who returned to Italy was upwards of 50 percent. Other times, the men found solace in the growing city, and sought to make enough to migrate their families over into America.
The most well-known consolidation of Italians was of course Little Italy in Lower Manhattan. However, due the sharp rise in Italian population, there were several wards that consisted primarily of foreign-born Italians. Although most of them identified as such, it became clear that they normally stuck with what they knew – meaning they grouped with individuals from their specific region of Italy. For example, Greenwich Village was overflowing with Italians mainly from Northern Italy – cities like Genoa, Piedmont, and Tuscany. An author located 25 separate areas that were made up of 2,000 to 100,000 Italians each.
The location of these areas were crucial in the immigrants finding labor. One of the first Italian districts in Brooklyn was lined near the pier. In the beginning of this period, the padroni also assisted in where Italians were to settle, since they helped these immigrants find work. However, their practice of harshly working their clients and taking a portion of their salaries was outlawed by the turn of the century. Most found work in construction, on peers, and in garment factories. The fortunate ones found work doing municipal work, such as sanitation.
When it was time to head to home at the end of a work day, most found themselves in cruel living conditions. Abandoned by Germans and Irish, many tenements were falling apart and were infested with rodents. Italians utilized these quarters and stuffed them with their families. There were points, according to Jacob Riis, that families were forced to live in dark cellars and children had to live in the street. On top of that, these buildings usually had a foul smell and were not safe in general. Their neighbors in America began to believe Italians were plagued with bad lives and began associating them with criminal activity too. Especially the Sicilians, Italians were then looked at as people of the Mafia – creating “Black Hand” letters that forced business owners to pay dues in return for their protection. Negative public opinion climaxed when a police lieutenant investigating such activities was murdered. However, these thoughts quickly faded, and even some argued the value of having Italians as residents and workers. It even allowed for an Italian to be elected into the House of Representatives, which was unquestionably unrealistic before World War I.
The argument that persuaded people to believe Italians were hard-working led many of them to jobs in the garment industry, where they were met with a unionized struggle Jews were facing at the time. Surprisingly, many of the immigrants joined the union. Others became “scabs” – or people who took the position of workers who went on strike to scare them. Although Italian men, women, and children were all expected to work in a household, it was rare to find a woman who traveled from Europe by herself. Married women were depicted in these working environments, although children bound them to their homes, where they managed to continue working through an idea called “homework.” This idea prospered for struggling families, and even made it feasible for very young kids to work as well.
Although many would expect children to be in a school setting, there were several factors preventing that. For starters, they were needed to work simply because of the low economical standard that came with being an immigrant. The second is many Italians didn’t believe in the schooling system, in the sense that it wouldn’t benefit their children in the long run. And if they were to choose, most Italian families sent their sons, and only to public schools. Italians were predominantly Catholic. Regardless of the growing Italian-Catholic diocese which formed schools, the Italians could hardly afford it and didn’t feel comfortable with the Irish nuns. This was a result of the Irish believing Italians were false Catholics because they didn’t attend mass or followed prayer as often as they should.
However, there were some well-respected parishes. Our Lady of Pompeii, located in Greenwich Village, was led by Father Antonio Demo until the Great Depression. He was a well-known confidant and encouraged involvement within charity outside of those ran by strictly Catholics. With such parishes came the festa, which were celebrations focused on a particular religion event, usually that of a saint. With this growing likeness towards the Roman Catholics, Italians began to identify more just as Italians or Italian-Americans as World War I approached. It took a long time for many to detach themselves from ethnic influence, but overall, many began to feel half patriotic and half italiano.
