Italian American Historical Society

21/06/2024

An Italian fruit vendor calls out to the photographer in this 1914 snapshot of the Eastern Market, in Detroit's Little Italy.

20/06/2024

Spain 1 Italia 0 - EURO 2024
Despite a stellar effort by Italian goaltender Gianluigi Donnarumma, Riccardo Calafiori's "own goal" handed Spain the group stage match victory on Thursday. Spain will move on the the knock out stage while Italy will play their final group match against Croatia on Monday, June 24th. A win or a tie will advance Italy to the knock out stage (Round of 16). Avanti!!

18/06/2024

Angelina the Horse; Endicott, NY. In 1911, Giuseppe and Filomena Battaglini opened the Savoia Bakery, now known as the Battaglini Bakery, on Oak Hill Ave. In the old days, their bread was delivered by horse drawn wagon. Sometimes, while the driver was making deliveries, Angelina would wander off without him. There was never the need to worry too much though, as the carefree Angelina could always be found waiting for him at the next stop on their route.

17/06/2024

17/06/2024

Preparing for the St Anthony Feast on Hanover St. Boston's North End, 1930

16/06/2024

Happy Father's Day!

16/06/2024

The beauty and elegance of early 20th-century Italian coins.

16/06/2024

Home Run Inn Pizza, in Chicago, is one of those great Italian American success stories... The original Home Run Inn, seen in the photo, was founded as a tavern on the South Side in 1923, by Mary and Vincent Grittani. It earned its name when a baseball, crushed for a home run by a kid at the neighborhood sandlot, smashed through one of the tavern’s windows. In 1947, Mary and her son-in-law, Nick Perrino, started making pizza after he'd returned from WWII. Today, they have 9 locations and a full line of frozen pizzas found at retail grocers.

15/06/2024

Forza Azzurri... Italia 2 Albania 1
With Saturday's victory in the Euro 2024 group stage, defending champion Italia will next take on Spain in another group stage match, in Gelsenkirchen, Germany on Thursday, June 20th. Pictured: Gianluca Scamacca, striker.

14/06/2024

A little boy dressed as a Bersaglieri awaits the ferry from Ellis Island to Lower Manhattan’s Battery Park, 1910

13/06/2024

Sons of Italy Bocce Team
Perryopolis, PA., 1946

12/06/2024

80% of Italian Americans can trace their ancestors' entry into the United States to "The Great Arrival"... The Italian immigration wave of 1880 to 1924. Photo: Newly arrived Siciliani - Ellis Island, 1906

10/06/2024

So, they asked the Italians, "Can you build us an elevator?" Italian Liberty Art Nouveau Steam Powered Elevator, made in Torino, Italy, in 1880. Located at the Royal House of the Guard Captain, St Petersburg, Russia.

09/06/2024

Carlo Tresca was an Italian social activist who emigrated to the U.S. in 1904. A newspaper editor and labor organizer from the 1910s through the 30s, he's remembered mostly as an outspoken public opponent of fascism and mafia infiltration of the trade union movement. Because of this, Tresca was assassinated in 1943, shot in the head at close range as he left his New York office. It’s widely believed that the hit was ordered by Vito Genovese, as a favor to Benito Mussolini, and carried out by future boss, Vincent Galante. While there is much to his story, we found a quote that sums up his life quite well.

Dorothy Gallagher writes in the preface of her book entitled, All the Right Enemies – The Life and Murder of Carlo Tresca… “To thousands of Italian immigrants Tresca was a hero; to the FBI he was 'notorious'; to a number of American intellectuals and labor leaders he was a counsel; to American and Italian fascists, a serious adversary; to the Communist party of the 1930's a renegade and Trotskyite; to rival anarchists, a spy and traitor; to his friends a joy; to women, overpoweringly attractive; to the man who killed him, little more than a contract." Carlo Tresca (1879-1943)

09/06/2024

Italian migrants board a steamship bound for Naples, Italy. Providence, Rhode Island, .ca 1910

08/06/2024

Uncle Sal Wants You to Learn About Your Heritage!

08/06/2024

It's Saturday morning on Mulberry Street, in New York’s Little Italy. The Kingdom of Italy flag is flying, the shops are all open, and the vendors have lined their carts up for market. The newsstand’s got a customer and the shoeshine boy’s hard at work. Above, tenants have already started hanging their freshly washed laundry out to dry. Photo: 1900

07/06/2024

Price, Utah, 1920: Pensione Italiana was an Italian immigrant boarding house owned and operated by Giuseppe & Giuseppina Bonacci, who came to America from Catanzaro, in the Calabria region of Italy. Giuseppe's brother, Frank Bonacci, was a leader in Utah's union movement, and in 1936, became the first Italian American elected to the Utah House of Representatives.

07/06/2024

Your Team Italia for Euro 2024. Under new coach, Luciano Spalletti, Italy begins defense of their 2020 UEFA Euro championship on Saturday, June 15th, as they take on Albania, in Dortmund, Germany. Forza Azzurri!

06/06/2024

A nun plays with a group of orphaned girls amid the bombed out ruins of the 1400 year-old, and since rebuilt, Benedictine hilltop abbey and orphanage in Monte Cassino, Italy, 1948. To learn more about this historically significant story, please see our photo album entitled, The Bombing of Monte Cassino.

06/06/2024

Pittsburgh, PA: Born in 1894, Giovanni Crisanti came to America in 1908. A teenage orphan from Termini Imerese, Sicily, he’d been sent to live with his paternal uncles. Before long, he began working as a fruit peddler in the Pittsburgh's Mount Oliver and Mount Washington neighborhoods. In 1926, he married Providenza Crisanti (born Aglieri Rinella). The couple moved to Sicily in 1931, but returned to Pittsburgh two years later.

In 1933, Giovanni started the Crisanti Produce Company. He and Providenza had three children and remained in Pittsburgh for the rest of their lives. Giovanni passed away in 1986, at the age of ninety-one. Providenza Crisanti passed away in 1998, at the age of ninety-four. It's rather remarkable for the times that both should live into their 90s, and their story is yet another example of Italian immigrants making the American dream come true. Photo: ca. 1915

05/06/2024

This iconic ad featured among its real-life cast, Anthony Martignetti, and was filmed on Labor Day weekend in Boston, MA, in 1969. The spot ran nationally for about 13 years, winning a Clio Award for advertising. We’ve placed a secured YouTube link to the ad in the comments below.

04/06/2024

Allegorical Italian symbolism: The planes are all flying away, and the ground troops are leaving. The war is over and three women unite. The woman in white (color of victory), with her crown and crest, represents the Kingdom of Italy. The woman in red bares the coat of arms of the city of Trieste in her headdress and on her dress. The woman in green bares the coat of arms of the city of Trento in the same fashion. Together, they represent the colors of the flag and a more unified Italy.

Trieste and Trento were returned to Italy after defeating the Austro-Hungarian Empire, marking the end of Italy’s involvement in WWI. This is often referred to as Italy’s final step in full unification. “Finally”, by Leopoldo Metlicovitz, 1918.

03/06/2024

In 1913, Giuseppe Azzaro and his younger brother Virgil, recent immigrants from Genoa, Italy, opened the San Francisco Floral Company in Fresno, CA. Still in business today, they list themselves as third-generation, family owned. Bravissimo... A flowery outcome.

02/06/2024

From 1880 to 1900, the earliest days of Italian immigrants arriving in what would become New York City's Little Italy, as the Germans and Irish were moving out, parts of Mulberry Street were quite dangerous for Italians. If any were to wander too far down Mulberry St, past Mulberry Bend, they’d find themselves approaching the bottle alley at 59 1/2 Mulberry. Known as Bandits’ Roost, it was located less than two city blocks from the notorious Five Points district of Manhattan. Five Points was first made famous first by Charles Dickens in 1842, after he visited New York, and again by Martin Scorsese in the 2002 motion picture, Gangs of New York.

Violent Irish American street gang members occupied either side of the alley, with some having roots in the legendary and dreaded Dead Rabbits gang. In 1895, all Mulberry Street tenants south of Bayard St were ordered to vacate. By 1900, the very worst of the tenement buildings at Mulberry Bend were demolished by the city of New York, along with all of Five Points. The exact location and alignment of the alley is now the southern entrance to Columbus Park, on Mulberry St. Photo: Jacob Ries, 1888

Note: Some historical accounts have Mother Cabrini helping Italian immigrants in Five Points, including the recent biopic, but she worked in the Mulberry Bend district, which was bad enough. Hers is not the only historical accounting in which the two districts are conflated. As if her story needed embellishment.

02/06/2024

Italian laborers laying trolley tracks on Maple St, in Springfield, MA, .ca 1900. Source: Springfield Technical College History Deptartment. This photo from our old files was recently misidentified as being taken in Louisiana and shared widely elsewhere on Facebook.