Italian Americans of Newark, Belleville, and Nutley

Italian Americans of Newark, Belleville, and Nutley PDF

Author: Sandra S. Lee

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 9780738557281

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Italians first settled in the Newark area in the 1880s. Italian Americans of Newark, Nutley, and Belleville shows these immigrants and their families from 1900 to the 1950s. The street peddler, the barber, the baker, the undertaker, the macaroni maker, the concert musician, and more are portrayed here in the grace and dignity of their work. Outings to the shore or Branch Brook Park balanced hard work and long hours. Family gatherings, weddings, first communions, and processions for the feasts of St. Gerard, St. Rocco, and St. Bartholomew were all a part of the life of the family and the vibrant Italian neighborhoods. More than 200 vintage photographs from family albums tell these stories.

Newark's Little Italy

Newark's Little Italy PDF

Author: Michael Immerso

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 1999-08

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 9780813527574

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Michael Immerso traces the history of the First Ward from the arrival of the first Italian in the 1870s until 1953 when the district was uprooted to make way for urban renewal. Richly illustrated with photographs culled from the albums and shoeboxes in the private collections of hundreds of former First Ward families from all across the United States, the book documents the evolution of the district from a small immigrant quarter into a complex Italian-American neighborhood that thrived during the first half of this century. Book jacket.

The Italian/American Experience

The Italian/American Experience PDF

Author: Louis J. Gesualdi

Publisher: University Press of America

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 107

ISBN-13: 0761858601

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The Italian/American Experience represents a meaningful attempt to inform Italian Americans about their group's varied experiences in America. This collection of eleven works offers readers an in-depth view of Italian American culture and heritage.

Italian Folk

Italian Folk PDF

Author: Joseph Sciorra

Publisher: Fordham Univ Press

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 0823232654

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Sunday dinners, basement kitchens, and backyard gardens are everyday cultural entities long associated with Italian Americans, yet the general perception of them remains superficial and stereotypical at best. For many people, these scenarios trigger ingrained assumptions about individuals' beliefs, politics, aesthetics, values, and behaviors that leave little room for nuance and elaboration. This collection of essays explores local knowledge and aesthetic practices, often marked as "folklore," as sources for creativity and meaning in Italian-American lives. As the contributors demonstrate, folklore provides contemporary scholars with occasions for observing and interpreting behaviors and objects as part of lived experiences. Its study provides new ways of understanding how individuals and groups reproduce and contest identities and ideologies through expressive means. Italian Folk offers an opportunity to reexamine and rethink what we know about Italian Americans. The contributors to this unique book discuss historic and contemporary cultural expressions and religious practices from various parts of the United States and Canada to examine how they operate at local, national, and transnational levels. The essays attest to people's ability and willingness to create and reproduce certain cultural modes that connect them to social entities such as the family, the neighborhood, and the amorphous and fleeting communities that emerge in large-scale festivals and now on the Internet. Italian Americans abandon, reproduce, and/or revive various cultural elements in relationship to ever-shifting political, economic, and social conditions. The results are dynamic, hybrid cultural forms such as valtaro accordion music, Sicilian oral poetry, a Columbus Day parade, and witchcraft (stregheria). By taking a closer look and an ethnographic approach to expressive behavior, we see that Italian-American identity is far from being a linear path of assimilation from Italian immigrant to American of Italian descent but is instead fraught with conflict, negotiation, and creative solutions. Together, these essays illustrate how folklore is evoked in the continual process of identity revaluation and reformation.

Libraries and the Reading Public in Twentieth-Century America

Libraries and the Reading Public in Twentieth-Century America PDF

Author: Christine Pawley

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres

Published: 2013-09-13

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 0299293238

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For well over one hundred years, libraries open to the public have played a crucial part in fostering in Americans the skills and habits of reading and writing, by routinely providing access to standard forms of print: informational genres such as newspapers, pamphlets, textbooks, and other reference books, and literary genres including poetry, plays, and novels. Public libraries continue to have an extraordinary impact; in the early twenty-first century, the American Library Association reports that there are more public library branches than McDonald's restaurants in the United States. Much has been written about libraries from professional and managerial points of view, but less so from the perspectives of those most intimately involved—patrons and librarians. Drawing on circulation records, patron reviews, and other archived materials, Libraries and the Reading Public in Twentieth-Century America underscores the evolving roles that libraries have played in the lives of American readers. Each essay in this collection examines a historical circumstance related to reading in libraries. The essays are organized in sections on methods of researching the history of reading in libraries; immigrants and localities; censorship issues; and the role of libraries in providing access to alternative, nonmainstream publications. The volume shows public libraries as living spaces where individuals and groups with diverse backgrounds, needs, and desires encountered and used a great variety of texts, images, and other media throughout the twentieth century.

America, the Dream of My Life

America, the Dream of My Life PDF

Author: David Steven Cohen

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9780813515151

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This selection is the first statewide collection of life histories from the Social-Ethnic Studies program of the Federal Writers's Project. They represent for ethnic history what the more famous Federal Writers' Project's Slave Narratives have meant for African-American history.

The Boston Italians

The Boston Italians PDF

Author: Stephen Puleo

Publisher: Beacon Press

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 9780807050361

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In this lively and engaging history, Stephen Puleo tells the story of the Boston Italians from their earliest years, when a largely illiterate and impoverished people in a strange land recreated the bonds of village and region in the cramped quarters of the North End: Sicilians lived next to Sicilians, Avellinesi among Avellinesi, and so on. Focusing on this first and crucial Italian enclave in Boston, Puleo describes the experience of Boston's Italian immigrants as they battled poverty, illiteracy, and prejudice (Italians were lynched more often than members of any other ethnic group except African Americans); explains their transformation into Italian Americans during the Depression and World War II; and chronicles their rich history in Boston up to the present day. He tells much of the story from the perspective of the Italian leaders who guided and fought for their people's progress, reacquainting readers with pivotal historical figures like James V. Donnaruma, founder of the key North End newspaper "La Gazetta" (now the English-language "Post Gazette"), and politician George A. Scigliano. The book's final section is devoted to interviews with today's influential Boston Italian Americans, including Thomas M. Menino, the city's first Italian American mayor. The story of the Boston Italians is among America's most important, vibrant, and colorful sagas, and necessary reading for anyone seeking to understand the heritage of this ethnic group.

The Italian American Heritage

The Italian American Heritage PDF

Author: Pellegrino A D'Acierno

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-12-12

Total Pages: 542

ISBN-13: 1000525554

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First published in 1999. The many available scholarly works on Italian-Americans are perhaps of little practical help to the undergraduate or high school student who needs background information when reading contemporary fiction with Italian characters, watching films that require a familiarity with Italian Americans, or looking at works of art that can be fully appreciated only if one understands Italian culture. This basic reference work for non-specialists and students offers quick insights and essential, easy-to-grasp information on Italian-American contributions to American art, music, literature, motion pictures and cultural life. This rich legacy is examined in a collection of original essays that include portrayals of Italian characters in the films of Francis Coppola, Italian American poetry, the art of Frank Stella, the music of Frank Zappa, a survey of Italian folk customs and an analysis of the evolution of Italian-American biography. Comprising 22 lengthy essays written specifically for this volume, the book identifies what is uniquely Italian in American life and examines how Italian customs, traditions, social mores and cultural antecedents have wrought their influence on the American character. Filled with insights, observations and ethnic facts and fictions, this volume should prove to be a valuable source of information for scholars, researchers and students interested in pinpointing and examining the cultural, intellectual and social influence of Italian immigrants and their successors.