A Great Conspiracy against Our Race. Peter G. Vellon
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salary,” stipulating that speaking English was not necessary.62 The second page of the standard four-page format featured news from communities in and outside New York, where readers could find a “detailed report of the crimes, feste, arrests, and other prominent features of the local life.”63 Moreover, articles and notices detailing the numerous dinner dances, meetings, and religious feats sponsored by the many Italian immigrant societies also appeared on this page.64 This news kept Italians connected with kin or paesani who may have settled elsewhere, whether in East Harlem, Brooklyn, or even Chicago, and chipped away at regional identities in favor of a more national collective consciousness as Italians.
However, in addition to providing tangible services such as employment listings and announcements of neighborhood events, newspapers served as a construction site for multiple campaigns to manufacture, assert, and defend the Italian race. The first page of daily newspapers usually reserved three to four columns for news from Europe, specifically Italy, and the other half for news of the day from the United States. Amid negative American perceptions, dislocated Neapolitans, Calabrians, and Sicilians yearned for any news from Italy and were especially attentive to colonial ventures in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Ethiopia and Libya, as well as a series of natural disasters that ravaged parts of Italy. Prominenti such as Barsotti capitalized on these unfortunate events by initiating subscription drives to raise money for earthquake victims, as was the case in 1887, 1905, and 1908 when earthquakes ravaged different parts of the mainland and Sicily.65 In total, Il Progresso sponsored nineteen relief funds between the years 1886 and 1920.66 Seeking to enhance the newspaper’s, as well as their own, prestige within the community, editors published subscription lists—complete with donors’ names—prominently on the newspaper’s front page.
According to historian George Pozzetta, prominenti such as Barsotti were masters “at squeezing contributions for ‘worthy’ causes” and were quick to take “offense at any action that besmirched the Italian name.”67 However, although Barsotti’s actions appeared motivated by a desire to enhance his own status as prominenti par excellence rather than elevate the profile of Italian immigrants, in many ways he achieved both. Barsotti launched incredibly popular fund-raising drives in the paper and was largely responsible for the monuments dedicated to Verrazzano, Dante, Columbus, Garibaldi, and Verdi that were erected across New York City.
In addition, prominenti-defined national celebrations such as Columbus Day every October and the anniversary of the fall of Rome to the armies of united Italy on September 20 garnered frequent attention every year. Columbus, especially, served as an important symbol of an emerging Italian identity. Although the first Columbus Day parade can be traced back to 1792, the myth and imagery of Columbus would take on very different and specific meanings for the masses of Italian immigrants that arrived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.68 It was not surprising, then, that Carlo Barsotti spearheaded the effort in 1892 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas by organizing a subscription drive through his newspaper. Resulting in the construction of Columbus Circle on Fifty-Ninth Street and Eighth Avenue, this example of racial uplift publicized through Il Progresso helped nurture a maturing Italian identity among Italian immigrants.69
Moreover, newspapers such as Il Progresso remained unapologetic about defending Italians from accusations of inherent criminality, or expressing outrage over their victimization at the hands of lynch mobs. In 1891, for example, Barsotti raised more than $500 through his newspaper subscription drive for the defense fund of those Italians accused of murdering New Orleans police chief David Hennessey.70 Newspaper owners also championed causes perceived to be in the best interests of Italian immigrants and lobbied to have the Italian language taught in New York City public schools. According to Il Progresso, “Nine-tenths of the children of Italians born in America and those who arrived at a tender age without a teacher to teach them their language or their patriotic and religious traditions end up ignorant of the slightest knowledge of their country of origin.”71 Led by prominenti, Italian immigrants viewed the adoption of Italian into the New York City schools as a measure that validated their race and culture as worthy of American respect. In 1906, Il Progresso exclaimed that the introduction of Italian “was a great moral victory following years of struggle for the Italian community of New York,” reflecting not only the emerging prominence of Italians as an interest group but, more importantly, “the growing appreciation of the American public for our community.”72 Since the majority of southern Italian immigrants spoke only their own regional dialects rather than a standard Italian, the emphasis on the Italian language, and what it represented in this new and often hostile environment, helped forge a group identity that did not exist in Italy.
Historians have noted the importance of the Italian language press in facilitating an ideological shift among immigrants from a more provincial worldview as Neapolitans, Calabrians, and Sicilians to a collective identity as Italians.73 This transition has been described, often negatively, as one that postponed the assimilation of Italians into American society. With constant appeals to Italian nationalism and frequent displays of Italian pride, many have asserted that men such as Barsotti sought to keep immigrants isolated and dependent upon their own patronage as a means to maintain their power and control. Indeed, seeking to extend their influence and exposure as community leaders, former padrones, bankers, and lodging house owners perceived newspaper ownership as a powerful vehicle to accomplish these goals. To realize the full impact of Italian language newspapers, however, one must peer beyond the retrograde intentions and narcissistic impulses of Italian immigrant community leaders. And, although historians such as Rudolph Vecoli have wisely noted that Italian immigrants were not simply acted upon, but decided for themselves what was reality, to ignore the power of newspapers to shape or create the rubric of debate is untenable.
These men were so concerned with their influence and public image that internecine battles among newspaper owners, often fought within the pages of competing papers, spoke to the stakes at hand in enhancing one’s power and prestige within the colony.74 The rivalries became so heated that certain newspaper owners openly accused one another of fraud and embezzlement within the pages of major papers.75 In 1917, George La Piana sarcastically chided newspaper owners for the continual rancor that accompanied their publications. He noted how each owner proclaims the other “a bunch of thiefs [sic], that they escaped from an Italian prison which was the college where they received their education, that their sense of honor is below that of the animals, that their heads are empty boxes where can be written ‘nobody home’ and so on.”76 Some mainstream newspaper editors, such as Alberto Pecorini, lashed out at prominenti for intentionally failing to provide adequate information to foster Italian naturalization and adaptation. For Pecorini, prominenti simply preyed upon immigrants to advance their own power and prestige. Writing in the journal the Forum in 1911, he advised Italians to become American citizens and “take away the direction of their interests from the dealers in votes.” The debate reflected divergent strategies over how Italian immigrants should assimilate into American society. Pecorini believed Barsotti’s self-aggrandizing focus on the feats and accomplishments of the Italian race only served to strengthen prominenti influence within the community, further isolate immigrants in ethnic enclaves, and dangerously delay American acceptance of Italians. The New York Times agreed with Pecorini’s assessment and stressed, “We do not want foreigners in this country who are taught not to adopt American customs and ways, who do not come here for permanent settlement and citizenship.”77
Another way to measure the influence of prominenti-run newspapers within Italian colonies is to look at the vitriolic diatribes emanating from the Italian radical press. Socialists and anarchists dedicated considerable space in their publications to some of their most loathsome attacks against prominenti, who along with Catholic priests were defined as a two-headed oppressor intent on increasing their personal power at the expense of Italian immigrants. To radicals, Barsotti’s and Il Progresso’s message translated into antiworker, antiunion, and pro-capitalist. The frustration radicals demonstrated over working-class acquiescence, and in some ways deference to prominenti within the community, underscored the impact and influence