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Italians
Contents
Little Italies > Earning a Living > End
of the Trans-Atlantic Migration
Italians
In 1860, there were only 1,400 Italians living in New York City,
mostly from Northern Italy. By 1920 there were nearly 400,000, mostly
from southern Italy. Emigration from southern Italy was basically
forbidden until Italy was unified in 1861. But it wasn't until the
1880s that a massive trans-Atlantic migration began between southern
Italy and the eastern seaboard of the United States.
Those who left were mostly artisans and peasants. Beginning in the
1870s, artisans faced fierce competition from imported manufactured
goods. Then in the 1880s, cheap imported grains reduced the profitability
of local farming. High taxes, land exhausted from centuries of use,
and government repression of peasant organizations all contributed
to the trans-Atlantic movement.
Furthermore, by the 1880s trans-Atlantic crossings were much easier
than they had been just a few decades before (though winter passage
was still unadvisable). Steamship passage from Naples to New York
cost about $15 in 1880 - relatively cheap for the time - and could
take as few as ten days.
Steamship passage was so cheap, in fact, that many Italians returned
to Italy, sometimes seasonally, sometimes for good. In fact, Italians
were the least likely of any immigrant group to stay in America.
A large portion of the Italian immigrants arriving in America were
young men looking for seasonal employment without any intention
of staying.
Little Italies
But many of them did stay, as the numbers above demonstrate, and
settled in New York City and the Lower East Side. Italians tended
to follow the Irish who had preceded them in both their residential
and occupational patterns. They first settled in neighborhoods
with some of the oldest housing stock in the city: the notorious
Five Points neighborhood between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges
(today's Chinatown) and the Fourteenth Ward west of the Bowery
(today's Little Italy). They then moved north into present-day
SoHo and Greenwich Village. Before long a sizeable Little Italy
sprouted uptown between 110th and 120th Streets, east of Fourth
Avenue. Eventually, East Harlem became the largest Little Italy
in all of New York. While Italians were never a majority on the
Lower East Side (always under 10 % of the population), their presence
grew steadily from the turn of the century through the 1930s.
(See Map 2)
Within their neighborhoods, Italians tended to settle next to
people from the same regions of Italy. Neapolitans tended to dominate
Mulberry Street, the Calabresi claimed Mott Street, and Sicilians
- who dominated the Italian immigration after 1900 - took over
Elizabeth Street. In fact, immigrants from individual Sicilian
towns tended to congregate together on different stretches of
Elizabeth Street.
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