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Italian American Contributions
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Italian American Contributions
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Throughout U.S. history, Italian Americans have made significant contributions as the fact sheets listed below reveal.
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ITALIAN AMERICAN DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
There are nearly
15 million
people who have identified themselves as
Italian American
in the 1990 U.S. census, the Population Division of the U.S. Census Bureau reports. The Census Bureau estimates, however, that
1 out of 10 Americans
has some Italian blood, bringing the total number of Americans of Italian descent to
26 million.
Italian Americans are the fifth largest ethnic group in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The four larger groups are: the Germans, Irish, English and African Americans.
The average Italian American still lives in the city in which he was raised, has attended at least one year of college and has an average family income of about $33,000 per year, according to a survey of the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago.
Italian Americans are evenly split among the three political parties: 35 percent Republican; 32 percent, Democrat; and 33 percent Independent, according to the NORC. No matter their political orientation, Italian Americans tend to support liberal social causes: 89 percent would vote for a woman president; 55 percent are pro-choice; and more than 60 percent think the government should spend more on health, education and the poor.
Italian Americans either make up 15 percent of the population or number more than 1 million in the following states:
California 1,500,000
Connecticut 650,000
Massachusetts 845,000
New Jersey 1,500,000
New York 2,900,000
Pennsylvania 1,400,000
Rhode Island 200,000
Italian Americans are also found in significant numbers in 15 other states, including Florida (800,000); Illinois (730,000), Ohio (640,000); Michigan (412,000); Texas (314,000) and Maryland (253,000).
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
From the beginning of U.S. history, Italians have supported American independence.
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Three Italian regiments,
totaling some 1,500 men, fought for American independence: the Third Piemonte, the 13th Du Perche, and the Royal Italian.
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Filippo Mazzei,
a Tuscan physician, fought alongside Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry during the American Revolution. Mazzei drew up a plan to capture the British in New York by cutting off their sea escape, and convinced France to help the American colonists financially and militarily in their struggle against British rule. He also inspired the Jeffersonian phrase: "All men are created equal" when he wrote "All men are by nature equally free and independent."
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Italian officers in the American Revolution include:
Captain Cosimo de Medici
of the North Carolina Light Dragoons;
Lieutenant James Bracco,
7th Maryland Regiment, killed at the Battle of White Plains;
Captain B. Tagliaferro,
second in command of the Second Virginia Regiment, a direct subaltern of General George Washington; 2nd Lieutenant Nicola Talliaferro of the 2nd Virginia Regiment; and
Colonel Richard Talliaferro,
who fell at the Battle of Guilford. Other Italian officers, most from Massachusetts, are on regimental rolls of the Continental Army.
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Major John Belli
was the Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army from 1792 to 1794. The first settler in Scioto County, Ohio, he lived there until his death in 1809.
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Three of the first five warships commissioned by the Continental Congress of the new American government, were named Christopher Columbus, John Cabot and Andrea Doria. Doria was a 16th century navy admiral from Genoa who was still fighting the Barbary pirates in his mid 80s.
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Francesco Vigo (1747-1836), is believed the first Italian to become an American citizen. A successful fur trader on the western frontier (today the mid-western states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio), Vigo served as a colonel, spy, and financier during the American Revolution. He died a pauper, but in 1876 the U.S. government gave his heirs about $50,000 to repay them for Vigo's financial support of the Revolutionary War. Along with George Rogers Clark, he helped settle the Northwest territory.
Prepared by: The National Italian American Foundation
The NIAF thanks military historian Rudy A. D'Angelo for his assistance with this fact sheet.
ITALIAN AMERICANS IN THE ARTS
Italian Americans have distinguished themselves in literature, the fine arts and classical music. This fact sheet represents only a small cross-section of their achievements.
LETTERS
Helen Barolini
is an award-winning novelist, critic, translator and essayist, and one of the first to write a novel about contemporary Italian American women
(Umbertina,1979).
John Ciardi,
poet and scholar, did the only English translation of Dante's
Divine Comedy
that reproduces the Italian poet's complex rhyme scheme. Ciardi was also a poet in his own right, authored some 60 books, taught at Harvard and Rutgers universities, hosted a weekly radio commentary on National Public Radio in the 1980's, and was the only American poet ever to have his own television program ("Accent," CBS, 1961-61). Ciardi was born in Boston in 1916, son of Italian immigrants, and died in 1986.
Don DeLillo, one of the most important contemporary American novelists, wrote
Americana, Great Jones Street, White Noise, Libra,
and
Underworld.
He was brought up in an Italian American neighborhood in the Bronx. His father came to the United States in 1916.
Pietro di Donato
wrote
Christ in Concrete
(1939), one of the few proletarian novels written by a blue collar worker. The son of an Italian immigrant and himself a bricklayer, he captured the life and death of his father, who was foreman of a construction crew of Italian immigrants.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
and
Gregory Corso
are two prominent poets of the 1950's Beat Generation, a small group of artists based in San Francisco and New York who were dissatisfied with conformity. Ferlinghetti began writing at age 16. After earning a doctorate in poetry he moved to San Francisco, where he founded the magazine "City Lights." Corso was born in New York City's Greenwich Village, started his writing career at at age 20, and published his first poem in 1955.
Barbara Grizzuti-Harrison,
one of the most well-known contemporary writers, is the author of
Italian Days,
considered a masterpiece of travel writing, thanks to her acute powers of observation and broad cultural knowledge. She has also written
The Islands of Italy, A History and a Memory of Jehovah's Witnesses,
and
The Astonishing World.
Jerre Mangione
(1909-1998) was one of the most celebrated early Italian American writers. His first book,
Mount Allegro,
(1943) and his later
An Ethnic At Large
(1978), explore the evolution of Mangione's identity from child of Sicilian immigrants to an American. His last book,
La Storia,
which he co-authored with Ben Morreale, is a monumental five-century social history of the Italians in America.
Ed McBain
(b.1926), author of
The Black Board Jungle,
and inventor of the police procedural novel, has written 94 novels with 100 million copies in print inmany languages. He was born
Salvatore Albert Lombino
and grew up in New York's East Harlem and North Bronx. Early in his career, publishers warned him that "Lombino" was too hard to pronounce and might hurt sales. He uses several pen names, the most familiar being "McBain" for his detective stories and "Evan Hunter" for his more literary works.
Gay Talese
(b.1932) is a prolific writer and one of the founders of the 1960's "New Journalism," which incorporates fictional elements (dialogue, scene description, and shifting points of view) into news writing. Talese was a reporter for
The New York Times
between 1956 and 1965, writing about sports and politics.
Among his many best-sellers is
The Kingdom and the Power,
a critical history of
The New York Times
Honor Thy Father,
the story of crime boss Joe Bonanno and his son, Bill;
Thy Neighbor's Wife,
which examines America's changing sexual mores; and
"Unto the Sons,"
a largely autobiographical book about his Italian heritage.
Frances Winwar
(1900-1985) was a novelist, translator, and biographer of poets, statesmen, and heros, including Joan of Arc and Napoleon. Born Francesca Vinciguerra in Sicily, she came here in 1907 and later Anglicized her name on the advice of her editor.
ART
Enrico Causici, Antonio Capellano and Luigi Persico
were sculptors who worked on the early phase of the building and decoration of the U.S. Capitol in 1805. They were the first to introduce American mythology into their sculptures.
Costantino Brumidi,
(1805-1880) who emigrated to the United States in 1852, is the "Michelangelo" of the U.S. Capitol. Among his many achievements is the painting of the huge Capitol interior dome as well as the decoration of the President's Room, where Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Brumidi started his career in Rome where he became known for restoration of classic works. In 1855 he began working on the Capitol dome and dedicated the rest of his life to embellishing the Capitol.
Giorgio Cavallon
(1904-1989) was one of America's first abstract-expressionists. His works won him election to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and are part of permanent collections of major museums of modern art.
Robert De Niro
(1922-1993) has paintings in the Metropolitan and Brooklyn Museums and other major institutions. Admired for the unusual "physicality" of his painting, he is the father of the famous film actor who bears his name.
Ralph Fasanella
(1914-1997) was known for his "primitive" paintings of working class life and ethnic neighborhoods, especially that of his native Bronx in New York City. A self-taught painter, his best known works are
"The Supper" and
"The Great Strike - Lawrence 1912."
Attilio Piccirilli
and his five brothers carved the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC along with the famous lions guarding New York's Public Library, statues in Rockefeller Center, and many other works. The studio that he and his brothers established in New York in 1889 became the largest sculpture studio in the country.
John Rapetti
(1862-1936), worked in Paris with Frederic Bertholdi on the Statue of Liberty and his name in engraved in the crown as one of its creators.
Frank Stella,
born in 1936, achieved fame as a painter and sculptor in the 1960's. His art evolved through several stages and his works range from minimalist paintings to abstract expressionism. His paintings hang in America's most prestigious museums, including New York's Museum of Modern Art, Chicago's Art Institute, and San Francisco's Museum as well as in museums in Europe. Born in Malden, Massachusetts, the son of a Sicilian American physician, Stella attended Phillips Academy and Princeton University.
CLASSICAL MUSIC AND OPERA
Dominick Argento
was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1975 for his song cycles "From the Diary of Virginia Woolf." Argento is among the most frequently performed 20th century composers of opera. His most famous works include "Postcard from Morocco", "Casanova's Homecoming" and "The Dream of Valentino." He has held various teaching position at universities nationwide.
John Corigliano
is the composer of "The Ghosts of Versailles," which had its premiere in 1991 and was the first new work commissioned by the New York Metropolitan Opera in more than 25 years. His compositions have won Grammy Awards and have been performed by the most famous orchestras worldwide. His works also include "A Dylan Thomas Trilogy" and "Sonata for Violin and Piano", which brought him his first fame in 1963.
David Del Tredici,
renown contemporary composer and Pulitzer Prize winner, was born in 1937 in California. He based a series of works on "Alice in Wonderland" and is recognized for his compositions for large orchestras. His works include "Pop-Pourri", "An Alice Symphony", "Child Alice" and "In Memory of a Summer Day", for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1980.
Gian Carlo Menotti
is the first composer to write American operas that have become part of the international repertory. Among his most famous works are "The Consul" (1950); "The Medium" and "The Telephone" (1947), "Amahl and the Night Visitors" (1951) and "The Saint of Bleeker Street" (1955), an opera set in a modern Little Italy. His operas "The Consul" and "The Saint of Bleeker Street" won him Pulitzer Prizes. "Amahl" was the first opera ever televised while "The Consul," "The Medium" and "The Telephone" were produced on Broadway. Menotti also founded the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto (1958) and its American counterpart in Charleston (1977) which celebrate western music. Though he was born in Italy in 1911, he came to the U.S. when he was only 17 and has made his career here.
ITALIAN AMERICANS IN BASEBALL
Legendary Italian Americans have set records in America's favorite sport.
- Known as "The Yankee Clipper," Joseph Paul DiMaggio, the son of Sicilian immigrants in California, had a 56-game hitting streak in 1941 which still stands as the longest in baseball history. He retired with a .325 lifetime batting average, 361 home runs, and 1,537 runs batted in, and was voted American League Most Valuable Player three times (1939, 1941 and 1947) during the 13 seasons he played for the New York Yankees. In 1936, the defensive center fielder won a position on the Yankees team. In 1950, Joe DiMaggio was voted the "Greatest Living Player" of baseball and in 1955, only four years after his retirement, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He died March 8, 1999 at age 84.
- Yogi Berra, born Lawrence Peter Berra in Saint Louis, Missouri, played
for 14 pennant-winning and 10 World Series winning clubs-- a record no other player has
matched. One of baseball's greatest catchers, he was voted American League Most Valuable
Player three times (1951, 1954 and 1959). Berra joined the New York Yankees in 1946 and
played with the team for 17 years, then managed the Yankees and the New York Mets. In
1964, he led the Yankees to the American pennant, becoming the first Italian American
manager to win a league championship. Childhood friends gave him his famous nickname
because he used to sit with his legs crossed like a Buddha in the dugout. During his
career, Berra had a .285 lifetime batting average and hit 358 home runs. His malaprop
sayings are part of popular culture and include: "It ain't over till it's over"
and "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.
- Known as "the Scooter" for his agility as a shortstop, Phil
Rizzuto played for the Yankees from 1941 to 1954, less two years in the Navy
during World War II (1943-45). A key member of ten Yankee pennant-winning teams and nine
World Series classics, he had 200 hits in 1950, a Yankee club record for shortstops, which
helped earn him selection as the American League's most valuable player that year. After
retiring, he became a sports announcer and was known as "the voice of the Yankees.
- Roy Campanella, a catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers, played in five
World Series. He was named Most Valuable Player in 1951, 1953 and 1955. He caught 1,215
games in his 10 seasons and had a lifetime batting average of .276. His career ended
tragically when he was left paralyzed from a car crash.
- Vic Raschi, born March 28, 1919, pitched for the New York Yankees on
five straight World Series champion teams from 1949 to 1953, winning 21 games three years
in a row. Nicknamed "the Springfield Rifle" for his powerful arm, the
West Springfield, Massachusetts native had a 132-66 lifetime record with 26 shutouts.
- The first Italian American to manage a major league baseball team was Phil
Cavarretta, a former player who managed the Chicago Cubs from 1951 to 1954.
Cavarretta's appointment came four years after the late Jackie Robinson became the first
African American player in the major leagues.
- Baseball's ambassador Tommy Lasorda in 1999 celebrated 50 years with
the Dodgers as a player, scout, coach manager, and vice president. He holds the second
longest tenure in baseball history with the same team. He led the Dodgers to a World
Championship in 1981, three National League titles and five division titles. "Mr.
Baseball" was named Manager of the Year four times, and managed in three World
Series and three All-Star games.
- Billy Martin, born Alfred Manuel Pesano, became the first Italian
American manager to win a World Series when he led the New York Yankees to victory in
1977. Four other Italian Americans managers have led their teams to World Series
victories: Tommy Lasorda led the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1981 and 1988, Joe
Altobelli of the Baltimore Orioles in 1983, Tony LaRussa of the
Oakland Athletics in 1989, and Joe Torre of the New York Yankees in 1996
and 1998.
- Buttercup Dickerson, born Lewis Pessano in Tyaskin, Maryland in 1858,
was the first Italian American player in the major leagues. His first game was July 15,
1878 when he was the starting outfielder for Cincinnati. Batting left and throwing right,
he played for seven years and finished his career playing for Buffalo. His lifetime
batting average was 284. He died on July 23, 1920.
ITALIAN AMERICAN BUSINESS LEADERS AND ENTREPRENEURS
Italian Americans have developed some of America's largest industries and corporations.
- The Bank of America, the largest bank in the country, was established in 1904 by Amadeo
Pietro ("A.P.") Giannini (1870-1949) in San Francisco. In 1919,
he innovated the system of branch banking. Originally called the Bank of Italy, it changed
names in 1928 and, in 1998 merged with NationsBank Corp. Giannini financed the
Golden Gate Bridge, and the fledgling film industry, including Cecil B. DeMille's
"Ten Commandments," and Disney's "Snow White," as well as California's
aerospace and agricultural industries.
- The first Italian American millionaire was Generoso Pope, who came to
America from Benevento in 1904. He began as a railroad laborer, later worked for a small
construction firm, the Colonial Sand and Stone Company, which he bought out in 1925 and
made into the largest supplier of building materials in the country. In 19298, he bought Il Progresso Italo Americano, the first Italian-language daily newspaper in the U.S.,
founded in 1880. Pope's son, Fortunato, became its publisher. His other son, Generoso, Jr.
was the publisher of the National Enquirer, and one of Forbes' 400 wealthiest
Americans.
- Two Italian Americans developed the American shopping mall. William Cafaro
began building and operating neighborhood shopping centers in the 1940s. When he died at
age 84 in 1998, he was one of the richest men in America, leaving behind $800 million. Edward
J. DeBartolo, Sr. began as a construction worker and ended with the largest real
estate and development company in the nation. During the 1960s, DeBartolo Corporation
began to develop shopping malls and suburban office parks.
- The owner of the world's largest distributer of English-language comic books is
Baltimore's Steve Geppi, who dropped out of high school to support his
family. Today, Geppi's Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. delivers 1,300 of the 1,600 comic
book titles, and has a 52 percent market share of this $500 million industry. Geppi is
also a minority owner of the Baltimore Orioles and the publisher of Baltimore magazine.
- The founders of both Blimpie and Subway Sandwich chains are Italian American. There are
now over 2,000 Blimpies in the U.S. and 13 foreign countries with a net worth of $38
million, thanks to Anthony Conza, who founded the first Blimpie in New
Jersey in 1975. Fred De Luca borrowed $1,000 at age 17 to start his first
sandwich shop. Today, he counts 13,136 Subways in 64 countries and is worth $3 billion.
- Mr. Peanut and the Planters Peanut Company were created by Italian immigrants Amedeo
Obici and Mario Peruzzi in 1887 in Pennsylvania. By 1930, the partners had four
huge factories, and raked in over $12 million annually. Obici was called "The
Peanut King".
- Italian Americans are at the helm of the U.S. book industry. Leonard Riggio
is the founder and CEO of Barnes & Noble, the largest book store in the nation while
Borders, the second largest book store chain in the U.S., is chaired by Robert
DiRomualdo.
- Chef Boyardee, the man behind the nation's leading brand of ready-to-eat spaghetti
dinners, pizza, sauce and pasta, was Ettore Boiardi, an Italian
immigrant, who began as a chef's apprentice at age 11, eventually opened a restaurant in
Cleveland, Ohio and in the 1930s, began selling his pasta and sauce in cans. During World
War II, Chef Boyardee was the largest supplier of rations for the U.S. and Allied Forces.
- When Prohibition was lifted in 1933, brothers Ernest and Julio Gallo
took their entire savings of about $5,000, and began producing wine from the vineyards
their father had owned in California. They made a profit of $34,000 in their first year of
business and helped launch California's wine industry. Today more than 100 wineries in the
U.S. are owned by Italian Americans.
- The popular Radio Flyer red wagon was created by Antonio Pasin, an
immigrant Italian carpenter in 1917. Today, his three grandsons run the Chicago-based
Radio Flyer Inc. whose 100 employees manufacture about 8,000 wagons a day.
- Mr. Coffee, the best-selling coffee maker in the world, was invented by Vince
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