Overview
Italians in Chicago, 1880-1930: Study in Ethnic Mobility is a non-fiction book by Humbert S. Nelli, published by Oxford University Press in 1970. A part of the "Urban Life in America" collection, it is about the Italian American community of Chicago. Thomas Philpott of the University of Texas at Austin wrote that the book talked about how Italian Americans formed community even though they were dispersed in areas where their concentrations did not often exceed 50% of a community and they had moved from place to place. Edgar Litt of the University of Connecticut stated that the fact that this information is presented by historians instead of by political scientists was "The most significant aspect" of the work.
Constance Cronin of the University of Arizona stated that the book shows the culture of group and that it has "an intricate welter of superficial details", but not any theories explaining a how and why.
Background
Nelli made a PhD thesis on newspapers from the Italian American community. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1965. The book uses translations of portions of newspaper articles made for the Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey. Rudolph J. Vecoli of the University of Minnesota described the research collection as "impressive". Litt stated that the book's sourcing was "copiously documented".
Contents
The first chapter, "Rural Italy to Urban America," has information on the originating communities and the destination countries of the immigrants, as well as the initial reception to the immigrants from Americans. Chapter two is "Patterns of Settlement", which states that immigrant neighborhoods were temporary places until the immigrants gained enough money to move to more expensive neighborhoods. Cronin argues it is not a new finding, and that that the chapter is "by far the most interesting, useful, and, at the same time, irritating of all." Chapters one and two focus on periods until 1920. Chapter three is "Economic Activity". The chapter argues that employers of Italian immigrants had not largely taken advantage of them. The chapter has no statistics on union activity. Chapter four is "Ethnic Group Politics".
It describes politicians of Italian ancestry and their collaboration with those of Irish ancestry. Chapter five is "Italians and Crime". Cronin stated that some of the statements in the chapter were unsupported by statistics and "dubious and dangerous". Chapter six is "Community Institutions and Assimilation" and describes religious and media organizations and benevolent societies. Chapter seven is "Decade of Transition" talks about changes from the World War I era to the Great Depression. Cronin stated that there were "questionable conclusions and amazing detail about individuals and places." There are thirteen tables, nine maps, an index, and several back notes. There is no bibliography section.
Reception
Cronin wrote that the book's problem is that it focuses too much on "fine points of crime and politicians" and not on "the process of change."
See also
* Italians in Chicago
External links
* Italians in Chicago, 1880-1930; a study in ethnic mobility - Internet Archive