Silent presence : Italian-American women's experiences in the Mahoning Valley, 1880-1930

Abstract

This thesis, relating the vicissitudes and experiences of Italian immigrant women in the Mahoning Valley, between 1880 and 1930, aims at giving them their rightful place in the history of Italian emigration. The three chapters that compose this project put light on three significant stages of the history of Italian immigrant women in this area: their arrivals, their entrances into the job world and, eventually, their adaptations into a completely new society. Throughout the chapters other important features of Italian immigration to the United States emerge. For example, the analysis of two different typologies of emigration, temporary and permanent migration, provides many other aspects that deeply shaped and affected the entire process of transplantation from Italy to the New World. On the bases of local important sources, such as the articles in the Italian language newspaper, Il Cittadino Italo-Americano, oral histories, letters and the census data, from 1880 to 1930, I have reconstructed the everyday life of Italian women in the microcosm of the Mahoning Valley. Although the thesis has a strong local focus, it continuously offers comparisons between the steel town Youngstown and the big North American metropolises, such as New York and Chicago. These comparisons highlight not only how the United States affected Italians, especially women, but also how Italian women, belonging to the first as well as to the second generation of immigrants, molded the United States. The voices and the histories of women mentioned in the following chapters demonstrate that Italian women played a key-role in the project of emigration.