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Although most Italian immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries settled in the nation’s large cities to meet the demands of industry, many others had a different experience, settling in rural areas to work in mines and quarries, build railroads and to farm. Each of these experiences were likely unique due to differences in time, industry and geographic location. However, the desire to find sustainable work and the desire to escape from a life of poverty were common. It’s likely that regardless of industry and location, many first-generation Italian immigrants shared similar backgrounds and some early American experiences.
Italian farm laborers are seen in a photograph from the early part of the 20th century in Hammonton, N.J. | PHOTO COURTESY HAMMONTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Today’s Italian Americans are far removed, in years, from ancestors who emigrated from Sicily and Italy. Though the experiences of the original immigrants have often been passed down verbally through family lore, in most cases several generations have passed. Over the years, it’s likely that details about immigrant life may have been diluted, altered or lost entirely. The following case study, written by a famous anthropologist in 1907, provides an objective view of what living conditions were like for early immigrants in a southern New Jersey farming community.
Emily Fogg Meade (mother of Margaret Meade) conducted a study on behalf of the U.S. Department of Labor, titled “The Italian on the Land: A Study in Immigration.” She had the opportunity to spend time with and write about a specific group of Italian immigrants, those that settled on the farms in Hammonton, New Jersey. In her report, she found the challenges of the recent immigrants: negative prejudicial attitudes from others, the difficulty of clearing the land and farming with the sandy soil, the increasing demand for fruits and vegetables, and the primitive life experiences of the Italian farmer and his family. She witnessed Italians in different stages of the assimilation process, depending on how long ago they had arrived. Some had arrived as many as 30 years prior, while others arrived more recently.
Meade began with a discussion of the living conditions that were experienced in Italy before immigration. Many of these farming families came from Gesso, a small mountain-top town in Sicily, about six miles from Messina. The tiny village was about a half-mile-by-quarter-mile in size. Gesso was densely covered by brick homes of three to four rooms. One of these rooms usually stabled a mule, chickens and pigs. Some residents ran small farms in an outlying district. The market for produce was weak, leaving farmers with meager returns. Those that worked for landowners were paid little and were further burdened with high taxes.
The report stated that their diet included polenta, macaroni, bread, cheese, vegetables, figs and fruit; little or no meat was eaten. Breakfast frequently consisted of dried bread and water with onions or cucumbers with water from the horse pail. Little cooking was done, sometimes on a furnace made from stones on the ground, covered with a piece of iron, using wood from surrounding forests as fuel. When a meal was cooked, all gathered around it and each person helped themself with a spoon or their fingers.
Upon immigration to Hammonton, many farmers and their families continued to experience poor living conditions, especially those that had arrived most recently, according to Meade’s article. For example, berry pickers were only provided with a section of a barn with hay for bedding and they slept on the floor. Over time, wooden bunks may have been added though overcrowding remained. There was no room for clothing and dried vegetables and bread were often hung from the rafters.
Clothing was coarse and cheap. Wooden sandals were often worn instead of shoes. Garments for the women included old and worn cotton skirts, aprons and bright colored handkerchiefs (worn on the head). Men too wore old worn clothing. In summer months, children always remained barefoot; sometimes, entirely naked.
Meade mentioned that those that had arrived most recently were seen as “unspeakably filthy” with no knowledge of the physical care of children, with homes overrun by dogs and chickens. Homes were usually tiny two-story dwellings with one room on each floor, or somewhat larger units often shared with other families. Frequently, brothers built a house that they shared with both of their families, until each of them was eventually able to earn enough to buy a house on their own. Furniture was meager and poorly arranged. Barrels, trunks and boxes were often used in place of bureaus and gave a cluttered appearance. Outside, the surroundings of homes were usually unattractive; the rear cluttered with little sheds built of odds and ends, lumber and piles of rubbish. There was no grass or flowers in the front of homes, instead this area was used for vegetable gardens or grape vineyards.
Despite the squalid experiences of the recent arrivals, those that were of the second generation at the time of the research were demonstrating the beginning of the assimilation process. Because Italians in Hammonton were less likely to be segregated into communities that were Italian-American only (Little Italies), contact with other Americans as well as exposure to the English language was more frequent. Italians bought at the same stores as others, often had Americans as neighbors, and Italian and American children sat side by side in classrooms.
The second-generation Italians that Meade experienced at the at the time of her study began to move away from farming and into other areas of work. Fortunately, in addition to the farms, Hammonton had two shoe factories, two cut-glass works, a planing mill, a woolen mill and a stocking factory. A brickyard in nearby Winslow also employed about 150 Italians. The Italians that were employed in these industries quickly became exposed to the American workplace and its customs.
Unlike their fellow immigrants in some large cities that were housed in unsanitary, ill-built and poorly ventilated tenement buildings, the Italians in Hammonton had the benefit of fresh country air. In a comparison of the height and weight of children in Hammonton to those in New York City, Meade found the children of Hammonton Italians to be taller and heavier than the children of New York City Italians.
The Italians who settled onto the Hammonton farms at the turn of the 20th century provided an excellent example of a people dedicated to working hard and striving to improve the quality of life for their families. A legacy of this early Italian immigrant experience is that about 35 percent of Hammonton’s population today remains, in whole or part, of Italian descent. This gives Hammonton one of the highest percentages of New Jersey cities in terms of the Italian-American population.
The source material for this article is a report published in May 1907 in the Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor. Joe Quartullo is a former data analyst with the U.S. Census Bureau. He can be contacted at joequartullo@gmail.com
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