Period+9+Italian





===**Between 1880 and 1920 4 million Italians entered America during the period of large-scale emigration from Italy and the United States. Before the 1880s. Italians had been arriving in America in small numbers as far back as the seventeenth century. Italians began to arrive in 1610 with several craftsmen immigrating to Virginia. In the years preceding the Civil War, Italian immigrants arrived chiefly from the northern and economically more advanced areas of Genoa, Tuscany, Venetia, Lombardy, and Piedmont. Many were farmers from rich Piedmont and Liguria and were attracted to California, where they developed rich citrus and wine enterprises. In 1880, however, this began to change. Of the nearly four million Italians who entered America between 1880 and 1920, the vast majority emigrated from the poor agricultural regions of the South, the provinces of Abruzzo, Campania, Apulia, Basilicata (Lucania), Calabria, and the island of Sicily.**===



__**The Lower Hill Distric**t__ - this region is just outside downtown Pittsburgh and is the source of much of the more recent Italian development.
===__**East Liberty**__ - this neighborhood was originally settled by German immigrants, but by the mid 1900's it was Pittsburgh's most popular Little Italy. In this development, particularly around Larimer Avenue, Italian-owned businesses were prominent.===

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===Italian communities in Pittsburgh had a intellectual, political, and financial influence on the city's growth. Located in the Lower Hill District, pictured above, were the offices of numerous Italian businessmen, attorneys, and physicians. Additionally, the city's Italian newspaper //La Trinacria//, Italian banks, and steamship ticket agencies were all centered in Italian communities.===



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===In the early 1900's, Italians were the largest group of immigrants in the city. As the Italian community continued to grow, their influence in Pittsburgh's industry became more and more prominent.They become a large part of building trades, produce industry, and small-business.=== ===Evidence of Pittsburgh's Italian communities is present all throughout the city. Today, Italians are the second most populatous ethnic group in Pittsburgh numbering around 150,000. The strip district is lined with Italian food stores, bakeries, and coffee shops, and Bloomfield, still home to a large Italian community, is filled with Italian stores and businesses.===



**Italians also created automotive companies such as Lamborghini, Maserati, and Ferrari.**


===Italy during the 1900's was extremely overcrowded. Many Italians left Italy to escape from the low wages and high taxes they were experiencing in their homeland. However, most of the immigrants came from rural areas of Italy and had a low level of education. Of the 655,888 Italians that immigrated to the U.S. between 1890 and 1900, two-thirds were men. Most of these immigrants found only unskilled work in cities like Pittsburgh.===

===These Italians were willing to work long, hard hours and because of this, rivalries developed between ethnicities in urban and industrial areas where such work was needed. Nevertheless, Italians viewed the United States as an opportunity to start fresh and develop a new life.=== = = ===Most Italian immigrants were part of the working class and life was not easy on low wages, however as time progressed, Italians became more prominent in higher-level business and research. For instance, Italian-Americans had an influential role in the development of science. Such scientists included Enrico Fermi and Emilio Segre (pictured above), who were both involved in the creation of the atom bomb.===

===Nora Marks was a journalist for the Chicago Tribune in the late 1800's. She described the Italians immigrants saying, "The Italians seemed to feel among friends. They unburdened their simple thoughts and reveled in simple pleasure." Life wasn't always easy for Italians in United States, but for the most part, they viewed America and its cities as a potential and hopeful escape the economic troubles they were leaving behind in Italy.===