Heart and Sole

JANUARY 4, 1887
On this day Great-grandfather Giovanni Battista born in Arnara, Frosinone, Italy.

He emigrated to Williamsport, PA in 1914 and found work as a fireman at the Keystone Glue Factory, a subsidiary of the United States Leather Company ... um, you do the math. Back then glue was manufactured just the way we remember from watching Saturday morning cartoons: with animal hides.

It sounds like a horrible job but like most immigrants he was probably grateful to have it.

FYI
Hunky: The Immigrant Experience
This book isn't about Italians, but I'm from Pittsburgh and I know Hunky.

What? You don't know what a Hunky is?

Merchants, Midwives, and Laboring Women: ITALIAN MIGRANTS IN URBAN AMERICA (Statue of Liberty Ellis Island)
Again, going off topic a bit, but not too much. My grandfather told me many people from Arnara migrated to the company town of Endicott, NY to work in the shoe factory. Turns out the factory was staffed with mostly women immigrants.

Centenario

One hundred years ago today my great-grandmother arrived at Ellis Island with her daughters Lucia, Carmena, and Maria Giuseppa. While her family back home in the Mediterranean celebrated festa dei sette pesci, the Christmas Eve feast of the seven fishes, Angelina's first glimpse of America was the icy air of New York Harbor. Despite traveling in the relatively luxurious second-class accommodations, it was probably not a very happy day for her. And she still had another 200 miles of travel to reach her destination of Muncy, PA, her waiting husband, and her new life. More on that later.

Ticket to Ride: October 30, 1911

The Immigrant Journey

The Feast of the Seven Fishes

Ticket to Ride

OCTOBER 30, 1911
Great-Grandmother Angelina purchased a ticket for a trip from Italy to America on the SS Madonna. The ticket was purchased in October but the ship didn't sail for another two months. The second class fare for Angelina and her three daughters was $115.33. The youngest girls, Carmena and Giuseppina ("Josephine"), occupied "half-spaces".

Did you catch that date? This receipt is 100 years old today! Stay tuned - the big blog-a-bration will be in a couple of months when the ship comes in.

PLAY ALONG AT HOME:
Immigrant Ships Trancribers Guild
Ship lists transcribed by volunteers

Ellis Island
Search passenger records online for free

Try Ancestry.com and get 14 Days FREE!
Search ship lists on Ancestry

Lady Liberty

OCTOBER 28, 1886
125 years ago today the Statue of Liberty was dedicated.

If you look closely at the bottom of this blurry picture, taken by an unknown relative, you can see the Statue in the background. At the bottom of the picture are choppy waves.

I love to read personal accounts and interviews of immigrants who passed through Ellis Island. My all-time favorite is Pauline Notkoff, a Polish Russian immigrant in 1917, who describes her experience in the Great Hall:

"They asked us questions. 'How much is two and one? How much is two and two?' But the next young girl, also from our city, went and they asked her, 'How do you wash stairs, from the top or from the bottom?' She says, 'I don't come to America to wash stairs.'" Atta girl.

Statue of Liberty 3D Puzzle Daron

Statue of Liberty National Monument

In Their Own Words: Reliving the Ellis Island Experience
by Juliana Smith

David P. Demarest Jr., 1931 - 2011

Farewell to David Demarest, retired CMU English professor and immigrant history super-hero. His name may not be immediately recognized, but his work certainly is:

Out Of This Furnace: A Novel of Immigrant Labor in America, by Thomas Bell
Written in 1941, Mr. Demarest rediscovered this novel in 1976 about 3 generations of an immigrant family who worked in the steel mills of Homestead.

The Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanko
Mr. Demarest's fundraising helped raise money for the restoration of Maxo Vanko's murals in St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church. The stunning murals, 22 in all, tell the Slovak immigrant story of religion and poverty. Think Sistine Chapel, but with mill hunkies.

Braddock Carnegie Library
He was instrumental in the rescue of Braddock Carnegie Library and then founder and editor of the Braddock Fields Historical Society newsletter.

Obituary, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

S.S. Presidente Wilson

OCTOBER 5, 1919
92 years ago today my grandfather arrived in America on the Presidente Wilson (passenger #21). But not until he put up a little bit of a stink about it.

As the story was told to me by my grandfather himself, he was just 5 when he and his mother left Arnara, Italy to join his father in Pennsylvania. And the little tyke just didn't want to go. He didn't want to leave his nonna or his little dog. He didn't want to travel to Roma and get on the big ship. According to him he was cranky and disagreeable for most of the trip, picking a fight with his mother as the ship passed through the Strait of Gibraltar. While his mother admired the Rock my grandfather tore the little cap from his head and threw it overboard.

Things went from bad to worse after the incident at Gibraltar. At some point, either during the journey or at Ellis Island, my grandfather was served oatmeal - for the first and last time.

Ask my grandfather anything about this voyage to his new home and he always managed to circle back to that frightening gray blob of oatmeal - very little about the sights he saw, absolutely nothing about meeting his father for the first time. It was always about the food.

Search Ship Lists on the Ellis Island site

Italian Americans: The Immigrant Experience
Leslie Caron Carola

Who Knew?

JULY 28, 1919
On this date my Great-Grandmother Lucia submitted a Declaration of Intent to Depart for the United States to the American Consulate in Rome.

This document is a big fat surprise for a few reasons:

1) I've been working on my family history for more than 20 years and have never even heard of a Declaration of Intent to Depart for the United States. The delight of discovering something completely unknown is gradually turning to irritation with the document which probably shouldn't be new to me at all. A real genealogist would know what this paper means. I used to love spending hours (days?) flipping through books and clicking through web sites to track down a piece of information ... now, not so much. I've recently taken up gardening.

As first glance it appears to be an application for a passport, but that's incorrect because according to the form Lucia applied for a passport on July 18, 1919. I'll report my findings on this form when I know something more.

2) Usually any document which originated in Italy requires a magnifying glass and Google Translator, but not now - this form is bi-lingual! Below each English question is the Italian translation. Very handy, but odd since Lucia and about 4 million other Italian-speaking cittadini completed this form in Italia. This should have been written in Italian in the first place.

3) I'm not sure why my family was in possession of this - shouldn't it be stuffed in a moldy government file somewhere? Why would my favorite uncle keep this document stuffed in a drawer for years and years without telling me? Is he new? Doesn't he know I need to know everything that happened 100 years ago ... er, now?

Introduction to Immigration Records
The National Archives site

Guide to Genealogical Research in the National Archives
U. S. National Archives and Records Service

Tracing Your Ancestors in the National Archives: The Website and Beyond
by Amanda Bevan

Fan Mail

Well, lookit at me - blogging for one week and already receiving fan mail. I received an email about the "X" markings next to each passenger on the detail of the San Giovanni passenger list. I assumed, based on the number of X's on this list that it was merely an action to note the passenger had embarked or disembarked the ship, but after a little snooping online it's becoming clearer that that the X was not merely a casual notation. Apparently markings varied by port and year of arrival and were used to signify the immigrant was temporarily detained, or held for a special hearing.

There is an "X" next to my great-grandfather's name on the San Giovanni passenger manifest. Well, I'll be darned. Looks like I have some more research to do! It's time to find out what the "X" means. Thanks for the email Karen D. - the link below leads to a great article which explains all of the scribbles found on passenger lists.

A Guide to Interpreting Passenger List Annotations
by Marian L. Smith, Historian, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service 

Late to the Party

MAY 25, 1909
On this day Great-Grandfather Raffaele arrives in America on the San Giovanni, one of 1,074 passengers. He traveled with quite a few "cittadini" from his hometown of Sannicandro di Bari, many with surnames from his family: Mossa, Chimienti, Sacchetti, and others. I assume they are relations of some sort but I can't claim them without confirmation.

You can see by the detail that Raffaele (passenger #27) was a 40 year old shoemaker when he arrived - much older than most of the passengers on the ship. More on that later.

Search for your ancestors on the Ellis Island site:
The handwriting on the records makes this a tough site to search - if at first you don't succeed try misspelling your ancestor's name.

Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s
Ancestry.com

Tune in tomorrow to learn what information you will find on a two page ship list.