Mulberry Street, New York City is a photo taken from the Library of Congress website. The photo was taken in the early 1900’s and although it appears to be staged as all the people in the picture are looking in the direction of the camera, it gives a glimpse into the lives of Italian immigrants during this period. As our textbook highlights, most immigrants tended to move to areas that were already established by people from their home countries and even towns. This picture is of the “Little Italy” section of New York City where immigrants from Southern Italy including my family who were Neapolitans, landed when they came to America. New York City was not the only part of the area though that had large Italian enclaves. The First Ward of Newark NJ was comprised of immigrants from a number of towns from the province of Campania, such as Teora, Caposele, Calabritto, and Monocalzati.1 There were also large Italian enclaves in Nutley NJ, and Brooklyn New York. In fact, in 1913 New York’s five boroughs had more than twenty-five individual Italian districts, ranging in size from 2,000 to 100,000 groups.2  Though Italians like other Southern and Eastern European immigration groups from countries like Russia, Poland and Greece were late to migrate to America, they made up for lost time between 1900 and 1930. In the period of 1900 to 1915 almost two million Italians came to New York, and by 1930 Italians represented 17% of the population of New York City.3  

Within the picture itself we several examples of the existence of Italian immigrants and culture at this time. Because of the overcrowded conditions within the home, most Italian socialization occurred on the street outside causing the streets to be massively crowded. In fact, one author said that “Mulberry Street, is a tortuous ravine of tall tenement-houses… so full of people that the throngs going and coming spread off the sidewalk nearly to the middle of the street… The crowds are in the street because much of the sidewalk and all the gutter is taken up with vendors’ stands” 4 This photo very accurately captures that. The many carts that are lined up along the street serving things like fruits and vegetables are since peddling fruits and vegetables were some of the most common occupations at the time. Because most of the immigrants were poor with little skills, and illiterate, the primary occupations were either laborers working for “Padrones” that found work for Italian immigrants in exchange for keeping a percentage of their wages working on such projects as the city’s subway systems or street cart workers.  

There also appears to be many more men in the picture than women. Initially, Italian men immigrated to America on their own and either made money and returned to Italy to purchase land there or went back to get their families after they were settled. Some single Italian men would often go back to Italy to marry and bring their new bride back to America to start a family here. There are few cases of single adult women living on their own at the time, although Italian women did work in the garment industry. Although Italian women were often relegated to managing the households while the husbands worked, according to Jennifer Guglielmo who authored a book on the subject Italian women might have appeared in the background, but they were central to early twentieth-century labor movements.5 

The dress of the men in the picture also seems unique. As I mentioned above, the primary occupation of many of the men at the time was unskilled labor, yet most of them have suits and hats on. This could indicate that the picture was taken on a Sunday when many of the Italians were attending church. The Immigrants from Italy at the time were primarily Catholic, and though most of the Catholic churches at the time were run by the Irish who had no love for the Italians, they founded their own churches and still held events and festivals in honor of the Patron Saints of the villages they came from like San Gennaro who is the Patron Saint of Naples.  

In all, I think the most important thing that this photo highlights are the confined and crowded conditions of these neighborhoods. Yet even though they are indeed crowded, we see people who to me are not sad or angry about their situation but are hopeful. They are hopeful of a better life in America.

1 Michael Immerso, 1999. Newark’s Little Italy: The Vanished First Ward. Rutgers University Press.

2 Frederick M. Binder, David M. Reimers, and Robert W. Snyder, 2019. All the Nations Under Heaven: Immigrants, Migrants, and the Making of New York.

3 Fiona F. 2023. “Italians of New York City.” Walks Tours Blog. June 27, 2023. https://www.takewalks.com/blog/italians-new-york-city#:~:text=Between%201900%20and%201914%2C%20almost,landless%20farmers)%20fleeing%20severe%20poverty.

4 Harlan Logan (1894). “The Bowery and Bohemia”. Scribner’s Magazine. p. 458.

5 Jennifer Guglielmo. 2010. Living the Revolution : Italian Women’s Resistance and Radicalism in New York City, 1880-1945. Gender and American Culture. University of North Carolina Press. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=cat00991a&AN=sth.ocn656841478&site=eds-live.