Italians in West Virginia

by Victor A. Basile, Judy Prozzillo Byers

Overview

Images of America: Italians in West Virginia offers a new understanding of how immigrant laborers and their communities shaped the state's regional history. Shortly after its secession from Virginia, West Virginia appointed an immigration officer to handle the wave of antebellum immigrant laborers entering the state to work in agriculture, forestry, railway construction, and the coal industries. In 1910, there were 13,286 Italians in West Virginia; in 1920, there were 14,167. This volume has over 200 photographs that have been collected from West Virginia archival collections and Italian families, illustrating aspects of the immigrant experience. The photographs highlight the regional origins of the Italians, their work, communities, leisure, ethnicity, family life, and religion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780738587509
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	09/05/2011
Series:	Images of America Series
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Victor A. Basile has served as the archivist of the American Italian Historical Association since 2004. On his retirement from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in 2001, he was named university librarian emeritus. Dr. Judy Prozzillo Byers is the Abelina Suarez Professor of English and Folklore and the director of the Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center at Fairmont State University. Both Basile and Byers have been honored as Italian Americans of the Year by the West Virginia Italian Heritage Festival. Images of America: Italians in West Virginia celebrates the rich regional history of West Virginia's ethnic neighborhoods, scattered coal towns, and cities.