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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. STRANGERS IN A MIDDLE LAND: ITALIAN IMMIGRANTS
AND RACE RELATIONS IN BALTIMORE, 1890-1920
by
Gordon H. Shufelt
submitted to the
Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences
of American University
in Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for the Degree
of Doctor of Philosophy
in
History
Chair: Professor AlqiTm
Professor PetarJ.
>^an of the College ?o 1998
American University g
Washington, D.C. 20016 THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 9825807
Copyright 1998 by Shufelt, Gordon H. All rights reserved.
UMI Microform 9825807 Copyright 1998, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. © COPYRIGHT
by
Gordon H. Shufelt
1998
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To Susan
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. STRANGERS IN A MIDDLE LAND: ITALIAN IMMIGRANTS AND RACE RELATIONS IN BALTIMORE, 1890-1920
BY
Gordon H. Shufelt
ABSTRACT
This dissertation examines relations between African-Americans and Italian
immigrants during the early development of the Italian-immigrant community in
Baltimore. The first part includes a summary of the social, political, and economic
circumstances in which interactions between African-Americans and Italian immigrants
occurred at the end of the nineteenth century. The second part traces the development of
relations between these two groups as the people of Baltimore lived through a series of
crises, including a major fire in the central business district, two attempts to disfranchise
African-Americans, and a series of ordinances intended to exclude African-Americans
from living in predominantly white neighborhoods.
The crises that occurred in the early twentieth century presented bases for
cooperation as well as conflict between African-Americans and Italian immigrants. Both
groups faced difficulties as a result of lost jobs following the fire. In the disfranchisement
campaigns of 1905 and 1909, African-Americans and Italian immigrants faced similar
political concerns, as the disfranchisement plans jeopardized the voting rights of all
ii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. persons not descended from a person who had been eligible to vote in 1869—a category
that included recent immigrants as well as African-Americans. Housing segregation
ordinances directed against African-Americans raised the possibility that similar
ordinances might be used against immigrants. On the other hand, African-Americans and
Italian immigrants had similar employment skills and competed for jobs and housing.
Despite the potential for both cooperation and conflict, Italian immigrants in
Baltimore developed attitudes about race relations that discouraged cooperation with
African-Americans, even in circumstances in which African Americans and Italian
immigrants had common interests. The cultural adjustment o f Italian immigrants to a
racially and ethnically diverse society in Baltimore was the product of interactions with
not only African-Americans, but also Baltimore’s many other ethnic communities.
Through these interactions, Italian immigrants learned that, in America, African-
Americans were defined as permanent outsiders, and for newcomers, such as Italian
immigrants, it was important to separate themselves African-Americans.
iii
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ABSTRACT...... ii
LIST OF TABLES...... v
Chapter
1. INTRODUCTION...... 1
2. RACE AND ETHNICITY IN A MIDDLE LAND...... 27
3. THE DEVELOPMENT OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN AND ITALIAN- IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES IN BALTIMORE...... 50
4. TWO COMMUNITIES AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY...... 82
5. 1904: THE GREAT FIRE ...... 127
6. 1905: THE FIRST DISFRANCHISEMENT CAMPAIGN ...... 150
7. 1909: THE SECOND DISFRANCHISEMENT CAMPAIGN...... 184
8. 1910-1913: HOUSING SEGREGATION ORDINANCES...... 210
9. CONCLUSION...... 233
SOURCES CONSULTED...... 245
iv
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Table Page
1. Distribution of Aid by the Citizens’ Relief Committee...... 138
2. Vote Against Disfranchisement in 1905 andl909 ...... 207
v
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Among the thousands of travelers who arrived in Baltimore in the nineteenth
century were two nine-year-old boys, Frederick Douglas and Augustine Palmisano.
Douglas was bom into slavery on an isolated plantation near Easton, in Talbot County, on
Maryland's Eastern Shore, where he lived until his master shipped him to Baltimore to
work as an errand boy. On a Sunday morning in 1826, following a day's sailing on the
Chesapeake Bay, Douglas first saw the city from the deck of his master’s sloop, the Sally
Lloyd.1 Palmisano's voyage to Baltimore was far longer; he was bom in Sicily, then
emigrated to Baltimore in the 1880s with his parents, Cosimo and Anna Marie, and his
younger brother, Vincent2
1 Frederick Douglas, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, with an Introduction by Rayford W. Logan (London: Collier-Macmillan Ltd., 1962), 27 and 74-75; Barbara J. Fields, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland during the Nineteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 40.
2 U.S. Manuscript Census 1900, Maryland, microfilm roll 609, Enumeration District 52; U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll 553, Enumeration District 28; Distinguished Men of Baltimore (Baltimore: Baltimore American, 1914), 84; "Augustine Palmisano," Dielman-Hayward Files, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore; Ira A. Glazier and P. William Filby, eds., Italians to America: Lists of Passengers Arriving at U.S. Ports. 1880-1899. 3 vols. (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1992), 2:433.
1
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Frederick Douglas, as a slave boy, and Augustine Palmisano, as an immigrant
boy, both arrived in Baltimore as strangers in a new land. Nonetheless, each found in
Baltimore much that served him well inmanhood. Removed from the isolation of
Maryland's rural Eastern Shore, Douglas came into contact with a wider world in which
he discovered the "direct pathway horn slavery to freedom."3 He seized the opportunity
to acquire literacy, thereby gaining access to the knowledge he used to escape from
slavery and become famous as an anti-slavery advocate, writer, publisher, adviser to
President Lincoln, and Consul General to the Republic of Haiti. Palmisano's fame and
national stature were not comparable to Douglas's, but he too mastered written English,
and thereby gained access to the scientific knowledge he used to become a pioneering
professional in the city's Italian-immigrant community. The son of a fruit vendor,
Palmisano initially earned a living as a barber, then studied medicine and became one of
the first Italian-born physicians in Baltimore's Little Italy.4
Despite the parallels in the lives of Douglas and Palmisano, they represented
different historical currents. As a slave bom and reared in a sparsely settled region on
Maryland's Eastern Shore in the first half of the nineteenth century, Douglas was a
product of America's slave South. As a southern European immigrant journeying within
the international migratory patterns of the late nineteenth century, Palmisano's
3 Douglas, Life and Times. 79.
4 Baltimore Citv Directory for 1899 (Baltimore: R. L. Polk& Co., 1899), 1112-13; Baltimore Citv Directory for 1904 (Baltimore: R. L. Polk & Co., 1904); Baltimore Citv Directory for the Year Commencing April 1st 1909 (Baltimore: R. L. Polk & Co., 1909); U.S. Manuscript Census 1900, Maryland, microfilm roll 609, Enumeration District 28.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. experiences were more typical of America's industrial North. The fact that Douglas and
Palmisano, with their diverse origins, both lived in Baltimore illustrates that the city has
been a point of confluence of many historical currents. As several historians have noted,
Baltimore's location made it a meeting place for traditions from various regions of
America.5 Primarily as a result of this central location, Baltimore developed a unique
racial and ethnic demography during the nineteenth century. By the 1890s Baltimore was
the nation's largest border city, and, except for Wilmington, Delaware, it was the
easternmost city in the border states. As such it was in a middle land, poised between the
immigrant populations of the North and the African-American populations of the South.
Because Baltimore bordered on the South, African-Americans were important to
the city from its beginnings. Before emigration from the rural South brought large
numbers of African-Americans to the industrial centers of the North, Baltimore, as the
urban center of a slave state, had a large, well-established African-American community.
In the antebellum period, Baltimore's population included many African-American slaves
and even more free African-Americans, with the number of free African-Americans
growing rapidly and reaching 25,000, or 15 percent of the city's total population, by
5 D. Randall Beime, "The Impact of Black Labor on European Immigration into Baltimore's Oldtown, 1790-1910," Maryland HistoricalMagazine 83 (Winter 1988): 331- 45; Gary Lawson Browne, Baltimore in the Nation. 1789-1861 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980); Robert J. Brugger, Maryland: A Middle Temperament. 1634-1980 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980); Dieter Cunz, The Maryland Germans (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1948); Fields, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Paul A. Groves and Edward K. Muller, "The Evolution of Black Residential Areas in Late Nineteenth Century Cities," Journal of Historical Geography 1 and 2 (1975): 169-91.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4
1850.6 By 1900 Baltimore's total population was 508,957, of whom 79,258 (15.6
percent) were African-Americans. In 1910, the city's population had grown to 558,485,
of whom 84,749 (15.2 percent) were African-Americans.7
As a major seaport and industrial center, Baltimore also attracted many European
immigrants. Although the rate of immigration to Baltimore did not match the rates o f
northern cities, such as New York and Philadelphia, immigrants from central and
northern Europe were a major factor in the city's demography throughout the nineteenth
century.8 Beginning in the 1830s, tens of thousands o f European immigrants poured into
the city. Germans were dominant among the early immigrants, and by 1840 the German
community accounted for roughly twenty percent o f Baltimore's population.9 The
6 Fields, Slavery and Freedom. 62; Ira Berlin, Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), 54-55.
7 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States Taken in 1910: Abstract of the Census (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1913), 63,95, and 210.
8 James B. Crooks, Politics and Progress: The Rise of Urban Progress!vism in Baltimore (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968), 4-5; Cunz, The Maryland Germans: Fields, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground. 14; Dean R. Esslinger, "Immigration through the Port of Baltimore," and Alan M. Kraut, '"Immigration through the Port of Baltimore': A Comment," in M. Mark Stolarik, ed., Forgotten Doors: The Other Ports of Entry to the United States (Philadelphia: Balch Institute Press, 1988), 61-80. See also Ira Berlin and Herbert G. Gutman, "Natives and Immigrants, Free Men and Slaves: Urban Workingmen in the Antebellum South," American Historical Review 88 (December 1983): 1176-77, in which the authors note that despite the South's very small immigrant population, European immigrants settled in a few southern seaports, such as Mobile, Savannah, and Charleston. In the case of Italian immigrants, however, the only two cities in the deep South with major concentrations were Tampa and New Orleans.
9 Sherry H. Olson, Baltimore: TheBuilding o f an American Citv (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 91; Browne,Baltimore in the Nation. 145.
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foreign-born population of the city reached 56,136, or 16.9 percent of the city's total
population, in 1880, and 69,003, or 15.9 percent o f the city's total population, in 1890.10
Although Germany and Ireland were the primary sources of Baltimore's foreign-born
population during the middle years of the nineteenth century, toward the end of the
century a "new immigration" began, and the main sources of European immigrants
shifted to eastern and southern Europe.11 In the 1880s and 1890s, thousands o f Jewish
immigrants from eastern Europe journeyed to Baltimore, and, by the time the nineteenth
century ended, Baltimore's Italian-immigrant population was growing rapidly. From
1900 to 1910, the number of Italian-bom residents of the city more than doubled,
growing from 2,042 to 5,043.12
Thus, by the turn of the century Baltimore's position as a middle land had given
the city's population a distinctive pattern of diversity, including substantial numbers of
African-Americans and a variety of European immigrants. Although several American
cities had larger immigrant populations than Baltimore, most such cities, unlike
Baltimore, were distant from the slave South. These northern cities, such as New York,
Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Newark, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Cleveland, did not
receive their greatest waves of African-American migrants until the First World War.13
10 U. S. Census Office, Compendium of the Eleventh Census: 1890 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1894), 490.
11 Alan M. Kraut, The Huddled Masses: The Immigrant in American Society. 1880- 1920 (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1982), 2.
12 Thirteenth Census: Abstract 63,95, and 210.
13 James R. Grossman. Land of Hope: Chicago. Black Southerners, and the Great
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Baltimore's special status as an early meeting place of African-Americans and
new European immigrants is demonstrated by the fact that the city was among the
nation's leaders in both African-American and Italian-immigrant residents at the turn of
the century: in 1900 Baltimore had the largest African-American population of any city in
the United States, and only ten cities in the nation had more Italian-born residents.
Furthermore, of the ten cities with more Italian-born residents, only New Orleans and St.
Louis were not clearly northern cities.14
This distinctive racial and ethnic demography makes Baltimore a good setting in
which to examine interactions between African-Americans and European immigrants.
When the new immigrants of the late nineteenth century arrived in America, relatively
few of them encountered African-Americans. In Baltimore, however, families like the
Palmisanos began their new lives in an urban setting which had already been profoundly
influenced by American experiences in race relations. Furthermore, these families built
their new lives in an urban world that encompassed a complex network of ethnic and
racial communities. For these reasons, the experiences of Italian immigrants in Baltimore
provide an exceptional opportunity to examine American race relations.
Migration (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 13; Florette Henri, Black Migration: Movement North 1900-1920 (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1975), 51.
14 U.S. Census Office. Twelfth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1900: Population (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1902), vol. I, pt. 1, tables 34 and 35; John Bodnar, Roger Simon, and Michael P. Weber, Lives of Their Own: Blacks. Italians, and Poles, in Pittsburgh. 1900-1960 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982), 20.
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But the reason for tum-of-the-century Baltimore's importance as a setting for the
study of race relations is not the city's differences from the rest of America. Instead, the
importance of this setting lies in the fact that the experiences of Italian immigrants and
African-Americans in the city were representative of the experiences African-Americans
and immigrants would undergo in the first half of the twentieth century in many areas of
the United States. As a result of Baltimore's central location, social currents that were
national in scope came together in the city at a relatively early date.
Unfortunately, in the late nineteenth century major American social currents
included racism and nativism. Although some extraordinary young people, such as
Frederick Douglas and Augustine Palmisano, found opportunities in Baltimore, for many
others the twin forces of racism and nativism severely constricted opportunities and
assured that most African-Americans and new immigrants would remain strangers in the
eyes of the descendants of the western and northern Europeans who constituted the
majority of the city's residents. The reality for ethnic and racial minorities was that
racism and nativism were ascendant in the United States in the late nineteenth century,15
and the consequences of racism and nativism must be taken into account in examining the
context in which African-Americans and Italian immigrants interacted in Baltimore.
15 George M. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro- American Character and Destiny. 1817-1914 (New York: Harper & Row, 1971; reprint Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1987); David R. Roediger The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (London: Verso, 1991); John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism. 1860-1925.2d ed, with a new Afterword by the author (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988).
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In the closing years of the nineteenth century and the opening years of the
twentieth, African-Americans and new European immigrants had reasons to see each
other as potential allies as well as reasons to see each other as economic competitors.
African-Americans and new immigrants suffered some commonhardships, as each faced
violent manifestations of racism and nativism. Lynchings of African-Americans peaked
in this period.16 At the same time, mobs set upon new immigrants throughout the
country; Italians were attacked in the West and Midwest, and nativist hoodlums
rampaged against Jewish immigrants in Mississippi and Louisiana.17 In 1915, Leo Frank,
a Jewish factory manager, was lynched in a storm of violence in Georgia.18 But African-
Americans and new immigrants also competed with each other for jobs, housing, and
social services, especially when African-Americans began to migrate to northern cities
after the turn of the century.19
An assessment of relations between African-Americans and Italian immigrants in
a particular setting, such as Baltimore, must take into account the complex and
ambiguous social environment in which African-Americans and Italian immigrants came
16 W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Lvnchinp in the New South: Georgia and Virginia 1880- 1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993); Robert L. Zangrando, The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching 1909-1950 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980).
17 Higham, Strangers in the Land. 52-53; Kraut, Huddled Masses. 157; Luciano Iorizzo, "The Padrone and Immigrant Distribution," in The Italian Experience in the United States, ed. Silvio Tomasi and Madeline H. Engel (Staten Island NY: Center for Immigration Studies, 1970), 50.
18 Leonard Dinnerstein, The Leo Frank Case (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968).
19 Grossman, Land of Hone. 170-75.
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together. African-Americans and Italian immigrants in Baltimore—or elsewhere in
America—did not encounter each other in isolation from other Americans. African-
Americans and Italian immigrants functioned within a complex society in which race and
ethnicity mattered, and both groups responded to the patterns of nativism and racism
around them. In Baltimore, as was the case elsewhere in America in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth century, African-Americans and Italian immigrants were in part
strangers and in part Americans. Each had an ambiguous status in the land, and it is
therefore not surprising that relations between these peoples were complicated by
ambiguity and uncertainty.
The ambiguous character of early interactions between African-Americans and
Italian immigrants raises several questions about scholarly analyses of relations between
these peoples. There are few studies of relations between African-Americans and Italian
immigrants, and most works that consider the topic emphasize current conflicts. One of
the mose notable recent works, Jonathan Riedefs Canarsie. for example, is really a
sociological analysis of the bitterness between Italian-Americans and African-Americans
arising from attempts to integrate housing and education in the 1970s.20 Issues such as
those explored by Rieder, however, are representative of social and economic conditions
in the second half of the twentieth century. In contrast, historians have devoted little
attention to the early interactions o f Italian immigrants and African-Americans. In view
of the potential for cooperation as well as conflict between African-Americans and Italian
20 Jonathan Rieder. Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn against Liberalism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985).
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immigrants, it is surprising that historians have devoted so little attention to explaining
the historical origins of conflicts such as those described inCanarsie.
In studies of Baltimore, historians have followed a similar pattern of assuming
that competition and conflict are inherent in interactions between African-Americans and
immigrants. One historian contends, for example, that Baltimore's rate o f immigration
was lower than that of northern cities simply because "black competition deterred
newcomers from entering Baltimore."21 There is evidence, however, that, in the case of
Italians, it was not potential competition with African-American workers, but rather the
violent, repressive methods of the employers o f African-American labor, that raised
anxieties.22 Public discourse in Baltimore at the turn of the century, in fact, reflected an
awareness of the labor problems caused by repressive southern labor practices, as
editorialists attempted to refute the notion that Italians had to fear lynching when they
migrated to southern areas.23
By emphasizing inherent racial antipathy to explain historical developments,
historians preempt discussions of underlying factors that may provide insights into race
relations. More than a decade ago, Barbara J. Fields suggested an alternative approach to
the study o f race in history when she noted that race by itself "explains nothing; it is
21 D. Randall Beime, "The Impact of Black Labor on European Immigration into Baltimore's Oldtown, 1790-1910," Maryland Historical Mapa^ine 83 (Winter 1988): 331.
22 Iorizzo, "The Padrone and Immigrant Distribution," 49.
23 "Cotton and Italian Labor," Baltimore Sun. 15 August 1904. The Sun editorial was written in response to allegations in "Italians in the South," New York Tribune. 12 August 1904.
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something that must be explained."24 Recently a few historians have begun to analyze
relations between African-Americans and immigrants on this basis,25 but none of these
studies focuses on relations between African-Americans and Italians.
This gap in the literature is not the result of historiographical inattention to ethnic
and racial minorities. Instead, it is, at least in part, the result of a paradigm that has
profoundly influenced American social history for thirty years: the idea o f viewing
history from the "bottom up" has had the unintended effect of anchoring the white,
Christian, northwestern European majority in an historiographically privileged position as
a reference point by which minority racial, social, and cultural groups are defined. The
paradigm invites analyses in which peoples at the "bottom," such as ethnic and racial
minorities, are defined by their relations with the people at the "top."
By emphasizing relationships between the "bottom" and the "top," however,
historians have diverted attention from the multiplicity of interactions—some hostile,
24 Barbara J. Fields in "Ideology and Race in American History," in J. Morgan Kousser and James M. McPherson, Region. Race and Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 144. See also, Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White (New York: Routledge, 1995), 187. This view of race in history is also implicit in Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery. American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1975). In a discussion of African slaves and English servants, for example, Morgan notes that racial antipathy was not inherent in the relationship: “There are hints that the two despised groups initially saw each other as sharing the same predicament. It was common, for example, for servants and slaves to run away together, steal hogs together, get drunk together. It was not uncommon for them to make love together." American Slavery. 327.
25 Ronald H. Bayor, "Historical Encounters: Intergroup Relations in a Nation of Nations,"' Annals of the American Association of Political and Social Science 530 (November 1993): 14-27; Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White: Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness.
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some amicable, and some indifferent—that make up the complex web of social and
cultural communications in a diverse society. Although historians influenced by the
"bottom up" paradigm have produced a substantial literature of immigration, the
cumulative result o f these works is a model o f social relationships that is an aggregation
of discrete, bipolar lines of communication, each connecting a group at the "bottom" to
the majority reference group at the "top." This model, unfortunately, provides a poor
framework for the analysis of some interactions that are of considerable importance to the
development o f American race relations. This framework, for example, does not
accommodate studies of relations between African-Americans and Italian immigrants. A
survey of the historiography of immigration, with special attention to studies of Italian
immigrants, will demonstrate this unintended effect of the "bottom up" paradigm.
The historiography of immigration is vast, and immigration historians have not
neglected Italians. Beginning in the 1970s, several historians haveexamined Italian
immigrants in specific communities. Many of these studies were inspired by the work of
Stephan Themstrom, which emphasized the mobility of working-class Americans.26
Influenced by the "bottom up" paradigm, immigration historians investigated mobility in
terms of whether immigrants moved away from the social and cultural conditions of
immigrant life and toward those of native-born Americans. Humbert Nelli, for example,
in his study of Italians in Chicago contends that Italian immigrants adapted successfully
26 Stephan Themstrom, The Other Bostonians: Povertyand Progress in the American Metropolis. 1880-1970 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973); Stephan Themstrom, Poverty and Progress: Social Mobility in a Nineteenth Century Citv (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964).
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to American social and economic conditions.27 In her study of Italians in Buffalo,
Virginia Yans-McLaughlin demonstrates the cultural continuities in the lives of Italian
immigrants, as they maintained their family relationships while adapting to American
society.28 Although other community studies might emphasize different aspects of the
interactions between Italian immigrants and the majority culture, such as the conservative
goals of immigrants29 or the tensions expressed in religious rituals,30 the analyses in these
studies are consistently bipolar, with the result that relationships other than those between
the immigrants and the majority culture are neglected.
John Briggs, in An Italian Passage, demonstrates the way scholarly debate can be
focused, but also limited, as a result of the influence of the "bottom up" paradigm. In
studying Italian immigrants in three communities, Briggs responds to a body of work
including "negative" characterizations o f Italians, especially regarding their alleged
failures to take advantage of educational and employment opportunities in the United
States.31 Briggs answers these allegations by investigating social conditions in Italy and
27 Humbert S. Nelli, Italians in Chicago: A Study in Ethnic Mobility (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970).
28 Virginia Yans-McLaughlin, Family and Community: Italian Immigrants in Buffalo. 1880-1930 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971).
29 Dino Cinel, From Italy to San Francisco: The Immigrant Experience (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982).
30 Robert A. Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Harlem. 1880-1950 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985).
31 See, for example, Thomas Kessner, The Golden Door: Italian and Jewish Immigrant Mobility in New York Citv 1880-1915 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977). James Henretta, in "The Study of Social Mobility: Ideological Assumptions and a
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the United States and demonstrating that Italians seized educational and employment
opportunities when such opportunities were in fact available. As a result, Briggs
concludes that the culture of Italian immigrants was not inherently pre-industrial and
dysfunctional, but rather adaptable.32 Thus, Briggs' work demonstrates the pervasiveness
of the unintended effects of the "bottom up" paradigm: although there are sharp
differences between Briggs and the scholars he criticizes, both Briggs and his opponents
implicitly accept the notion that the way to define immigrants (the "bottom") is to
measure their performances in education and industry against the standards established by
native-born white Americans (the "top").
Paradoxically, the limitations of the "bottom up" paradigm are also clearly
illustrated in several works in which historians have considered more than one racial or
ethnic minority. In his study of immigrants in New York City, Thomas Kessner studies
the upward mobility of Jews and Italians.33 Despite the focus on two major immigrant
groups, Kessner presents little information about relations between Italians and Jews.
Instead, he considers the way each group moved "upward" toward the educational and
social standards established by the native-born majority in the city. John Bodnar, Roger
Simon, and Michael Weber, in Lives o f Their Own, examine the experiences of Blacks,
Italians, and Poles in Pittsburgh, but the analysis is almost entirely comparative, with the
Conceptual Bias," Labor History 18 (Spring 1977): 165-77, offers a cogent critique of mobility studies.
32 John W. Briggs, An Italian Passage: Immigrants to Three American Cities. 1890- 1930 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978).
33 Kessner, The Golden Door.
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social and economic adaptation of each group examined in turn. As a result, Bodnar,
Simon, and Weber offer many insights into the ways each group related to the established
economic and social order of Pittsburgh, but they offer very little as to the ways Blacks,
Poles, and Italians interacted with each other. Although they assert that historians have
underestimated the degree of peaceful interaction between Italians and African-
Americans before 1930, Bodnar, Simon, and Weber do not develop this theme,
apparently because this theme simply does not fit into their analytical framework.34
Similarly, Josef Barton examines the ways Italians, Rumanians, and Slovaks adapted and
preserved their cultural traditions while adjusting to a modem capitalist society in
Cleveland.35
The pattern o f these community studies is clear. In each case, historians study
individual groups of immigrants in specific American cities in order to determine whether
the immigrants assimilated or adapted, succeeded or failed, or moved upward or remained
at the bottom. In each case, historians measure assimilation, success, or upward
movement by reference to the social, cultural, and economic standards of majority
Americans. Even when the historian takes into account more than one ethnic or racial
minority, the investigation is expanded only by making additional bipolar comparisons
between discrete minority groups at the bottom and the majority at the top.
The value of community studies of ethnic and racial minorities needs no defense.
34 Bodnar, Simon, Weber, Lives of Their Own. 215-16.
35 Josef Barton, Peasants and Strangers: Italians. Rumanians, and Slovaks in an American Citv (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975).
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These studies have enriched American historiography to an extraordinary degree by
expanding the range of historical investigations to include the experiences of tens of
millions of Americans who are not Christians of northwestern European ancestry. It is
clear, however, that community studies have limits, and recently immigration historians
have broadened the scope of their investigations to include an international perspective.
Unfortunately, the broader, more international perspective o f recent immigration studies
does not fill all the gaps left by the community studies.
An international perspective on immigration studies is not an entirely new idea.
More than fifty years ago, for example, Marcus Hansen noted that early American
immigration had been an Atlantic phenomenon.36 The primary inspiration for an
international perspective on the new immigration, however, comes from the work of
Frank Thistlewaite, who contended that immigration historians, by considering events
within national boundaries, often failed to address important aspects of migrations, such
as the effects of international labor markets.37 As has been noted in recent collections of
immigration studies, it has taken more than twenty years for Thistlewaite's ideas to come
to full fruition, but a new perspective has emerged that takes into account migrations of
peoples around the world in response to international economic developments.38
36 Marcus Lee Hansen, The Atlantic Migration 1607-1860 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940).
37 Frank Thistlewaite, "Migration from Europe Overseas in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries," reprinted in Population Movements in Modem European History. ed. Herbert Moller (New York: Macmillan, 1964): 73-92.
38 Virginia Yans-McLaughlin. ed.. Immigration Reconsidered: History. Sociology, and Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); Rudolph J. Vecoli and Suzanne
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This new perspective for viewing immigration history is of considerable value in
addressing problems that were outside the range o f narrowly focused community studies.
By employing an international perspective, some recent works have called attention to
the ways international developments provided a context in which migrants made choices
as to whether to leave their homelands, when to leave, and where to go.39 In one recent
work, the experiences o f immigrants in urban America are analyzed as a series of
adjustments to the developments of international capitalism;40 in another, international
migrations are reviewed from the perspectives of European donor nations and American
receiver nations (including the United States, Argentina, Brazil, and Canada).41
Even with these new and expansive perspectives, however, many of the gaps in
immigration historiography remain unfilled. The international perspective is concerned
primarily with the relationship between peripheral areas of the world and areas at the
forefront of the development of international capitalism. Whether the relationship is
stated in terms of donors and receivers, core and periphery, or traditional and modem,
there is a bipolar perspective, with a corresponding de-emphasis of interactions that are
not between the bottom (a peripheral area, traditional society, or donor nation) and the top
M. Sinke, eds., A Century of European Migrations. 1830-1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991).
39 Kraut The Huddled Masses.
40 John Bodnar. The Transplanted: A History ofImmigrants in Urban America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985).
41 Walter Nueent Crossings: The Great Transatlantic Migrations. 1870-1914 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992).
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(a developed area, modem society, or receiver nation). Thus, these studies, like the
community studies that preceded them, are poorly suited to address questions involving
relationships among a multiplicity of peoples.
Although the major themes in immigration historiography have not included
interactions between ethnic minorities, there are a few exceptions. In Neighbors in
Conflict Ronald Bayor focuses on conflicts in an extraordinarily ethnically diverse urban
setting.42 The book is especially useful because Bayer’s analysis implicitly acknowledges
that relations between any two groups may be influenced by the presence of a third. He
notes, for example, that themajority culture's concessions of employment opportunities
to an ethnic minority may actually generate conflict, as other ethnic minorities aspire to
the same employment opportunities. Bayor was not the first historian to observe the
importance of such dynamics in a diverse society; in a study involving Blacks and Jews,
Hasia Diner has noted that the role of Jews in American race relations changed
significantly with changes in the majority culture's attitudes toward Blacks and Jews.43
Nonetheless, as Bayor has noted in the preface to the second edition of Neighbors in
Conflict, the dearth of studies examining relations among ethnic minorities persists.44
42 Ronald H. Bayor, Neighbors in Conflict: The Irish. Germans. Jews, and Italians of New York Citv. 1929-1941 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978).
43 Hasia R. Diner, In The Almost Promised Land: American Jews and Blacks. 1915- 1935 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977).
44 Ronald. H. Bavor. Neighbors in Conflict: The Irish.Germans. Jews, and Italians of New York Citv. 1929-1941 2d ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), ix. In "Historical Encounters: Intergroup Relations in a 'Nation of Nations,'"Annals o f the American Academy o f Political and Social Science 530 (November 1993): 14-27, Professor Bayor surveys issues involving both cooperation and conflict in intergroup
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Another recent work that explores multi-ethnic relations in an urban setting is The
Immigrant World of Ybor Citv. by Gary Mormino and George Pozzetta.45 In Ybor Citv.
Mormino and Pozzetta explore relations among Italians, Spaniards, Cubans, and African-
Americans in an outlying section of Tampa. Mormino and Pozzetta fill a major gap in
the historiography of immigration by addressing cooperation among several ethnic
groups. Ybor Citv is the only major work that thoroughly examines cooperation among
minority groups including both Italians and African-Americans.46
Neighbors in Conflict and Ybor Citv. nonetheless, reveal another limitation
inherent in recent perspectives on immigration history. Recent social historians place
great emphasis on concentrations of economic and social power and relationships of
dominance and subordination, while de-emphasizing group interactions that are
harmonious and cooperative. In Bayor's work the primary concern is conflict because
Bayor sees ethnic minorities as subordinate groups competing for the economic benefits
relations in several major cities.
45 Gary R. Mormino and George E. Pozzetta, The Immigrant World of Ybor Citv: Italians and Their Latin Neighbors in Tampa. 1885-1985 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987).
46 Hasia Diner, in In The Almost Promised Land, provides a study of cooperation as well as conflict between ethnic and racial minorities, but her analysis is limited to Blacks and Jews. David John Hellwig, in "The Afro-American and the Immigrant, 1880-1930: A Study of Black Social Thought" (Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University, 1973), discusses the perception among African-American intellectuals that Italian immigrants and African- Americans had common interests. However, "The Afro-American and the Immigrant" is a study of the ideas of African-American leaders rather than a study of social relations. Furthermore, as is the case with Hasia Diner’s The Almost Promised Land. "The Afro- American and the Immigrant" is written from a national perspective and does not trace the evolution of race relations in a specific community responding to specific events.
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and social prestige that are controlled by majority Americans. The Irish, for example,
become hostile to Jews when Jews begin to win access to jobs previously allocated to the
Irish, such as teaching in public schools.
Indirectly, Ybor Citv also reveals the importance, and potentially limiting effect,
of this emphasis on power relationships. As Mormino and Pozzetta make clear, the
immigrant community in Ybor City did not evolve within an established urban center.
Instead, it developed in a frontier environment on the outskirts of the city o f Tampa, and
the cigar industry which provided the economic foundation for the community was
founded by Spanish immigrants, not by the Anglo majority that controlled downtown
Tampa. Thus, in contrast to the circumstances in which immigrant communities
developed in the older industrial areas of the Northeast, Ybor City was for the most part
outside the reach of, and largely ignored by, Tampa's Anglos.47 It is because of this
unique frontier setting that the analysis of Mormino and Pozzetta is not focused on
relationships between a dominant Anglo community and subordinate ethnic minorities; to
an unusual degree, the immigrant world of Ybor City was isolated from the dominant
majority. The strangers in Ybor City were not really strangers in the land, but instead
strangers at the margin of the land.
In summary, the historiography of American immigration fails to address
adequately two major areas. First, very few studies of immigration consider interactions
among ethnic and racial minorities. Second, most recent social history focuses on
47 Mormino and Pozzetta, Ybor Citv. ch. 3.
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conflict between dominant and subordinate groups, with the result that, even in studies
that consider relations among minority groups, conflict is emphasized and cooperation is
neglected.
In considering remedies for these weaknesses in the historiography of American
immigration, it is important to acknowledge the value of studies that emphasize conflict
and a "bottom up" perspective. As a result o f such studies, the range o f American
historiography has been extended to an extraordinary degree. Furthermore, to understand
the history of an ethnic minority, it is obviously important to analyze relations between
the minority and the society's majority; and it is equally important to examine conflicts
generated by attempts by one group to maintain its dominance over another. To address
the gaps in the historiography, scholarly investigations must consider relations among
minorities in addition to, not instead of, relations between minorities and majorities.
Similarly, studies of cooperation need not exclude consideration of equally important
issues involving conflict.
The purpose of this dissertation is to address these two gaps in the historiography
of American immigration by examining relations between Baltimore's African-Americans
and Italian immigrants from the end of the nineteenth century to the First World War, a
period encompassing the formative years of the Italian community as well as the
beginnings of the great African-American migration from the rural South to the urban
North. The following chapters are organized to present the study in two parts. The first
part, which includes chapters 2 through 4, establishes the context in which African-
Americans and Italian immigrants encountered each other in Baltimore. These contextual
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chapters include a brief outline of the patterns of nativism and racism in the period under
study, a summary of the development of African-American and Italian-immigrant
communities in Baltimore, and a survey of the social and economic conditions in the city
at the turn of the century. The second part of the study, which includes chapters 5
through8 , focuses on a series o f dramatic events that caused social and political stress in
the city. These events include a catastrophic fire, two separate campaigns to disfranchise
African-Americans, and an attempt by the city government to enforce segregation in
housing through local ordinances.
The contextual material in chapters 2 through 4 is intended to demonstrate that
African-Americans and Italian immigrants did not encounter each other in a social,
political, and cultural vacuum. Chapter 2 provides a brief outline of patterns of racism
and nativism that were national rather than local in scope. Just as relations between
African-Americans and Italian immigrants are best understood in the context of the entire
galaxy of social relations that was present in Baltimore, Baltimore is best understood in
its context as an American city, which was, for better or worse, affected by nationwide
social forces. One o f the most important purposes of chapters 3 and 4 is to demonstrate
that pre-existing social and economic arrangements in Baltimore communicated to Italian
immigrants a constellation o f underlying assumptions the people of the city accepted as
indicators o f what was "right" or "normal" in race relations. That is to say, social and
economic conditions in the city communicated a set of unexamined assumptions that
were important to the local culture.
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The constellation o f unexamined assumptions residents o f Baltimore shared, as
outlined in chapters 3 and 4, provides a background against which interactions between
African-Americans and Italian immigrants must be viewed in order to be understood.
African-Americans and Italian immigrants could not interact with each other without
simultaneously interacting with the world created by preceding generations of African-
Americans and immigrants from England, Germany, Ireland, and elsewhere. Most
importantly, in the city in which African-Americans and Italian immigrants encountered
each other, accumulated ideas about the proper order of society were conveyed in
residential patterns that corresponded to differences in race and ethnicity, while
relationships of dominance and subordination were conveyed in the distribution ofjobs
and political favors.
As Barbara J. Fields (an historian with a thorough knowledge of Maryland
history) has noted, race and ideas about race are not natural phenomena that stand outside
of historical and cultural development.48 This view of race is central to this dissertation.
Relations between African-Americans and Italian immigrants in Baltimore were not pre
determined by race. Instead, as these two groups lived together in a complex urban
environment, the social and cultural significance of race evolved out of shared historical
experiences. For this reason, chapters S through8 use a series of historical events in
Baltimore to illustrate the development of relations between African-Americans and
Italian immigrants in the early twentieth century. The focus on dramatic, stressful events
48 "Ideology and Race in American History," 143-177.
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in chapters 5 through 8 is important because, in the absence of extraordinary events,
minorities are generally neglected in the public record. Under the stresses generated by
events such as the great fire and the disfranchisement and segregation campaigns, actions
involving ethnic and racial minorities are more likely to be recorded. Furthermore, in
circumstances in which their economic, social, and political interests are at stake, racial
and ethnic minorities might be expected to seek out potential allies more actively and
oppose potential adversaries more aggressively.
By examining the responses of African-Americans and Italian immigrants to a
series o f crises, chapters 5 through 8 demonstrate that relations between African-
Americans and Italian immigrants were neither inherently hostile nor inherently
amicable. Instead, these relations evolved within a complex network of ethnic and racial
communities, all of which were affected by, and responded to, the crises described in
these chapters.
Chapter 5, which recounts Baltimore's great fire of February 1904, illustrates the
way the pre-existing local culture influenced responses to a city-wide trauma. The fire
destroyed a vast area in the center of the city, generating a crisis that affected rich and
poor throughout the city's ethnic and racial communities. In responding to the crisis,
however, residents of the city revealed their underlying assumptions about the importance
of racial and ethnic divisions in the city. Despite the common disaster, city leaders
distributed assistance to fire victims through the established network of private ethnic and
racial charitable groups, not through common public facilities and institutions. For
Italian immigrants, who were a relatively new ethnic community in Baltimore in 1904,
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there was much to be learned from their experiences of surviving the fire and interacting
with other communities in the city.
Chapters 6 and 7 cover the disfranchisement campaigns of 1905 and 1909, which
were pivotal events in the development of ideas about race in Baltimore's Italian-
immigrant community. Paradoxically, as Italian immigrants joined with other immigrant
communities and African-Americans in a voting coalition that saved the franchise for
African-Americans, Italian immigrants learned from Baltimore's established communities
that it was important for Italians to define themselves as racially separate from African-
Americans. These chapters develop the two central ideas of this dissertation. First the
disfranchisement campaigns demonstrate that there was a potential for cooperation as
well as conflict between African-Americans and Italian immigrants. Second, the
disfranchisement campaigns illustrate that African-Americans and Italian immigrants
interacted simultaneously with each other and with other communities within the city,
and their responses to each other were influenced by this multiplicity of social
communications.
The residential segregation campaigns of 1910 to 1913 are the subject o f chapter
8. The significance of these events lies more in the absence of interactions between
African-Americans and Italian immigrants than in any conflict or cooperation that was
manifested in this period. Over the course of the first two decades of the twentieth
century, the African-American and Italian-immigrant communities developed separately—
one in West Baltimore and the other in East Baltimore. At the same time, through
experiences such as the fire of 1904 and the disfranchisement campaigns of 1905 and
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1909, Italian immigrants internalized many of the underlying assumptions about race
relations that were prevalent in other communities in the city. Furthermore, interactions
between Italian immigrants and other white communities in the city provided Italians
with opportunities for inclusion in the mainstream o f civic life. Despite appeals for
cooperation by African-American leaders and despite warnings that Italians and other
new immigrants might also be subjected to discriminatory housing ordinances, Italian
immigrants exhibited virtually no inclination to assist African-Americans in their struggle
against the segregation ordinances. As the events o f 1910 to 1913 show, Italians had
developed no significant communal ties with African-Americans, and the experiences of
Italian immigrants in civic life had taught them that as a political strategy there was more
to be lost than gained by cooperating with African-Americans in Baltimore.
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RACE AND ETHNICITY IN A MIDDLE LAND
Race and ethnicity mattered a great deal in Baltimore, just as they did in other
American cities. With a population including significant numbers of African-Americans
and European immigrants, Baltimore was influenced by national patterns of racism and
nativism. Baltimore's diverse residents were certainly aware of developments in race
relations and ethnic relations in other parts of the United States, and often the city’s
residents were affected by such developments. Thus, in describing the setting in which
African-Americans and Italian immigrants encountered each other in Baltimore, the first
step is to view the city against the background of national events.
At the turn of the century, national events included many violent manifestations of
racism and nativism. Examples of such violence can easily be found in all regions of the
United States .1 In Georgia, there were race riots in which armed, young, white men
roamed city streets hunting down and killing African-Americans .2 In Pennsylvania,
1 Leonard Dinnerstein, Roger L. Nichols, and David M. Reimers, Natives and Strangers: A Multicultural History of Americans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 224.
2 John Dittmer, Black Georgia in the Progressive Era. 1900-1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977; Illini Books ed., 1980), 124-25.
27
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dozens of Slavic, Hungarian, and Polish workers were killed in violent confrontations
between laborers and mine operators.3 In Colorado, miners and local residents banded
together to murder several Italians, after the Italians were accused of killing a
saloonkeeper.4
The characteristic form of extra-legal violence in this period was the lynch mob,
and this form of violence had implications for both African-Americans and Italian
immigrants. The primary victims o f American lynch mobs were African-Americans. But
lynch mobs also attacked European immigrants, and Italians were the victims o f such
incidents more often than most European immigrants. In several instances, for example,
American mobs carried out multiple lynchings of Italian immigrants. As a result, Italians
probably understood the terrors of lynching better than most European immigrants, and
this understanding on the part of Italians was important in early relations between Italian
immigrants and African-Americans.
A public drama that occurred in New Orleans serves to illustrate the importance
of lynching in early interactions between African-Americans and Italian immigrants. On
March 14,1891, several thousand citizens gathered around the base of the Henry Clay
statue on Canal Street They had been summoned by a local newspaper’s outcries against
the failure of a local court to deliver quick and severe punishment to men who, in the
opinions of many New Orleans citizens, posed a chronic threat to the moral order of the
3 John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism. 1860-1925.2d ed., with a new Afterword by the author (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988), 89-90.
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community. According to accounts in the local newspapers, New Orleans authorities
were holding the men in question for further legal processing after a jury had failed to
convict them o f murdering the city’s most popular crimefighter, Superintendent of Police
David Hennessey.5
The thousands of men who assembled on Canal street arrived at the Henry Clay
statue with preconceived ideas about the outcome of the morning's activities. On the
front pages o f the preceding day's editions, the New Orleans Times-Democrat had printed
a notice inviting "All good citizens" to correct the "failure ofjustice." The editors o f the
Times-Democrat further advised local citizens to "come prepared for action."6 Thus, the
crowd listened restlessly as speakers exhorted them as "plain Americans" and "good
citizens" to do their duty by delivering the justice the court had failed to produce .7
With a gathering sense of purpose, an energized core of the crowd, consisting of
perhaps two thousand men, began to move in the direction of the Orleans Parish prison.
At the prison, the vanguard of the mob, composed of approximately forty men, pushed
past the guards, who offered no more than token resistance. Inside, beyond the range of
all social constraints, the vigilantes set upon the men they believed were menacing the
city, and in a paroxysm of rage and fear and hatred they clubbed and shot eleven
4 Ibid.
5 New Orleans Times-Democrat 13 March 1891; New Orleans Daily Picayune. 13 March 1891.
6 New Orleans Times-Democrat 13 March 1891.
7 Washington Evening Star. 14 March 1891.
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prisoners to death. One victim was shot forty-two times, while another, although already
dead, was dragged outside for a public hanging in view of the entire crowd. To display
their work, the triumphant citizens hoisted the mutilated corpses into nearby trees, then
cheered as William S. Parkerson, one o f several "gentlemen" who had orchestrated the
morning's activities, was carried off on the shoulders of his admirers.8
Even with the benefit of hindsight, the community's leaders seemed satisfied with
the outcome o f the drama. The next day, the Times-Democrat expressed no remorse over
its role in instigating the violence. In fact, reflections on the riot sounded more like civic
pride than regret. The editors of the Times-Democrat praised the work of the lynch mob.
To the newspaper's editors, the activities at the Parish prison were almost as memorable
as the exploits of the New Orleans mob that had killed twenty-seven persons in a clash
between Redemptionists and Republicans in 1877.9
There were many lynchings in the deep South in the 1890s, but the New Orleans
lynchings of March 1891 were extreme in several noteworthy ways. The number of
victims, eleven in a single morning, was high, even for the bloody 1890s. In addition,
although prominent citizens often led lynch mobs, the social status of the leaders of the
1891 New Orleans lynch mob was noteworthy. The acknowledged "Captain" of the mob,
8 Washington EveningStar. 14 March 1891; New York U Proeresso Italo-Americano. 15 March 1891; New Orleans Times-Democrat 15 March 1891; Humbert S. Nelli, The Business of Crime: Italians and Syndicate Crime in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976; reprint, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Phoenix Books, 1981), 62; Joy Jackson, "Crime and the Conscience of a City,"Louisiana History 9 (Summer 1968): 229; Barbara Botein, "The Hennessey Case: An Episode in Anti-Italian Nativism," LouisianaHistory 20 (Summer 1979): 264.
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Parkerson, was a well known lawyer who had served as the campaign manager for New
Orleans Mayor William Shakspeare in the election of 1888. Among "Captain"
Parkerson's "Lieutenants" was John C. Wickliffe, a West Point graduate who had become
a newspaper editor in New Orleans.10 With its thousands of participants, premeditation,
and prominent leadership, the New Orleans lynching incident of 1891 was representative
of what a recent student of lynching has characterized as lynching by a "mass mob," a
form of lynching accompanied by public ritual intended to demonstrate the community's
approval of the violence.11
Another distinctive feature of the lynchings of March 1891 was the ethnic identity
of the victims. By 1891 lynching was a well established method of enforcing the racial
mores of the South, and southern mobs frequently carried out lynchings in order to
demonstrate the white community's intolerance of "insubordinate” African-Americans.
The men murdered at the Parish prison in March 1891, however, were not African-
Americans. The eleven victims were Italian immigrants: Anthony Bagnetto, Antonio
Marchesi, Joseph Macheca, Antonio Scaffidi, Manuel Politz, Pietro Monasterio, James
Caruso, Loretto Comitz, Frank Romero, Charles Traina, and Rocco Geraci.
Thousands of people were lynched in the United States from 1880 to 1920, and
the New Orleans lynchings of 1891 came at the flood tide of the violence: from 1890 to
9 New Orleans Times-Democrat 15 March 1891.
10 New York Times. 15 March 1891.
11 W. Fityhnph Brundage. T.vnchiny in the New South: Georgia and Virgina 1880- 1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 36-37.
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1894 more than 600 people were killed. 12 More than 80 percent of the lynchings in the
United States from 1880 to 1920 occurred in the South, and most of the victims were
African-Americans.13 The turn of the century was clearly a period of intense racism. By
1900, there was in fact a "Capitulation to Racism," 14 as the last traces of moderation in
race relations dissolved, and the South yielded to a new order, enforced by violence and
defined by white supremacism and segregation. In the North, there was a general mood
of hostility to African-Americans wherever they appeared in significant numbers.15 But
the Italian victims in the New Orleans lynchings of 1891 demonstrate that the turn of the
century was also a period of intense nativism. The lynching incident of 1891 was not the
only instance in which several Italians were lynched. Similar instances occurred in
Louisiana in 1896, when three Italian immigrants were killed, and in 1899, when five
12 Robert L. Zanerando. The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching. 1909-1950 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980), 6-7.
13 Brundage, Lynching in the New South. 7-8.
14 C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow 2d rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), 67.
15 Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, 67-74; Florette Henri, Black Migration: Movement North. 1900-1920 (Garden City, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1975), 43. Howard Rabinowitz, in Race Relations in the Urban South: 1865-1890 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980), contests Woodward's interpretation of the rise of Jim Crow laws. According to Rabinowitz, the rise of legally enforced segregation did not follow a period of tentative and experimental integration, as Woodward contends. Instead, the period of segregation resulted in some African-American participation in urban life, marking a change from the preceding period in which African-Americans were completely excluded from urban facilities. Rabinowitz, nonetheless, agrees that the turn of the century was a period of intense racism.
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more were killed . 16
In episodes of violence such as the one in New Orleans in March 1891, the
victims might be African-Americans or they might be immigrants. It is noteworthy,
however, that when the victims were European immigrants, most often they were Italians.
Among European immigrants, only Italians endured several lynching incidents in which
there were multiple victims. In all, more than forty Italian immigrants were murdered by
nativist mobs, including four in a single instance in Buena Vista, Pennsylvania, in 1874;
six in a single instance in Walsenburg, Colorado, in 1895; and two in a single instance in
Tampa, Florida, in 1910.17 The violence inflicted on Italians was not comparable to the
sustained terrorism directed at African-Americans, but it is nonetheless clear that many
Americans believed that lynching was an acceptable way to control Italian immigrants as
well as African-Americans.
And lynching was not the only repressive measure enforced against both African-
Americans and Italian immigrants. Many Americans wanted to relegate Italian
immigrants to economic roles similar to those they had prescribed for African-Americans.
Like African-Americans, Italian immigrants were often viewed as racial18 outsiders who
16 New Orleans Daily Picayune. 6 August 1896; Washington Evening Star. 21 July 1899.
17 Higham, Strangers in the Land. 90-92; Luciano Iorizzo, "The Padrone and Immigrant Distribution," in The Italian Experience in the United States, ed. Silvio Tomasi and Madeline H. Engel (Staten Island, NY: Center for Immigration Studies), 50.
18 As several historians have noted, racial concepts are historically and ideologically created and often so imprecise as to hinder rather than facilitate analyses o f social problems. See, for example, Barbara J. Fields, "Ideology and Race in American History," in J. Morgan Kousser and James M. McPherson, Region. Race and Reconstruction (New
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were tolerated only because they provided cheap labor. As southern landowners
attempted to maintain their repressive labor system in the half century following the
abolition slavery, they experimented with the possibility of replacing African-American
workers with Italian immigrants.19 In attempts to weaken union solidarity, mine owners
in West Virginia brought in unemployed workers from outside the state, sometimes
alternating between African-Americans from the South and Italians and other recent
immigrants from cities in the Northeast.20
Among the repressive labor measures landowners imposed on both Italian and
African-Americans were peonage arrangements. Decades after slavery ended, forced
labor arrangements were common in the South. African-Americans were the primary
victims o f these repressive labor practices, but, in the first decade of the twentieth
century, investigations of southern peonage schemes revealed that substantial numbers of
Italian immigrants were also among the victims. In a single instance in South Carolina in
1906, for example, hundreds Italian immigrants were held under peonage conditions at a
temporary labor camp of the South and Western Railroad Company. They were freed
York: Oxford University Press, 1982) 143-177; David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making nf the American Working Class (London: Verso, 1991); Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White (New York: Routledge, 1995). This point is well illustrated in the case of Italian immigrants, as will be demonstrated below.
19 Rowland Berthoff, "Southern Attitudes Toward Immigration, 1865-1914," Journal of Southern History 17 (August 1951): 328-60; Robert L. Brandfon, "The End of Immigration to the Cotton Fields," Mississippi Valiev Historical Review 50 (March 1964): 591-611; Richard J. Amundson, "Oakley Plantation: A Post-Civil War Venture in Louisiana Sugar," Louisiana History 9 (Winter 1968): 21-42.
20 Herbert G. Gutman, Work. Culture & Society in Industrializing America (New York: Vintage Books, 1977), 173-74.
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only after the government of Italy applied diplomatic pressure.21 In Arkansas, under the
guise of a utopian agricultural experiment, Italian immigrants labored under restrictive
conditions at Sunnyside plantation. Mississippi Congressman Benjamin D. Humphreys
defended the prominent Mississippians who owned the plantation, describing Sunnyside
as a model farm community, but an investigation by crusading attorney Mary Grace
Quackenbos in 1907 revealed that the Italians were held on the job through threats of
violence.22
The vulnerability of Italians to repressive practices was exacerbated by the fact
that Italians, and especially southern Italians, were often associated with Africa. The
proximity of southern Italy to Africa was important in the European perception of
southern Italians. All points in Sicily are geographically closer to the North African coast
than they are to Rome—a fact that had long been noted in western Europe. An early
nineteenth-century French traveler, for example, commented that Europe ended at Naples,
and he added that it ended there "badly enough-Calabria, Sicily, all the rest is Africa ."23
In an intensely race conscious era, it was unlikely that these associations between
Africa and southern Italy would go unnoticed in America. In the Catholic churches of
Manhattan many of the old immigrants feared southern Italians because, in contrast to
21 Pete Daniel. The Shadow of Slavery: Peonage in the South. 1901-1969 fUrbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972; Illini Books edition, 1990), 94.
22 Ibid., 103 and 152.
23 Quoted in Phvllis Williams. SouthItalian Folkways in Europe and America (New York: Russell and Russell, 1938), 1.
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Germanic northern Italians, the southerners seemed to be of an African racial type.24 On
the docks o f New York, Italians were told that it took two or three "dagoes" to perform
the work of one "white man,"25 while three thousand miles to the west, construction
bosses on the Pacific Coast echoed the view that Italians were not white men, but
"dagoes."26
In the American South, the difficulties for Italians were further complicated
because Italian cultural traits stood out against the background of the region's society and
culture. Unaware o f southern customs, newly arrived Italian immigrants sometimes
offended their white neighbors by mingling with African-Americans .27 Such conflicts
between southerners and Italian immigrants were intensified by the fact that Italians
seemed to southerners to be especially exotic, both in their appearance and in the
exuberance of their cultural expressions. And, in the South, exotic physical appearance
and an expressive cultural style were likely to be associated with Africa. One African-
American southerners noted that Italian immigrants not only seemed exotic because of
their black shirts, black shoes, and black hats, but also because "they were mostly dark
24 Robert A. Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem. 1880-1950 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 160.
25 Iorizzo, "The Padrone," 52.
26 Higham, Strangers in the Land, p. 66 .
27 Humbert S. Nelli. From Immigrants to Ethnics: The Italian Americans fNew York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 53; Danny Barker, A Life in Jazz, ed. Alyn Shipton (London: Macmillan, 1986), 5; George E. Cunningham, "The Italian, A Hindrance to White Solidarity in Louisiana, 1890-1898,"Journal of Negro History 50 (January 1965): 24-25.
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colored. Not real white like other white people.,,2S
These perceptions of Italian racial ambiguity were reinforced by cultural
interactions between Italian immigrants and African-Americans in the South. In New
Orleans, for example, Italian neighborhoods resonated with the sounds of jazz, as Sicilian
musicians collaborated with African-American performers at night spots such as
Matranga's, Joe Segretta's, Tonti's Social Club, and Lala's Big 2S.29 For the most part,
whites in states in the deep South, such as Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, found
Italian cultural traits too exuberant and too reminiscent of the ways of the African-
American.30
Italian adjustment to America was also complicated by the preoccupation of
American national policy makers with theoretical speculations about race in this period.
In the reports of the United States Immigration Commission, southern Italians were
defined in a "Dictionary of Races" as a people descended from "Hamitic stock," or a
people with “some traces of an infusion of African blood in certain communities."31 One
of the nation's most popular and influential leaders, Theodore Roosevelt, seemed at times
28 Barker, A Life in Jazz. 4.
29 Garry Boulard, "Blacks Italians, and the Making of New Orleans Jazz," Journal of Ethnic Studies 16 (Spring 1979), 56.
30 Robert L. Brandfon, "The End of Immigration to the Cotton Fields," Mississippi Valiev Historical Review 50 (March 1964), 608; Cunningham, “The Italian, a Hindrance,” 25.
31 U.S. Immigration Commission, Reports o f the ImmigrationCommission by William P. Dillingham, Chairman, vol. 5, Dictionary of Races or Peoples (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1911), 82.
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to be obsessed with race. Like most of his contemporaries, Roosevelt jumbled categories
of race, ethnicity, and culture to a degree that precluded systematic analysis, but his
hostility to the "Italian race" stood out clearly in his ramblings.32 Along with other
American racial theorists, Roosevelt feared that the "real America" might commit "racial
suicide," because old stock Americans-a "higher race"--might "quietly eliminate itself'
to avoid biological competition with a lower one.33 Viewed in this context, Roosevelt
found southern Italians especially frightening, as they were "the most fecund and the least
desirable population of Europe."34
The virulence of anti-Italian sentiment in this period is well documented,35 and it
appears that, at least in the period around the turn of the century, Italian immigrants and
African-Americans had some basis for unity as common victims of exclusion and
violence.36 There is, in fact, evidence of mutually sympathetic responses by African
32 Thomas G. Dyer, Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980), 50.
33 E.A. Ross, "The Causes of Race Superiority," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 18 (1901): 85-88.
34 Dyer, Theodore Roosevelt 147; Robert D. Ward, "The Immigration Problem: Its Present Status and Its Relation to the American Race of the Future," Charities 12 (February 6,1904): 147-48.
35 John V. Baimonte, Jr., Spirit of Vengeance: Nativism and Louisiana Justice. 1921- 1924 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986); Barbara Botein, "The Hennessey Case: An Episode in Anti-Italian Nativism, " Louisiana History 20 (Summer 1979): 261-79; Higham, Strangers in the Land. 90; Iorizzo, "The Padrone and Immigrant Distribution," 43-75.
36 Arnold Shankman, in "The Image of the Italian in the Afro-American Press 1886- 1936," Italian Americana 1 (Fall/Winter 1978), 30-31, suggests that African-Americans responded to Italian immigrants with hostility in the 1890s, but the response softened
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Americans and Italian immigrants in the face o f common problems. Following the
lynchings of three Italians in Louisiana in 1896, for example, it was reported in the New
Orleans Times-Democrat that: "A large number of negroes and Italians were present at
the burial, and went home from the scene almost terror-stricken."37 Furthermore, in
response to the 1896 lynchings of Italians, the editors of several African-American
newspapers expressed outrage. In Indianapolis, African-American editors noted that
although the victims were Italians rather than African-Americans, that fact did not
mitigate the evil of the lynchings.38 This sentiment was echoed in Richmond, where
African-American editors emphatically stated their opposition to the "lynching of white
men or colored ones."39 African-American editors voiced similar concerns when five
more Italians were lynched in Louisiana in 1899.40 Particularly noteworthy is the fact that
some comments in African-American newspapers suggested possible collaboration with
Italians in a joint effort to gain a political solution through a greater federal presence in
law enforcement.41
On their side, Italian immigrants also responded sympathetically to the hardships
around 1900, as Italian workers in northern cities were increasingly perceived as shrewd, hard working, and thrifty.
37 New Orleans Times-Democrat 10 August 1896.
38 Indianapolis Freeman.IS August 1896.
39 Richmond Planet. 29 August 1896.
40 Cleveland Gazette. 19 August 1899; Richmond Planet 29 July 1899.
41 Washington Bee. 5 August 1899.
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of African-Americans. Italians who observed the horrors of lynching and Jim Crow laws
in the American South decried the lack of respect for human life.42 When a proposal to
disfranchise African-Americans through a state constitutional amendment was under
consideration in Louisiana in 1896, Italians demonstrated in protest. And it is noteworthy
that the Italians in New Orleans faced considerable risks in holding such demonstrations
because the city's newspapers responded with anti-Italian editorials that mingled racism
and nativism, as they objected to organizing "persons of foreign birth on race lines."43
Despite these signs of mutual sympathy in the early interactions of African-
Americans and Italian immigrants, there was no sustained social or political solidarity.
Even in the earliest interactions between African-Americans and Italian immigrants, the
tone was often ambivalent. Among the obvious hindrances to cooperation between
African-Americans and Italian immigrants was the need to compete for economic
resources, which were almost always under the control of members of the majority
community. African-Americans, for example, resented claims that the South could
improve the quality of its labor force by replacing African-Americans with Italian
immigrants.44 The potential for friction was heightened by overt attempts to use the
42 New York II Progresso Italiano. 27 July 1900 and 19 August 1905; Luigi Villari, Gli Stati Uniti d'America e l’emigrazione italiana (Milan; Fratelli Treves, Editori, 1912), 160.
43 New Orleans Times-Democrat. 24 March 1896.
44 Booker T. Washington, Address at St. Ann's on the Heights, Brooklyn, NY, December 8,1907, in Louis R. Harlan and Raymond W. Smocks, eds., The Booker T. WashingtonPapers (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972-89), vol. 9,419; "Foreign Labor in the South," Colored American Magazine 8 (January 1905): 4-6; "Negro Workmen Superior to Italian Workmen," The Voice of the Negro 2 (June 1905): 423.
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presence of the immigrants to coerce African-American workers.45 As one Mississippi
Congressman explained, "If whites crowd the negroes and the negroes learn they must
hustle for a living, they will hustle."46
Furthermore, employment was not the only area of competition that generated
friction between African-Americans and Italian immigrants. By the turn of the century,
African-Americans were beginning to migrate to cities in which the supply of housing
was already under pressure from the high tide o f European immigration. Upon arrival in
these cities, African-Americans frequently found that their prescribed place in the
housing market was in the worst areas of the cities, often in cramped, unsanitary alleys.47
In attempting to understand the ambivalence in relations between these groups, it
is important to note that interactions between African-Americans and Italian immigrants
did not occur in isolation from the mainstream o f American society. African-Americans
and Italian immigrants met in a society that was dominated by native-born white
Americans and influenced by a rich mix of other minority groups. And as has already
been noted, this was a society that was passing through a period of especially intense
racism and nativism. Although African-Americans and Italian immigrants were in many
ways strangers in American society, even these strangers internalized some of the
prevalent racist and nativist assumptions about the nature of social interactions. In
45 Edward Royce, The Origins of Southern Sharecropping (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), 144-45.
46 Baltimore Catholic Mirror. 20 January 1906.
47 "Baltimore," Crisis 1 (November 1910): 11.
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matters evoking nativism, African-Americans often responded as the native-born
Americans they were. In matters evoking racism, Italian immigrants, whether through
Old World cultural traits or through patterns of thought learned in the New World, often
responded as white Europeans.
Questions involving Italian-immigrant racism are more problematic than
questions involving African-American nativism. By the end of the nineteenth century,
after all, African-Americans had a very long history in America. For this reason, it is not
surprising to find that African-Americans shared with other Americans many assumptions
about the proper place of aliens in American society. Italian immigrants, on the other
hand, had recently departed from a cultural environment that was significantly different
from the United States. Europe, of course, was not free from racism and color
prejudice ,48 and, in the 1890s, Prime Minister Francesco Crispi openly referred to
Africans as “savages” in his speeches to the Italian Parliament.49 Most Italian
immigrants, however, came from agricultural villages. For the most part, they had little
exposure to the debates in the Italian Parliament, and even less experience with culturally
diverse cities such as Baltimore.
Nonetheless, it is clear that Italians sometimes expressed racist ideas in their early
contacts with Americans. Joseph Macheca, for example, unlike most of the other victims
48 David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), 51-53; Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro 1550-1812 (Baltimore: Pelican Books, 1969), 4-43.
49 Denis Mack Smith, Italy and Its Monarchy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 86 .
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of the lynchings in New Orleans in 1891, was not a recent immigrant. According to one
report, as early as 1868, Macheca had been involved in Democratic party politics in
Louisiana, and his activities during Reconstruction included leading the "Innocents," a
group of Sicilians whose purpose was to terrorize African-Americans. They achieved
their purpose by riding through the streets in white capes decorated with Maltese crosses,
and in the course of these rides they shot and killed dozens of African-Americans .50
Other Italian contacts with African-Americans were less flamboyant, but racist just as
well. Italian historian Luigi Villari lamented the harsh treatment of African-Americans in
the South, but also commented that African-Americans had a low intellect and were
incapable of progress beyond a certain limit.51 Similarly, an Italian authority on
international law, in commenting on aggression against Italian immigrants in America,
expressed indignation that Italians were being viewed as an "inferior race." Responding
to a statement that lynchings were committed against American citizens as well as Italian
immigrants, the Italian commentator remarked, "But who are they? Negroes." He also
complained that Italians should not be treated like African-Americans and explained that
"Italian feeling rebels on hearing that our peasants are compared to Asiatics or negroes."52
Just as Italian immigrants sometimes responded to African-Americans with
racism, African-Americans sometimes responded to Italian immigrants with nativism.
50 New York Times. 15 March 1891.
51 Gli Stati Uniti e remigrazione. 162.
52 Augusto Pierantoni, "Italian Feeling on American Lynching," The Independent (August 27,1903), 2041.
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One way to analyze the nativist responses of African-Americans is to compare their
responses to the patterns of nativism found among the majority of native-born Americans.
According to John Higham, patterns o f American nativism encompassed three
underlying traditions: hatred of Catholics, fear of radicalism, and a yearning for racial
purity.53 Recently, an immigration historian has called attention to the fact that fear of
disease was also an underlying theme in American nativism.54 When the reactions of
African-Americans to Italian immigrants are measured against the four criteria provided
by these historians of nativism and immigration, it is clear that at least in some ways
African-Americans shared in the national experience: in many instances African-
Americans responded to Italian immigrants by expressing an aversion to Catholicism, a
fear of radicalism, a preoccupation with racial purity, and a dread of exposure to the
diseases that journeyed silently to America along with Italian strangers.
Some African-Americans were Catholics, especially in those areas of the United
States in which Catholicism had a long history, such as Maryland, but most tum-of-the-
century African-Americans were Protestants.55 Although the Catholicism of Italian
immigrants was not in the foreground o f African-American concerns about immigration,
53 Higham, Strangers in the Land. 5-9.
54 Alan M. Kraut, Silent Travelers: Germs. Genes, and the "Immigrant Menace1* (New York: Basic Books, 1994; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).
55 Baltimore Catholic Mirror. 4 September 1880;Baltimore Catholic Mirror. 18 January 1908; John T. Gillard, The Catholic Church and the American Negro (Baltimore: St. Joseph's Society Press, 1929), 27; John Tracy Ellis, The Life ofJames Cardinal Gibbons Archbishop of Baltimore 1834-1921 (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1952) 2:397.
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African-Americans, like their white countrymen, sometimes expressed anxiety about the
religious ties o f the immigrants as well as about the Catholic connections of those who
encouraged the acceptance o f Italian immigrants. Some African-American leaders, for
example, believed that Immigration Commissioner Terence V. Powderly was motivated
by Catholicism rather than sound national policy when he promoted the immigration of
Italians into the South.56
The major wellspring of American nativist hostility toward Italian immigrants,
however, was fear of European radicalism,57 a fear expressed by both African-Americans
and white Americans. For African-Americans, the campaign to bring Italian immigrant
labor into the South was especially provocative. In response to calls for immigrant labor
to replace African-Americans in the South, African-American leaders issued warnings
about the dire consequences of replacing the "patient, strong arm o f the Negro" with the
"scum of Europe," who undoubtedly, would quickly "organize into unions and hell-
generating mafias."58 Similarly, African-Americans cautioned that the strikes that had
smitten the North were the product of "hordes of un-American workmen," and the
introduction of Italians and other Europeans into the South would yield more of the same
fruits. Even worse, it was noted, the usually reliable labor force o f the South could easily
56 W. B. Watkins to Booker T. Washington, 24 April 1908, in Booker T. Washington Papers. 9:509-10.
57 Higham. Strangers in the Land, p. 90.
58 "Italian Immigrants for the South," Voice of the Negro 2 (July 1905): 453.
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imbibe the spirit of restlessness from such European malcontents.39 A few African-
American leaders contrasted the docility of African-American workers to the militancy of
the Italians, warning southerners that they would miss the "faithful Negro" if they
displaced African-Americans with this unruly European element .30
There may well have been a touch of irony underlying these outcries by African-
American editors as they exploited the lexicon o f bigotry in an argument with their own
racial tormentors. Whether or not the irony was conscious, the verbal imagery used
against the Italian immigrants resonated with the culture of American nativists.
As John Higham has noted, the fear of radical immigrants was not always cast in
terms of specific labor conflicts, but instead often dissolved into a vague concern about
lawlessness and disorder .61 Again, African-Americans demonstrated the genuineness of
the American aspect of their cultural identity. When the government of Italy issued
belligerent warnings following the lynchings of immigrants in New Orleans, an African-
American newspaper editor sneered at Italy and suggested that she "keep her garbage at
home,"62 while others complained of "Italian thugs" who formed an undesirable stream of
"paupers and criminals ."63 At other times, African-American editors characterized
59 "Some Strike Lessons for the South," Voice o f the Nemo 2 (June 1905): 423.
60 Washington Bee. 22 July 1905.
61 Higham, Strangers in the Land, p. 79.
62 Indianapolis Freeman. 4 April 1891.
63 Huntsville (Alabama) Gazette. 4 April 1891,
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Italians as a people inclined to join black hand societies and use the stiletto.64
While fear of radicalism and criminality was the most typical theme in African-
American expressions of nativism, the most surprising expressions o f African-American
nativism were those sounding the theme that Italian immigrants constituted a threat to
American racial purity. Again, there may well have been an undercurrent of irony in this
theme, but, taken at face value, the statements of African-American editors were
unambiguously racist. In noting the dangers of introducing Italian immigrants into the
South, one African-American publication included the warning that "the very integrity of
the pure white South would be threatened by intermingling with this semi-white class of
people.n6S In another instance, an African-American editor declared that the presence of
Italian immigrants in the South would "disturb Anglo-Saxon civilization."66
In addition to their abhorrence o f Catholicism, fear of radicalism, and concern
about racial impurity, African-Americans, like other American nativists, worried that
Italians threatened America's health and genetic vitality. When yellow fever broke out in
New Orleans in 1905, for example, some African-Americans were quick to attribute the
disease to the city's Italian community. According to one African-American publication,
no one who was familiar with the Italian quarter in New Orleans was surprised by the
outbreak of yellow fever because "The Italians are a filthy people, who care very little for
air, less for water, and not at all for soap, and who can and do live as contentedly with
64 Washington Bee. 28 October 1905.
65 "Italian Immigration," Voice of the Negro 2 (September 1905): 596.
66 Colored American Magazine 8 (January 1905): 4.
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fifteen in a room and one towel, as they can with eight."67 In another publication, it was
noted that the South had lost its enthusiasm for Italian immigrants now that the yellow
fever epidemic had shown that "the sons of Italy are very susceptible to contagious and
fatal diseases ."68
Thus, traditional patterns of American nativism sometimes appeared in the
responses of African-Americans to Italian immigrants, and such responses attenuated
impulses to cooperate with Italian immigrants. But the circumstances o f the early
encounters between African-Americans and Italian immigrants were neither clearly
favorable nor clearly unfavorable for cooperation. Unquestionably, relations between
these peoples were affected by the racism and nativism that were prevalent in America;
African-Americans were Americans, and Italians were white Europeans. There was,
however, ambiguity in the national identity of African-Americans and uncertainty in the
racial identity of Italian immigrants. Each was to a significant degree a stranger in the
land, and there were flickers of compassion on both sides, as each group saw in the other
a fellow victim of violence and exploitation.
These complex and ambiguous currents in American social relations must be
taken into account in examining interactions between African-Americans and Italian
immigrants in Baltimore. The racially and ethnically diverse residents of Baltimore
shared fully in the American experience that included lynching, peonage, racism, and
nativism. When African-Americans and Italian immigrants encountered each other in
67 ColoredAmerican Mapayine 9 (September 1905): 471-72.
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Baltimore at the turn of the century, there was more than a simple meeting of two
cultures: African-Americans and Italian immigrants interacted within a network of social
and cultural relationships, and a multiplicity of social and cultural communications
influenced the ways these two peoples viewed each other and responded to each other.
68 "Italian Immigration," Voice of the Negro 2 (September 1905): 595-96.
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THE DEVELOPMENT OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN AND
ITALIAN-IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES IN BALTIMORE
American attitudes about race and ethnicity were important to interactions
between African-Americans and Italian immigrants. But the specific characteristics of
African-American and Italian-immigrant communities in Baltimore also influenced the
course of race relations as these two peoples lived together in the early years of twentieth
century. For this reason, the next step in establishing the context for analyzing race
relations in Baltimore is to examine the development of African-American and Italian-
immigrant communities in the city.
There were some similarities in the development of the African-American and
Italian-immigrant communities in Baltimore. Each community, for example, was the
product of a migration of a rural people to an urban center. The differences, however,
were more pronounced. The timing of the journey was different; many African-
Americans were present in Baltimore by the end o f the eighteenth century, or nearly a
hundred years before there was a significant Italian presence in the city. There was also a
clear difference in the conditions from which the migrants departed. Many of Baltimore's
African-Americans came to the city, like Frederick Douglas, under the compulsion of the
50
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slaveholder, while virtually all Italians came by choice. Important differences in the lives
of African-Americans and Italian immigrants also resulted from conditions they
encountered as they went about building new lives in Baltimore. In Baltimore, the
migrants encountered a complex urban society with a highly developed local culture. The
city was not a blank slate.
The early development o f the African-Americancom m unity in Baltimore was
influenced by the fact that Maryland was a slave state, but Baltimore was never truly a
slave city. The distinctive characteristic of Baltimore's African-American population in
the antebellum period was not slavery, but instead the high number o f freemen.1 As a
refuge that offered relative anonymity and a relaxation of slaveholders' security measures,
antebellum Baltimore was a magnet for freed slaves.2 At the same time, urban centers
such as Baltimore did not provide favorable economic conditions for the expansion of
slavery. Slavery generally declined in cities after 1820,3 and in the particular case of
Baltimore, the decline was almost inevitable, as the chief pillar of commercial life was
not the slave-based tobacco industry of southern Maryland, but instead trade and
transportation associated with the free labor economy of Pennsylvania and western and
1 Barbara J. Fields, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland during the Nineteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 42.
2 Ira Berlin, Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), 54-55. 3 Richard C. Wade, Slavery in the Cities: The South 1820-1860 (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 20-21.
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northern Maryland.4
Demographic changes over the course of the nineteenth century reflected
Baltimore's unfavorable climate for slavery. In Baltimore's early history, African-
Americans, both slave and free, were an important component in the labor force,
performing both domestic service and skilled work, such as carpentry and ship caulking.s
During the first half of the nineteenth century, however, Baltimore's free African-
American population far outran the city's slave population. In 1790, when Baltimore's
total population was 13,503, the slaves in the city numbered 1,255, as compared to a mere
323 free African-Americans. Twenty years later, however, there were 5,671 free African-
Americans and only 4,672 slaves among the city's 46,555 residents. And the trend
continued throughout the antebellum period; by 1860 free African-Americans
outnumbered slaves by 25,680 to 2,218.6
Baltimore was well situated to attract African-Americans migrating out of rural
areas of the South,7 and a century-long migration of African-Americans from the rural
South to urban areas in the North and border states began when the Civil War ended.8
African-Americans were deeply affected by the failure of Reconstruction to provide
4 Fields, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground. 42.
5 Berlin, Slaves without Masters. 54-55.
6 Ibid., 62.
7 Paul A. Groves and Edward K. Muller, "The evolution of Black Residential Areas in Late Nineteenth Century Cities," Journal ofHistorical Geography 1 (1975): 174.
8 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Negro Population in the United States. 1790-1915 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), 43-44.
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former slaves with a secure place in the southern agricultural economy.9 Without a solid
hold on the land, and with insufficient resources to establish homesteads in the open lands
of the West, African-Americans were reduced to sharecropping.10 As the unsatisfactory
conditions for African-Americans in the agricultural economy o f the South became clear,
the attachment of African-Americans to the rural South weakened, and whenever
favorable conditions for migration appeared, African-Americans joined the movement
from farm to city that was common to peasant peoples throughout the Western world in
the second half of the nineteenth century.11
For those rural African-Americans who resided within the borders of Maryland,
there was, of course, no Reconstruction. Nonetheless, African-Americans in border states
such as Maryland and Kentucky also suffered the consequences o f white resentment of
attempts to improve the economic and political standing of former slaves; and, in some
ways, the burdens were greater for African-Americans in these border states because
former slaveholders in the loyal border states were not subject to the Federal constraints
9 W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880. with an introduction by David Levering Lewis (1935; repr., New York: Atheneum 1992), 601-4; Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution. 1863-1877 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 602.
10 Eric Foner, Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983), 82-84; Edward Royce, Originsof Southern Sharecropping (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), 90-95.
11 Howard N. Rabinowitz, Race Relations in the Urban South. 1865-1890 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980), 18-19; Peter Gottlieb, Making Their Own Wav: Southern Blacks' Migration to Pittsburgh. 1916-30 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 4; James R. Grossman, Land o f Hope: Chicago. Black Southerners, and the Great Migration (Chicago: University o f Chicago Press, 1989), 19.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 54
imposed on the former slaveholders of the Confederacy.12 Like African-Americans in the
States of the late Confederacy, Maryland's former slaves and freedmen struggled through
the transition from slavery to freedom with all the disadvantages of a people who began
the process with fewer economic resources than their competitors.13 Despite the formal
difference between Maryland and the Confederate slave states, in the Reconstruction
period and afterward Maryland's rural African-Americans had compelling reasons to look
to the city for new opportunities.
Typically, African-Americans initiated the transition from rural to urban life by
seeking temporary or seasonal employment as a means o f supplementing meager farm
incomes. Often there was a period of transitionary employment in a town with a small
industry closely related to the countryside, such as a sawmill.14 As a result of these
experiences, many African-Americans learned of additional wage-earning opportunities
in more distant cities, and they began to move in wider circles.13 In time these temporary
12 George C. Wright, Life Behind a Veil: Blacks in Louisville. Kentucky. 1865-1930 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985), 15 and 20-21; Margaret L. Callcott, The Neero in Maryland Politics 1870-1912 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969), 14-18; Charles L. Wagandt, "Redemption or Reaction ?— Maryland in the Post Civil War Years," in Radicalism. Racism, and Party Realignment: The Border States During Reconstruction, ed. Richard O. Curry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969), 180.
13 Fields, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground. 193.
14 Grossman, Land o f Hope. 107: John Bodnar, Roger Simon, and Michael P. Weber, Lives of Their Own: Blacks. Italians, and Poles in Pittsburgh. 1900-1960 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982), 32.
15 William Cohen, At Freedom's Edge: Black Mobility and the Southern White Quest for Racial Control. 1861-1915 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991), 96.
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or seasonal migrants found relatively stable laboring jobs in cities such as Baltimore or
Pittsburgh. Once established in such an urban setting a pioneer could assist others in
making the same transition.16 With an African-American community that pre-dated the
Civil War, and with its location between the agricultural South and the industrial North,
Baltimore provided a logical destination for tens of thousands of such migratory African-
Americans.
From 1860 to 1880, the African-American population of Baltimore more than
doubled, growing from about twenty-five thousand to slightly more than fifty thousand.17
Approximately ninety percent of the growth in the city's African-American population
during this period was the result of migration from rural areas to the city. From 1870 to
1900, for example, the African-American population increased by forty thousand, and of
this increase, three thousand were added when the city annexed land in 1888 and two
thousand were the result of natural increase. Nearly all of the remaining thirty-five
thousand were migrants from the South.18
Most of the African-Americans who migrated to Baltimore in this period came
from the rural counties of Maryland. In 1870 fewer than ten percent of the migrants came
16 Bodnar, Simon, and Weber, Lives of Their Own. 31-33; Gottlieb, Making Their Own Wav. 12.
17 Groves and Muller, "The Evolution of Black Residential Areas,” 177.
18 Charles Hirschfield, Baltimore. 1870-1900: Studies in Social History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1941), 20-21. Despite the rapid increase in the city's African-American population at this time, the city was not becoming predominantly African-American in its overall population. Approximately 114,000 native-born Americans migrated from rural areas to Baltimore in this period, and of these migrants approximately 80,000 were whites.
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from outside of Maryland. Toward the end o f the century, however, an increasing
number of migrants originated in Virginia and North Carolina, and by 1900 only seventy-
nine percent of the African-Americans in Baltimore were bom within the borders of
Maryland.19 These migrations brought a dramatic increase in the African-American
population of the city, and by 1900 nearly eighty thousand African-Americans resided in
Baltimore. Among American cities, only Washington, D.C., surpassed Baltimore in the
number of its African-American residents at the turn of the century.20
In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the residential distribution of
Baltimore's African-Americans was transformed. Before 1885 African-Americans were
scattered throughout the city. In three-fourths of Baltimore's wards, African-Americans
comprised at least 10 percent of the residents.21 There were two notable concentrations of
African-Americans in the city, Druid Hill, which was to the Northwest o f the commercial
center, and Pigtown, which was to the South near the inner harbor and Camden Station;
but no ward had a majority of African-Americans.22 Important changes were underway
by 1885, as more and more of the African-American migrants to the city settled in the
alley districts closest to the West side of the commercial center, while African-Americans
19 Robert J. Brugger, Maryland: A Middle Temperament 1634-1980 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 313; Betty Collier Thomas, "The Baltimore Black Community: 1865-1910" (Ph.D. diss., The George Washington University, 1974), 371.
20 John M. Powell, "History of Baltimore 1870-1912," in Baltimore: Its History and Its People (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1912), vol. 1, 326-27.
21 Groves and Muller, "Evolution of Black Residential Areas," 178.
22 Ibid., 183.
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who had been in the city longer moved to the Northwest, especially out Druid Hill
Avenue.23
Around the turn of the century, several important African-American institutions
relocated to the area between the Northwest comer of the commercial center and Druid
Hill Park. In 1898 the Sharp Street Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church erected a new
structure at Dolphin and Etting Streets. Baltimore's Colored High School relocated to
Pennsylvania Avenue and Dolphin Street in 1901, and in the same year the Union Baptist
Church erected a new structure on Druid Hill Avenue. When the Baltimore & Ohio
Railroad condemned several blocks in the South Baltimore alley district, many of the
displaced African-American residents followed their churches and school to the
Northwest neighborhood.24
Changes in racial patterns in Baltimore's neighborhoods apparently reflected a
cultural predisposition to separate the races. As African-Americans moved into the Druid
Hill neighborhood in greater numbers, whites left, following new cable car lines out to
the suburbs.25 One observer commented in the late 1890s that "Whenever a negro moves
into a street the whites flutter away. They simply vanish."26 Before the nineteenth
century ended, the old pattern of racial residential distribution had been transformed. In
23 Cynthia Neverdon-Morton, "Black Housing Patterns in Baltimore, 1885-1953," Maryland Historian 16 (Spring/Summer 1985): 25-26.
24 Ibid.
“ Ibid.
26 John R. Slattery, "Twenty Years' Growth of the Colored People in Baltimore," The Catholic World 66 (January 1898): 521.
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the ward encompassing the Druid Hill neighborhood, African-Americans had established
a stable majority, and substantial areas on the West side of Baltimore had African-
American populations in excess of 60 percent.27
The changes in residential patterns in this period not only divided the city racially,
but also divided the African-American community on the basis of class. As poorer, more
recent migrants crowded into the alley districts closest to the West side of the city, the
more affluent members of the community moved out of the alleys into the more
substantial streetfront homes along Pennsylvania and Druid Hill Avenues, and the
parallel streets between them.28 The African-American community extending out Druid
Hill Avenue included gradations in the quality of housing, beginning with the poorer
quality housing in the alley district at the southeastern end of the Avenue, and extending
to the better streetfront homes farther to the Northwest. By comparison to Pigtown on the
south side of the city center, Druid Hill was more prosperous, with even the alley districts
of Druid Hill maintaining a slightly higher standard of living than the alleys in the
southern neighborhood.29 Thus, Pigtown, near the inner harbor and barely above sea
level, marked the African-American community's bottom end, both geographically and
socially, while at the upper end, more affluent African-Americans moved to higher
27 Groves and Muller, "The Evolution of Black Residential Areas," 178-80.
28 Sherry H. Olson, Baltimore: The Building of an American Citv (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 233-34.
29 Housing Conditions inBaltimore: Report of a SpecialCommittee of the Association for the Improvement of the Poor and the Charity Organization Society. Submittingthe Results of an Investigation Made bv Janet E. Kemp (Baltimore: Baltimore Association for the Improvement of the Poor, 1907), 44.
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ground and better houses. Because the African-American community lacked the financial
infrastructure necessary to support the construction of new housing, increasing numbers
of African-Americans had little choice but to push farther into the second-hand
neighborhoods along Druid Hill avenue.30
The changes in the city's residential patterns also had political ramifications. In
all but a few years from 1890 to 1920, an African-American held the Baltimore City
Council seat representing the ward encompassing the Druid Hill neighborhood. Four
African-American Republicans, Harry Sythe Cummings, Dr. Marcus Cargill, Hiram
Watty, and William L. Fitzgerald, held the seat at various times in the period. In an era
when African-Americans were blocked from public office by disfranchisement laws in
the South and insufficient voting strength in the North, the combined electoral successes
of these four men added up to twelve victories in sixteen elections.31 The successes of
Cummings, Cargill, Watty, and Fitzgerald are illustrative of the unique status of
Baltimore at the turn of the century. In this period the efforts of these African-American
politicians could bring electoral victories only in a middle land-far enough South to have
significant numbers of African-Americans, yet beyond the reach of the deep South's
disfranchisement laws.
The electoral victories o f these African-American Republicans also illustrate a
developing pattern of residential segregation in Baltimore. Throughout this period, the
30 Olson, Baltimore. 233-34; Neverdon-Morton, "Black Housing Patterns in Baltimore," 26.
31 Suzanne Ellery Green, "Black Republicans on the Baltimore City Council, 1890-
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electoral victories of Cummings, Cargill, Watty, and Fitzgerald came with increasing
certainty, as the concentration of African-Americans in Northwest Baltimore intensified.
Three of the white Democratic electoral successes in the Druid Hill ward came in the
middle 1890s, while the largest African-American victory margins came after 1910. In
1891, Harry S. Cummings won by a margin of 33 votes in a two-man race; in a two-man
race in 1911, he won by nearly one thousand votes.32 Following redistricting in 1915,
two African-Americans sat on the City Council together for the first time; in the election
of 1919 Fitzgerald won by a wide margin in the remainder of the old Druid Hill ward, and
African-American Republican, Warner T. McGuinn, won in an adjoining ward by a
margin of eighteen votes.33 In view of the concentration of African-Americans
represented in these vote totals, it is not surprising that by the turn of the century realtors
began promoting Druid Hill as the “Main Street” for African-Americans in Baltimore.34
Baltimore’s Italian-immigrant community did not develop until the late nineteenth
century, and by the time the Italians began to flood into Baltimore, they entered a city in
which a clear pattern of racial separation was already evident. Although Baltimore was
ethnically diverse throughout the nineteenth century, the Italian population in the city was
very small until the last quarter of the century. In the early nineteenth century, the Italian
1931," Maryland Historical Magazine 74 (September 1979).
32 Ibid., 216-17. The vote totals for 1891 were Cummings, 1,581, and white Democrat Joseph A. Gilliss, 1,548. In 1911, Cummings defeated white Democrat, Daniel Conroy, by 2,001 to 976.
33 Greene, "Black Republicans," 217.
34 Neverdon-Morton, "Black Housing Patterns," 26.
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residents of the city consisted o f a few sailors and merchants, most of whom had found
their way to Baltimore as a result of the city's shipping connections with Genoa.35 Even
as late as 1880, the Italian population o f Baltimore was only about 610.36 Although there
were several Italian families in the area o f the intersection of President Street and Eastern
Avenue in 1880,37 many of the streets that were later to become the heart of Little Italy,
such as Exeter and Stiles, still had virtually no Italian-immigrant residents. Instead, these
streets were filled with Irish-Americans, along with a few Russian Jews and an occasional
African-American who was usually a female live-in servant.38
Despite the relatively small number of Italian immigrants in Baltimore in 1880,
events in that year established a landmark in the life of the city's Italian community. In
September 1880 a parade including more than a thousand marchers, fifteen bands, and
dozens of men on horseback formed at the intersection of Baltimore and South Streets,
just a few hundred feet from the Southeast comer of Baltimore's City Hall. The seven
divisions of the parade moved east on Baltimore Street, crossing Jones Falls. In East
35 "Italians in Baltimore," Vertical Files, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore; "Obituary, Leonard Passano," Baltimore Morning Herald. 22 February 1904; The Church of St. Leo the Great of Baltimore 1881-1981: The heart of Little Italy (Baltimore: Church of St. Leo the Great Press, 1981), 2-3.
36 Nancy K. Torrieri, "Residential Dispersion and the Survival of the Italian Community in Metropolitan Baltimore, 1920-1980" (Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, 1982), 52-54.
37 U.S. Manuscript Census 1880, Maryland, microfilm roll 498, Enumeration District 35.
38 U.S. Manuscript Census 1880, Maryland, microfilm roll 498, Enumeration District 36.
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Baltimore, thousands o f spectators crowded the sidewalks and the windows of rowhouses
on Exeter Street, Stiles Street, Eastern Avenue, and High Street. As the parade traced an
irregular path through East Baltimore, the marchers passed within a block or two of the
homes of nearly all of the city's Italian-speaking residents. At Exeter and Stiles streets,
Archbishop James Gibbons met the parade and delivered a short speech to celebrate the
laying of the cornerstone o f St. Leo's Church, Baltimore's Catholic Chinch for Italians.39
Archbishop Gibbons had initiated the St. Leo's project in 1879, when he had
asked Father Joseph L. Andreis, of St. Vincent's Church in central Baltimore, to make a
survey of the city's Italians. Because Father Andreis was himself Italian-born, and
because his assignments as assistant pastor at St. Vincent's included providing separate
masses and religious instructions for Italians, he was well positioned to survey
Baltimore’s Italian community.40 According to Father Andreis' survey, there were
approximately five hundred Italians in the city in 1879.41
Despite the small number of Italians revealed by Father Andreis' survey,
Archbishop Gibbons moved ahead quickly with the building campaign. Father Andreis
was named as the pastor for the new Church, and on June 25,1880, Archbishop Gibbons
bought three lots at the comer of Stiles and Exeter Streets for $25,000.42 Construction
39 Baltimore Catholic Mirror. 18 September 1880. Archbishop Gibbons became Cardinal Gibbons in 1886.
40 The Church of St Leo the Great 3.
41 John Tracy Ellis, The Life of James Cardinal Gibbons Archbishop of Baltimore 1834-1921.2 vols. (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1952), 1:339. 42 The Church of St Leo the Great 5.
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workers cleared existing buildings from the lots in July 1880, and when Archbishop
Gibbons presided at the cornerstone ceremony in September 1880, his goal was to
celebrate Christmas mass in the new Italian church.43
It is revealing that Archbishop Gibbons decided to proceed with the construction
of a separate church for Italians at a time when there were only five or six hundred Italian
immigrants in the city. Italian immigrants frequently met hostility in American Catholic
churches, which were dominated by Irish and German Catholics. Some Catholic
churches, for example, simply turned away Italians, while in others Italians were seated in
the back with African-Americans.44 In the case of St. Vincent's, the church in which
Father Andreis held separate services for Italians, the extent to which Italians were
rejected by Irish-American and German-American Catholics is not clear. Father Andreis
was Italian, but, unlike most of the new immigrants, he was a Northern Italian, from
Turin;45 and many years later older residents of Little Italy vaguely recalled that Italian
immigrants were never cordially received when they occasionally visited St. Vincent's in
the early years of the twentieth century.46
43 Baltimore Catholic Mirror. 10 July 1880. Baltimore's Catholic community did not quite meet Archbishop Gibbons goal; the first mass was celebrated in January 1881. BaltimoreCatholic Mirror. 29 January 1881.
44 Rudolph J. Vecoli, "Peasants and Prelates: Italian Immigrants and the Catholic Church," Journal of Social History 2 (Spring 1969): 230; Jay P. Dolan, The Immigrant Church: New York's Irish and German Catholics. 1815-1865. with a Foreword by Martin E. Marty (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975; repr., Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983).
45 The Church of St. Leo the Great 3.
46 Interview with J.S., August 21,1979, number 139, Baltimore Neighborhood
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The persistent problem of friction among the many national groups within the
Catholic Church in the United States troubled Archbishop Gibbons throughout his career,
and his method of attenuating conflicts among national groups was to allow each group to
establish its own parish, while maintaining the unity of the Church at the diocese level.47
The early establishment of St. Leo's fit into Gibbons' plan by isolating Italian immigrants,
who were a potential source of irritation to the older national parishes in central
Baltimore.
Although Archbishop Gibbons and Father Edmund Didier, pastor of St. Vincent's,
planned St. Leo's as an Italians-only parish, it quickly became apparent that it would be
difficult to establish a viable parish with a base of fewer than one thousand Italian
immigrants.48 Many of the Italians were poor, and some of them intended to return to
Italy. Furthermore, even within the small Italian-immigrant community there was
diversity, and Father Andreis began to use English as a common language, not only
because he had non-Italian parishoners, but also because many of his Italian parishoners
spoke only local dialects o f Italian and could not understand each other.49
Apparently, Father Didier saw the establishment of St. Leo's as a way of isolating
Italians without creating a nearby church that would compete with St. Vincent's for non-
Heritage Project, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore (BNHP).
47 Ellis, Life of JamesCardinal Gibbons. 1:362-63.
48 The Church of St Leo the Great 7.
49 Thomas W. Spalding, The Premier See: A History of the Archdiocese of Baltimore (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Universty Press, 1989), 275.
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Italian parishoners: he opposed the use of English at S t Leo's, and he opposed the
recruitment of non-Italians for membership in the new church.30 Despite Father Didier's
opposition to his plans, Father Andreis appealed to Archbishop Gibbons to allow him to
recruit new members from among non-Italians. Finally, Gibbons reversed the Italians-
only policy in order to assure the viability of the new church, and when St. Leo's finally
opened in 1881, its members included approximately five hundred Italians and
approximately fifteen hundred non-Italians.31
Despite ongoing conflicts between Father Andreis and Father Didier over the use
of English and over the recruitment o f non-Italian members for the new parish,
Archbishop Gibbons acted decisively to advance the plan for S t Leo's. At the same time,
Baltimore's non-Italian Catholics expended great effort to assure that the Italians would
move quickly into the new church. Other than Father Andreis, few Italians were leaders
in the construction project. When a committee was formed to plan the cornerstone
ceremonies, for example, the officers appointed were M.S. McMahon, President; H.S.
Buckless and E.F. Kelly, Vice Presidents; John Shea and M.A. Canton, Secretaries;
Thomas Hanly, Treasurer; and J.T. Neale, Sergeant at Arms.32 Similarly, when
Baltimore's Catholic societies met in early September to plan the event, those in
attendance included John Donnelly, who presided over the meeting; M.S. McMahon,
Chief Knight of the Catholic Societies; August Hengemible, leader of the German
30 Spalding, Premier See. 241.
31 The Church of St. Leo the Great 7; Spalding, Premier See. 241-42.
32 Baltimore Catholic Mirror. 21 August 1880.
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societies; Michael McGuiness of the Consolidated Board of Catholic Societies; and H.S.
Buckless, representative of the societies of St Vincent's Church.53 Fundraisers for S t
Leo's were held in December 1880, and among the dozens o f women whose names
appeared in the lists of volunteers were women named Collett, McElroy, Keane, Devine,
Byrne, Williams, Hagerty, Crawford, Callahan, and Brooks. The reports in the social
pages of Baltimore's Catholic newspaper included only two names that were obviously
Italian, Cutino and Pessagno.54
Whether St. Leo's was built because non-Italian Catholics wanted to exclude
Italian immigrants or because Italian immigrants wanted to express a growing sense of
community identity, the timing of the project was auspicious. The decade beginning in
1880 was a turning point in Italian immigration in the United States. In 1880 Italian
immigration to the United States surpassed ten thousand for the first time.55 In the decade
from 1871 to 1880, the Italians entering the United States numbered 55,759; the number
grew to 307,309 for the decade from 1881 to 1890, then grew to 651,893 for the decade
from 1891 to 1900.56 Proportionately, Baltimore's small Italian community also grew
rapidly in this period. From 1879, when Father Andreis counted five hundred Italians in
53 Baltimore Catholic Mirror. 4 September 1880.
54 Baltimore Catholic Mirror. 18 December 1880.
55 U.S. Immigration Commission, Reports of the ImmigrationCommission (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1911), vol. 4, Emigration conditions in Europe. 138.
56 U.S. Industrial Commission, Reports, vol. 15, Reports of the IndustrialCommission on Immigration:Including Testimony with Review and Digest (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1901; repr., New York: Amo, 1970), 268.
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the city, the Italian-born population increased to 2,042 in 1900; in the same year the
number of Baltimore's residents with both parents bom in Italy was 3,189.57
Although prospects for the growth of St Leo's were favorable over the long run,
the Church did not flourish immediately. Relying on a small Italian immigrant
community at the start, the Church encountered difficulty as a result of fluctuations in the
rate of Italian immigration into Baltimore. When Cardinal Gibbons spoke at the twenty-
fifth anniversary celebration of St. Leo's in 1906, he recounted the struggles of the little
congregation, noting that following its founding the Church went through a period of
decline, as many Russians moved into the neighborhood and Italians moved farther
uptown.58
By the turn of the century, however, there was no doubt that the ethnic identity of
the neighborhood surrounding St. Leo’s was Italian. The last homes occupied by Russian
Jews were bought by Italians in the first decade of the twentieth century. In 1910 Italians
occupied nearly every house on both sides of all the streets surrounding St. Leo's,
including Stiles, High, Albemarle, Exeter, Trinity, Fawn, and Eastern.59 With the rapid
growth of the Italian-immigrant community in Baltimore, both in numbers and self-
awareness, St. Leo's, became the focal point for Italian immigrant life in the city.60
57 U.S. Census Office, Twelfth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1900: Population (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1902), vol. I, pt. table 59, 874-77.
58 Baltimore Catholic Mirror. 6 October 1906.
59 Torrieri, "Residential Dispersion and the Survival of the Italian Community," 56.
60 Gilbert Sandler, The Neighborhood: The Storv of Baltimore's Little Italy
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Residents of Little Italy who remembered the early years of the twentieth century almost
routinely recognized St. Leo's as the most important social and cultural center of the
Italian immigrant community.61
As the fortunes of St. Leo's illustrate, despite the fluctuations in the rate of
Baltimore's Italian immigration, the overall trend from the 1880s to the turn of the
century was one o f growth. In the 1880s many o f the Italian immigrants who came to
Baltimore were recruited to construct railroads in central Maryland. Railroad barons,
such as John Garrett o f the Baltimore & Ohio, favored Italians and other green
immigrants because of their willingness to work hard for low wages.62 The flow of
Italian immigrants into the United States slowed considerably during economic
downturns in the mid-1880s and in the mid-1890s,63 but over the course of the 1880s and
1890s, Italian padrones, or labor bosses, responded to the needs of the railroads and other
employers of unskilled laborers by distributing a workforce of unskilled young men
throughout the country.64 Relatively small numbers o f such laborers were directed to
(Baltimore: Bodine, 1974).
61 For example, interviews with J.P., September 12,1979; I.E., July 10,1979; and M.D., May 29, 1979, numbers 162,079, and 53, BNHP.
62 Olson, Baltimore. 200.
63 U.S. Immigration Commission, Reports o f the Immigration Commission (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1911), vol. 4, Emigration Conditions in Europe. 137.
64 Luciano Iorizzo, "The Padrone and Immigrant Distribution," in The Italian Experience in the United States, ed. by Silvio M. Tomasi and Madeline H. Engel (Staten Island, N.Y.: Center for Migration Studies, 1970), 50; Humbert S. Nelli, "The Italian Padrone System in the United States," Labor History 5 (Spring 1964): 153-67.
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some cities, such as Washington, D.C., which lacked a strong industrial base; but
Baltimore, along with Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and other northern cities, was an
important destination for this army of pick and shovel workers.65
In time, a more diverse group of Italian workers migrated to Baltimore. By the
1890s, for example, highly skilled stonemasons were making Baltimore a regular stop on
the paths they followed from Italian villages, to New England stone quarries, to American
building sites in major eastern cities.66 In the same period, Baltimore's proximity to the
sea attracted many fishermen from Sicily.67
The majority of the Italian immigrants who came to Baltimore in this period were
from southern Italy, especially Abruzzi and Sicily.68 Like many African-Americans who
came to Baltimore in this period, immigrants from Abruzzi and Sicily migrated partly in
response to national policies in their homeland that denied them a secure place in an
agricultural economy. Italian national policies favored industrialization and northern
Italy at the expense of agriculture and southern Italy. Beginning in about 1870, Italian
65 Howard Gillette, Jr. and Alan M. Kraut, "The Evolution of Washington's Italian- American Community, 1890-World War II," Journal of American Ethnic History 6 (Fall 1986): 7.
66 Patrizia Audenino, "The Paths of Trade: Italian Stonemasons in the United States," International Migration Review 20 (Winter 1986): 783.
67 "Cefalu, A Neighbor of Baltimore," in "Italians in Baltimore," Vertical Files, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore.
68 Torrieri, "Residential Dispersion and the Survival of the Italian Community," 26-27. Interviews conducted for the Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project are consistent with the thesis that most of Little Italy's residents were from Abruzzi and Sicily, although the interviews do not constitute a sufficiently large sample to support reliable conclusions.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70
laws required a more even distribution of agricultural estates among heirs, resulting in
progressively smaller parcels of farmland.69 Along with thisdiminution of peasant farm
units, tariff laws supported industrial growth, while encouraging the conversion of
agricultural production from olives and fruit to grains, which southern Italian lands could
not grow efficiently.70
The cumulative effects of these policies were disastrous for southern Italy. After
1871, population increased, while the production of olive oil and wine stagnated. Wheat
production increased briefly, but wheat prices declined by as much as 70 percent.71
Desperate peasants cleared additional lands in an effort to supplement declining incomes,
but the clearance of marginal lands caused soil erosion, while adding little to production.
In the midst of this unfolding agricultural disaster, the impoverishment of southern Italian
peasants was exacerbated by the abolition of feudal rights and customs, with the result
that the poorest peasants were denied the relief they might have obtained by gathering
wood and grazing their animals on common lands.72
Under the pressure of a declining agricultural economy, many southern Italians
chose a strategy of emigration, hoping to earn sufficient money to rescue the sagging
fortunes of their families. Most of these emigrants were not the poorest of Italian
69 Martin Clark, Modem Italy. 1871-1982 (New York: Longman, Inc., 1984), 15.
70 Ibid. 71 Robert F. Foerster, The Italian Emigration of Our Times (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1919; repr., New York: Amo, 1969), 50.
72 Clark, Modem Italy. 15.
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peasants, but instead small landholders who hoped to reverse declining family fortunes by
buying additional land.73 For these emigrants, migratory patterns, at least on a short-
range scale, were imbedded in their culture. Nineteenth-century European peasant
societies were characterized by a high degree of mobility, and for most southern Italians
even the normal routine of agricultural labor on their ancestral lands involved daily cycles
of mobility between villages and outlying fields.74
In search of wages, however, Italian peasants needed to move in wider circles.
The patterns of migration that led southern Italian peasants to Baltimore were similar to
the patterns o f migration followed by the African-Americans who came to Baltimore in
the same period. Before 1880, Italian peasants migrated within Italy, often transferring
farm laboring skills to public works projects, such as building railroads.75 By the last
quarter of the nineteenth century the movements of Italian peasants more frequently
extended beyond national borders. In this period, many Italian farm workers served as
seasonal or temporary laborers on farms and building sites in France, Switzerland, and
Austria-Hungary. In time, these migratory patterns expanded into transoceanic journeys,
and after 1880 hundreds of thousands of Italian peasant laborers left Sicily, Abruzzi, and
73 Virginia Yans-McLaughlin, Family and Community: Italian Immigrants in Buffalo. 1880-1930 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971; repr., Urbana: Illini Books, 1982), 34.
74 Dore, "Some Social and Historical Aspects of Italian Emigration to America," Journal of Social History 2 (Winter 1968): 110-11; David I. Ketzer and D.P. Hogan, "On the Move: Migration in an Italian Community, 1865-1921," Social Science History 9 (Winter 1985): 1-24.
75 Dore, "Some Aspects of Italian Emigration," 148.
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Basilicata seeking wage-earning opportunities in North and South America.76 Like the
African-Americans who migrated from the rural South to Baltimore, Italian migrants
shared information with friends and family members back home, and in time helped
others along the same migratory routes.77
Thus, there were some similarities in the migratory experiences of Baltimore’s
African-Americans and Italian immigrants. In Baltimore, however, African-Americans
and Italian immigrants encountered social conditions that tended to separate them rather
than bring them together. Because the major period of growth of the Italian community
in Baltimore occurred after 1880, most Italian immigrants arrived after the city's patterns
of ethnic and racial segregation were well established. The effects o f these patterns of
segregation are illustrated in the experiences of a young Italian immigrant woman who
came to Baltimore at the turn of the century.
Theresa De Angelo came to Baltimore from Italy in 1894, when she was twenty
years old. By 1910, her household included her husband, Tony, who was a power plant
laborer; five sons and a daughter, who ranged in age from eighteen months to fourteen
years; her brother-in-law, who was a city laborer; and one male boarder, who was a fruit
vendor.78 As the only woman in this large household, Theresa De Angelo had
responsibilities that required her to come into contact with a complex urban environment
76 Clark, Modem Italy. 32.
77 Dore, "Some Aspects of Italian Emigration," 110.
78 U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll SS3, Enumeration District 29.
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out these responsibilities in America for 16 years, according to the reports of the 1910
federal census, Theresa De Angelo still spoke only Italian.79
Like most Italian immigrants in Baltimore at the turn of the century, Theresa De
Angelo lived within Little Italy. By the 1890s, Little Italy was clearly defined. This
dense concentration of Italian immigrants extended along Eastern Avenue, a major East-
West thoroughfare, and the diagonal streets extending Northwest from Eastern Avenue,
including President, Albemarle, High, and Exeter.80 At the turn of the century, Little Italy
encompassed an area of ten square blocks in which nearly all residents were Italian-born
or the children of the Italian-born. Along these streets, within a few minutes walk from
her home at 413 Exeter Street, Theresa De Angelo could have taken care of most of her
daily concerns without speaking a word of English. As early as 1900, for example, she
could have found many Italian-born business and professional people in the shops in the
800 and 900 blocks of Eastern Avenue.81 By 1910, in the same blocks, she could have
found tailors, grocers, shoemakers, confectioners, upholsterers, fruit vendors, and liquor
sellers, all of whom were bom in Italy.82 It was this intense concentration of Italian-born
79 U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll S53, Enumeration District 29.
80 U.S. Manuscript Census 1900, Maryland, microfilm roll 608, Enumeration Districts 29 and 39; U.S. Manuscript Census 1900, Maryland, microfilm roll 609, Enumeration Districts SO, 51, and 52.
81 U.S. Manuscript Census 1900, Maryland, microfilm roll 609, Enumeration District 51.
82 U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll 553, Enumeration Districts
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residents that made it possible in 1900 for a mere 3,000 Italian-born residents and their
immediate descendants to maintain a viable community within a city with a population in
excess o f500,000 people. In this community, Theresa De Angelo did not need to speak
English.
Furthermore, it was not only Italian immigrants who were segregated in tum-of-
the century Baltimore. Around the core area of Little Italy, there were concentrations of
other immigrants, mostly from eastern Europe. Just to the North of Little Italy, for
example, along streets such as Albemarle and Exeter the concentrations of Italian
residents decreased within a block or two, giving way to block after block of residences
occupied almost exclusively by Russian Jews.83 Similarly, approximately 3,200 people,
nearly all of whom were Russian Jews, lived in an area of ten or twelve square blocks
contiguous to Little Italy on the Northeast. Despite the proximity to Little Italy, fewer
than two hundred persons of Italian birth or parentage lived in this area.84
By 1900 East Baltimore and Little Italy were becoming increasingly isolated from
Baltimore's African-Americans. Although there had been some concentrations of
African-Americans in East Baltimore in the nineteenth century,85 by the 1890s East
28 and 29.
83 U.S. Manuscript Census 1900, Maryland, microfilm roll 609, Enumeration District 50; U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll 553, Enumeration District 30.
84 U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll 553, Enumeration District 31.
85 Cynthia Neverdon-Morton, "Black Housing Patterns in Baltimore City, 1885-1953," Maryland Historian 16 (Spring/Summer 1985): 25-26.
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Baltimore had evolved into a sector of the city that was 90 percent white and mostly
working class.86 Segregation, of course, was never absolute, and with nearly 80,000
African-Americans among the city's residents in 1900, at least a few African-Americans
could be found in most parts of the city.87 But the overall pattern was clearly one of
separation of black from white, with African-Americans to the West o f the city center,
and European immigrants to the East
Within this pattern of ethnic and racial distribution, Italian immigrants and
African-Americans rarely lived in close proximity. In 1900 virtually no African-
Americans lived within Little Italy.88 Furthermore, very few African-Americans lived in
the areas surrounding the core of the Italian community. On the West the Italian
community was bounded by Jones Falls and the commercial district. The area to the
south of Little Italy, which included the waterfront was more diverse than most areas of
East Baltimore. Near the harbor, the population included Poles, native whites, Germans,
Irish, and scattered areas of Italians and African-Americans, but neither the Italians nor
the African-Americans were numerous, with each group accounting for fewer than 100 of
the 3500 residents in the areas closest to the waterfront. Most of the African-Americans
in the waterfront district were probably transients, including many sailors and ships'
86 James B. Crooks, Politics and Progress: The Rise of Urban Progressivism in Baltimore (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968), 4.
87 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Twelfth Census of the United States Taken in the year 1900: Population (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1902), vol. I, pt. 1, table 23,619-20.
88 U.S. Manuscript census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll 553, Enumeration Districts 28 and 29.
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cooks.89 In the areas directly to the North and East of Little Italy, most residents were
eastern Europeans, with Russian Jews clearly in the majority.90 The only area of East
Baltimore in which noteworthy numbers o f Italian immigrants lived near African-
Americans was in a section of Baltimore's Oldtown, situated several blocks North of
Little Italy.91 Even in this area, however, the two groups separated into discrete clusters,
often occupying separate blocks.92
As they went about their lives in Baltimore at the turn of the century, African-
Americans and Italian immigrants learned from their daily experiences that they did not
share a community. The Italian-immigrantcom m unity and the African-American
community were separated by the central business district, and each community
developed separately and was clearly delineated. There were minor exceptions, such as
Pigtown in West Baltimore and Oldtown and the waterfront in East Baltimore, but, to
migrants arriving from Italy or the rural South, daily experience and the physical layout
of the city communicated a social truth about Baltimore at he turn of the century: the
residents of Baltimore expected racial and ethnic groups to live separately.
89 U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll 553, Enumeration Districts 26 and 27.
90 U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll 553, Enumeration Districts 30,31, and 33.
91D. Randall Beime, "The Impact of Black Labor on European Immigration into Baltimore's Oldtown, 1790-1910," Maryland Historical Magazine 83 (Winter 1988): 341.
92 U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll 553, Enumeration District 32.
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And it was very clear that ethnic and racial separation was not peculiar to African-
Americans and Italian immigrants. German-Americans, for example, formed the
predominant European immigrant group in the city. They were among the first non-
English speaking immigrants to arrive in Baltimore, and by 1900 Baltimore's 68,600
foreign-born residents included 32,208 Germans.93 Furthermore, the figures for foreign-
born residents grossly understate the size o f the German-American community in the City
because many second- and third-generation Germans identified with the German-
American community. Despite their numbers, and despite having acquired considerable
influence in the social and political affairs o f the city, German-Americans maintained an
intense German-Americanism, and even as late as the turn of the century seven of
Baltimore's public schools conducted instruction in both German and English.94
Similarly, the Catholic Churches of Baltimore, as in many American cities, divided into
parishes based on nationalities.95
It is important to note, however, that neither African-Americans nor Italian
immigrants initiated these patterns of separation. For African-Americans, who were
confined to the least desirable housing in the city, especially in the alleys, the pattern of
93 Twelfth Census o f the United States Taken in the Year 1900: Population, vol. 1, pt I, table 35, 796-99; Olson. Baltimore. 91.
94 Dieter Cunz, The Maryland Germans (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1948), 320; James B. Crooks, Politics and Progress: The Rise of Urban Progressivism in Baltimore (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968), 6-7.
95 Spalding, Premier See. 239; Ellis, The Life of James Cardinal Gibbons. 1:362-63; Jay P. Dolan, The Immigrant Church: New York's Irish and German Catholics. 1815- 1865 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975; repr, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983).
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separation was obviously intended to operate as a disadvantage. Additionally, many
African-Americans were relative newcomers to the city, and they, like most of the Italian
immigrants, stepped into a social arena that had been fashioned by people who had
greater economic, political, and social influence than African-Americans or Italian
immigrants.
Given these circumstances, there is no reason to assume that the separation of
African-Americans from Italian immigrants was an indication of inherent antipathy
between the two groups. In fact, among many older residents of Little Italy who were
interviewed in 1979, recollections of the early twentieth century included favorable
images of African-Americans. One man who was bom in 1910 at the Northern edge of
Little Italy, near the ethnically diverse blocks o f Old Town, had pleasant memories of an
African-American playmate from his early childhood, as well as favorable recollections
of his father's African-American friends, who visited his home and taught his mother to
cook "soul food."96 Two Italians whose families had launched construction businesses
remembered that the initial workers in the businesses had included both Italian
immigrants and African-Americans.97 In one case, the Italian indicated that the success of
his family's construction business had been due in part to the high level o f skill among the
African-American workers and the willingness of the African-American workers to share
96 Interview with V.L., August 23,1979, number 138, BNHP.
97 Interview with R.M., August 21,1979, and interview with B.A., September 21, 1979, numbers 141 and 170, BNHP.
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their knowledge of the construction business with the Italians.98
Inevitably children raised in the United States developed ideas and patterns of
behavior that differed from those of their Italian-born parents, and these differences were
reflected in Italian-immigrant and Italian-American relationships with African-
Americans. In reporting a disagreement with her Italian-bom mother, for example, one
American-born resident o f Little Italy revealed a generational difference in attitudes about
racial matters. J.S. was bom in Baltimore in 1904. Her parents were bom in Abruzzi and
emigrated to Baltimore in 1902, where they worked, saved some money, and eventually
opened a bar and restaurant with the assistance of a $5,000 loan from the brewery that
supplied their beer.
When interviewed in 1979, J.S remembered that her mother had worked hard in
the bar and, consistent with the values of her Italian-immigrant neighbors, had always
been ready to assist customers who needed help to get through hard times. Among the
bar's customers there had been workers from a nearby railroad yard, including a few
African-Americans. Remembering her mother, J.S. reported, "She was kind to
everybody. I used to go down there and she had a big fat nigger man—he was staying
with us."99 American-born J.S. recalled, however, that when she had expressed her
disapproval to her mother, her Italian-bom mother had revealed an indifference to race
that stood in contrast J.S.'s concerns: "Poor man ain't got nothing and he is hungry. If you
98 Interview with B.A., September 21,1979, number 170,BNHP.
99 Interview with J.S., July 30,1979, number 103, BNHP.
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don't like it you go home."100
Thus, it appears that J.S. in growing up in segregated Baltimore had learned to
treat African-Americans in ways that did not come naturally to her Abruzzi-bom mother.
Other residents of Little Italy reported incidents that were consistent with a relatively
innocent outlook with regard to racial matters. CM., for example, remembered that in
her first few days in America at age ten encountering African-Americans for the first time
was a notably novel experience.101 Another resident of Little Italy remembered delivering
ice to many restaurants in Little Italy when he was a boy, but upon making a delivery to
an Italian restaurant located on the West side of town, far from Little Italy, he had been
surprised to find that whites and African-Americans were seated separately.102
The evidence regarding racism, or the absence o f racism, among newly arrived
Italian immigrants is inconclusive. Along with the examples o f a relatively amicable race
relations there are reports of fights between Italian immigrants and African-Americans,
and there are undertones of resentment in response to suggestions that Baltimore's
African-American "Arabs" may have been selling produce in the city's streets long before
Italians with pushcarts arrived.103 Nonetheless, there is evidence that restaurants in Little
100 Ibid.
101 Interview with C.M., September 21,1979, number 175, BNHP.
102 Interview with J.S., August 21,1979, number 139,BNHP.
103 Interview with N.R., May 1,1979, number 054, and interview with J.P., July 23, 1979, number 096, BNHP. Arab, pronounced "ay-rab" is a Baltimore term for horsecart vendors. Ronald L. Freeman, The Arabbers of Baltimore (Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1989).
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Italy, in contrast to restaurants elsewhere in Baltimore, served African-Americans on an
equal basis with whites.104 Furthermore, evidence from elsewhere in the United States
supports the notion that Italian immigrants arrived in America with relatively little
prejudice toward African-Americans. Italians who ventured into the deep South, for
example, suffered violence at the hands of local people who resented the newcomers'
tendencies to disregard segregation practices.105 In short, despite the physical separation
of African-Americans from Italian immigrants, an African-American in Baltimore at the
turn of the century probably encountered less overt racism in Little Italy than in other
parts of the city.
104 See also interview with F.P., November6, 1979, number 190, BNHP.
105 George E. Cunningham, “The Italian: A Hindrance to White Solidarity in Louisiana, 1890-1898.” Journal ofNegro History50 (January 1965): 23-35.
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TWO COMMUNITIES AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY
By the end of the nineteenth century, a clear pattern had emerged in the
development of Baltimore’s ethnic communities. Italian-immigrants had formed a
coherent, clearly delineated com m unity in East Baltimore, a section of the city they
shared with other communities of European immigrants. At the same time, the city’s
large African-American community was becoming increasingly concentrated in West
Baltimore. In the most general terms, this geographical arrangement established the
setting for relations between African-Americans and Italian immigrants.
But early interactions between African-Americans and Italian immigrants cannot
be viewed in isolation from the ordinary activities of life in a complex urban
environment. For the most part, of course, individual African-Americans and Italian
immigrants did not think of their interactions as episodes in the development of race
relations. Instead, African-Americans and Italian immigrants encountered each other in
the course o f carrying on their daily lives. For this reason, the next step in establishing
the context for race relations is to examine some of the major concerns in the daily lives
of African-Americans and Italian immigrants, such as housing, employment, and religion.
When considering the city's housing stock, Baltimore's native-born white citizens
82
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sometimes had a perspective that differed from the perspectives of Africans-Americans
and Italian immigrants. In an era in which the squalor of New York's tenements
frightened many middle-class Americans,1 for example, Baltimore's civic and religious
leaders took pride in the absence of tenements in their city. The editors of the 1907
Baltimore City Directory stated simply, "There are no tenements in Baltimore."2
Similarly, some of Baltimore's Catholic journalists lamented the demoralizing effects of
tenement life in New York and noted with relief that Baltimore, despite a population
approaching one million, had "no such problem confronting her." Instead, it was noted,
Baltimore was a city in which there were "miles and miles" of two-story houses, which
were a "godsend to the small family."3
The pride and relief of these Baltimore leaders were derived from the fact that,
even in the working-class areas of the city, the appearance of Baltimore's housing stock
differed strikingly from the six-story tenements of New York and Chicago. Typically,
Baltimore's poor neighborhoods had rows of unpretentious two- and three-story houses,
and although some were noticeably shabby, many were painted just frequently enough to
1 Jacob A. Riis, How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1890; repr. New York: Dover Publications, 1971).
2 Quoted in Housing Conditions in Baltimore: Report of a Special Committee of the Association for the Improvement of the Poor and the Charity Organization Society. Submitting the Results of an Investigation Made bv Janet E. Kemp (Baltimore: Baltimore Association for the Improvement of the Poor, 1907), 8.
3 Baltimore Catholic Mirror. 25 March 1905.
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maintain an aura of respectability.4
The absence of large-scale tenement houses, however, merely masked serious
housing problems. The same Catholic leaders who expressed relief at their city's freedom
from the effects of tenement life, could not avoid acknowledging some harsh realities
about Baltimore: "It is true she has her quota of foreigners. There are sections, too,
known facetiously as 'Little Italy' and 'Little Russia' where life is a mere animal existence
and where the squalor and wretchedness and filth of the surroundings fill one with a
feeling never to be forgotten."5
In fact, even with its rows and rows of houses of respectable outward appearance,
tum-of-the-century Baltimore had several neighborhoods that could fairly be
characterized as slums. Many of the modest dwellings that appeared so suitable for small
families were, unfortunately, not occupied by one or two small families; instead, in the
worst sections of the city each six- or eight-room structure housed six or eight families,
all of whom shared one outside water hydrant and one outdoor privy.6
African-Americans and Italian immigrants were among those who endured the
worst housing conditions in the city. When the United States Bureau o f Labor undertook
a study of slum conditions in American cities in the early 1890s, for example, Baltimore
was chosen as a representative city, and the area defined as Baltimore's major slum
4 Housing Conditions in Baltimore. 14.
5 Baltimore Catholic Mirror. 25 March 1905.
6 Housing conditions in Baltimore. 14-16; James B. Crooks, Politics and Progress: The Rise of Urban Progressivism in Baltimore (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968), 4-5.
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included most of Little Italy, along with the waterfront district immediately to the South
of the Italian neighborhood.7 In 1907 an alliance of Baltimore charity organizations
commissioned a study of the city's housing conditions, and o f the four areas identified as
major focal points o f housing problems, three were either African-American or Italian-
immigrant neighborhoods.8 The two African-American neighborhoods identified in the
study were an alley district centering on Hughes Street, which was in the area south of
center city sometimes called Pigtown, and an alley district centering on Biddle Street,
which was in the segment of the Druid Hill neighborhood that was closest to the
northwest comer of the central business district. The neighborhood encompassing the
Italian neighborhood centered on Albemarle Street.9
Although many African-Americans and many Italian immigrants lived in slum
housing conditions, the housing stock available to African-Americans differed markedly
from the housing stock available to Italians and other immigrants. The worst slums in the
African-American areas of the city were not among the streets lined with the typical two-
and three-story row houses common to most areas of tum-of-the-century Baltimore.
Instead, the poorest African-Americans were confined to housing in alleys. Many o f the
occupants of these alley dwellings were recent migrants from the rural counties of
Maryland, while others were Virginians and North Carolinians who were among the first
7 U. S. Bureau of Labor, The Slums of Baltimore. Chicago. New York, and Philadelphia (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1894), 24.
8 Housing Conditions in Baltimore. 12-16.
9 Ibid.
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waves of African-American migrants moving from the rural South toward the urban
North.10
In the narrow alleys of South and West Baltimore, the houses were much smaller
than Baltimore's typical brick streetfront houses." The alleys themselves were unpaved,
resulting in damp, muddy conditions that were not only uncomfortable, but also
dangerously unhealthy.12 A Baltimore charity worker reported that in 1906 there had
been eight deaths from tuberculosis in the Biddle alley district, and in one of that district's
alleys every house had had at least one case of tuberculosis.13
Many alley dwellings were one-story structures with four or five small rooms.
The houses were cheaply constructed and many of them were in poor repair. In the
Biddle alley district, residents "clung to an air of respectability," and only 14 percent of
the houses were characterized as in bad repair. Nonetheless, fewer than half of the houses
(48 percent) were in good repair, and 71 of the 215 houses in the Biddle alleys had
leaking roofs. Conditions were considerably worse farther south in the Hughes Street
area, where only about 31 percent of the houses were in good repair, 27 percent were in
bad repair, and 63 out o f 120 houses had leaking roofs.14
10 Sherry H. Olson, Baltimore: The Building of an American Citv (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 233.
11 Housing conditions in Baltimore. 17.
12 Cynthia Neverdon-Morton, "Black Housing Patterns in Baltimore City, 1885-1953," The Maryland Historian 16 (Spring/Summer 1985): 25. 13 Housing Conditions in Baltimore. 19.
14 Ibid., 44.
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Both the Biddle alleys and the Hughes alleys suffered from serious plumbing
deficiencies. Even in the Biddle district, with its fragile air of respectability, indoor
toilets were virtually unknown.15 In both locations, obtaining clean water was a constant
struggle. In the Biddle district, only about two-thirds of the families had their own water
outlets, while the other one-third had to share a hydrant or outdoor sink with neighbors.
Among the fortunate two-thirds who had their own water supplies, barely more than half
of the families had their water source inside the house; 42 percent of these families had to
carry their water in from a fixture in the yard. Again, conditions were even worse in the
Hughes alleys: among 172 families, there were only 11 indoor sinks, while the remaining
161 families shared 68 outdoor water fixtures.16
Crowding was a chronic problem for residents o f the alley districts. Because
individual structures were small, the problem of overbuilding on lots was not as critical as
it was in neighborhoods with taller, multi-unit houses. Nonetheless, even in a row of
relatively small houses, limitations of light and air could be oppressive when structures
covered more than 70 percent o f the lot area, as was the case in some of the alley
houses.17
The more serious crowding problem, however, resulted not from crowding the
small buildings onto the lots, but instead from the high occupancy rates per room within
the houses. Nearly all the alley houses were built as one-family units, with four or five
15 Ibid., 58.
16 Ibid., 66-67.
17 Ibid., 29.
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small rooms in each building, but low incomes within the African-Americancom m unity
meant that many families could not afford an entire house.18 The average monthly rent
for a one-family house in the Hughes alleys was $5.42, and apartments in multi-unit
buildings, where available, could be rented for a little over $3.00 per month in either the
Hughes or Biddle district.19 The rents were affordable for those who were regularly
employed, as wages for unskilled work ranged from $7.00 to $10.00 per week.20 Periods
of unemployment were frequent, however, especially for laborers,21 and o f course many
others were unable to work regularly for a variety of reasons, ranging from child care
responsibilities to age and disability. Worst of all, for African-Americans financial
security was perpetually undermined by discrimination in employment.22
18 Olson,Baltimore. 234-35.
19 Housing Conditions in Baltimore. 82.
20 In 1893 nearly 50 percent of the men included in a study of Baltimore's slums earned between $5.00 and $10.00 per week. Slums of Baltimore. 65. According to data gathered in 1898, the average daily wage for a laborer in Baltimore was $1.25. U.S. Industrial Commission, Reports, vol. 15, Reports of the Industrial Commission on Immigration (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1901; repr., New York: Amo Press, 1970), 310. In the first decade of the twentieth century, the average daily wage for an African-American laborer in the South was $ 1.49. U.S. Immigration Commission, Reports o f the Immigration Commission, vol. 18, pt 22, Immigrants in Industries: The Floating Immigrant Labor Supply (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1911), 450. In the clothing industry in Baltimore in the first decade of the twentieth century, the average weekly pay for foreign bom workers was $10.85, and the average weekly pay for native-born workers was $12.38. Native-born African- Americans, however, were almost entirely excluded from work in the this industry in Baltimore.
21 U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll 553, Enumeration District 280. 22 African-Americans were generally excluded from skilled trades. Olson, Baltimore.
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For all these reasons, many residents o f the alleys could not afford even the low
rental rates, and many houses, despite their small size, were divided into separate
apartments.23 Seventeen percent of the living units in the Biddle alley district were one-
room apartments, and in the Hughes alley district nearly 20 percent had only a single
room.24 In many apartments, families met their expenses by taking in boarders, and even
in the slightly more prosperous Biddle district, many households included "lodgers" in
addition to family members.25
Of course, not all African-Americans in Baltimore were poor alley dwellers.
African-Americans who could afford better housing bought or rented streetfront houses
along Druid Hill and Pennsylvania avenues. The daughter of a middle-class African-
American family that moved into a house in the 1400 block of Druid Hill Avenue in
1914, when reminiscing about her childhood sixty-five years later, remembered a secure,
happy, comfortable life. She recounted living with her parents and two siblings in a well
built house with three floors of living space, including a living room, dining room, and
kitchen on the first floor; three bedrooms and a bath on the second floor; and two
234-35; John R. Slattery, "Twenty Years' Growth of the Colored People in Baltimore," The Catholic World 66 (January 1898): 523. And in Baltimore's important clothing manufacturing industry, African-Americans were almost completely excluded from employment in unskilled as well as skilled positions. Reports of the Immigration Commissionvol. 11, pt. 6, Immigrants in Industries: Clothing Manufacturing. 410.
23 There were 335 houses in the two alley districts studied in 1907, and in these houses there were 442 separate apartments. Housing Conditions if Baltimore. 17.
24 Ibid., 38.
25 U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll 553, Enumeration District 280.
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bedrooms on the third floor.26
But African-Americans who attempted to obtain better housing faced many
obstacles, and home ownership was uncommon in the African-American neighborhoods
of West Baltimore.27 Even relatively prosperous African-Americans could not buy
houses easily because mortgage loans were rarely available.28 At the outer reaches of the
Druid Hill neighborhood, the houses became grander in scale and higher in quality, which
made them too expensive for most o f Baltimore's African-Americans. On West Lafayette
Street, at the frontier of the African-American neighborhood, developers constructed new
houses around the turn of the century, but the new structures were priced at about $1,500,
a prohibitive sum for a family without access to mortgage loans.29
White resistance also impeded African-Americans who wanted to leave the alley
districts. As more African-Americans moved into the streetfront houses on Druid Hill
Avenue, the street became a source o f pride for African-Americans, who sometimes
called it "one of the best colored streets in the world."30 But the African-American
presence on Druid Hill Avenue was perceived as a threat to homeowners immediately to
26 Anonymous interview, July 25, 1979, number 094, Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project (BNHP), Oral History Collections, Maryland Historical society Baltimore.
27 U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll 553, Enumeration District 280.
28 Olson, Baltimore. 234-35.
29 Baltimore Sun. 28 April 1910.
30 "Baltimore," Crisis 1 (November 1910): 11.
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the North, where many of the City's white business and professional elite lived in the
elegant town houses of Bolton Hill.31 When an African-American woman tried to rent a
house on West Lafayette Street in 1910, white residents held a protest meeting.32 A few
weeks later an African-American lawyer and his wife, who was a schoolteacher,
purchased a house on McCulloh Street, and white residents launched a campaign to enact
city ordinances to enforce segregation in housing.33
As a result of these obstacles, for most African-Americans in tum-of-the-century
Baltimore, alley life was hard to escape. Few African-Americans had steady, secure
incomes; for those who found some prosperity, mortgage loans were ofren unobtainable;
and all African-Americans, rich and poor, met blatant discrimination when they tried to
obtain housing close to predominantly white neighborhoods. As a result of this
formidable array of obstacles, relatively few African-Americans escaped from the
crowded, unhealthy conditions of the alleys, and alley dwellings remained the typical
form of housing for Baltimore's African-Americans throughout the early years of the
twentieth century.
In contrast to African-Americans, the typical housing of Italian immigrants was
not in alleys. There were exceptions, such as the few Italians in ethnically diverse alleys
in Oldtown, Pigtown, and the East Baltimore waterfront; but most Italian immigrants
31 Crooks, Politics and Progress. 6.
32 Baltimore Sun. 28 April 1910.
33 Roger L. Rice, "Residential segregation by Law, 1910-1917," Journal of Southern History 34 (May 1968); 180-81; Gilbert T. Stephenson, "The Segregation of White and Negro Races in Cities," SouthAtlantic Quarterly 13 (January 1914): 1-2.
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lived in Little Italy. In the heart of Little Italy, along Albemarle Street, most houses were
three-story, streetfront structures, each occupying the entire width o f its narrow lot
Behind the three-story streetfront structure, these row houses often had a two-story ell
space called the "back house."34
The typical row houses of Little Italy were not only bigger than those of the alleys
districts, but also more substantial in construction. Many of the houses along Albemarle,
Stiles, and High Streets had been built for families of relatively high social standing.
Buffered from the effects of the waterfront by a few intervening blocks, yet close to
commercial and shipping facilities, the houses along these streets had provided suitable
residences for business and financial leaders in the era before streetcars made the greener
places on the outskirts of the city accessible.35 By the turn of the century, however, most
of these houses were forty or fifty years old, and despite their solid construction, many
had deteriorated over the years. By the turn of the century, barely half of these houses
were in good repair, and of 119 Albemarle Street buildings examined in 1907, twenty-one
had leaking roofs.36
The most serious housing problems in Little Italy were different from those of the
alley districts. While dampness and the dilapidated condition of the houses were the
characteristic defects in the alley districts, the characteristic defect in Albemarle Street
34 Housing Conditions in Baltimore. 22.
35 Slums of Baltimore. 23; Housing Conditions in Baltimore. 13.
36 Housing Conditions in Baltimore. 44.
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houses was overbuilding on the lots.37 As compared to the alley districts, the oppressive
effects of overbuilding in proportion to lot space were more obvious among the taller
structures of Little Italy. In many buildings, the ell structure of the back house was
extended to accommodate increased demand for living space.38 Along Albemarle Street,
56 percent of the houses were overbuilt to the extent that the structures covered more than
70 percent of the lots on which they stood.39 In most cases, back yards in the Albemarle
area were small and conditions in them were oppressive. Although the narrow streets in
front of the houses were noisy and dusty, residents found the front steps of the houses
more attractive than rear yards as sites for congregating and socializing.40
The problem of overbuilding was exacerbated by the high number of occupants
within the houses. In the 1890s the slum district of East Baltimore had an occupation
density of nearly eight persons per dwelling unit, which was the same as the occupation
density in the slums of Philadelphia.41 O f309 apartments on Albemarle Street, 109 had
more than two occupants per room in 1907.42 In one four-room apartment on Albemarle
Street, investigators in 1907 found sixteen Italian residents-a man, his wife, and fourteen
male boarders. In another instance, seven Italian street merchants occupied two small
37 Ibid., 19.
38 Ibid., 22.
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid., 12-13. 41 The Slums of Baltimore. 19.
42 Housing Conditions in Baltimore. 39.
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rooms in which they also stored their merchandise, consisting of ice cream in Summer
and peanuts and chestnuts in Winter.43 In one boarding house with eleven rooms, an
Italian landlady reported that she had twelve to fifteen tenants, but further investigation
revealed that the actual number of occupants was between thirty and forty.44
Like the alley districts, Little Italy had serious plumbing deficiencies. Water
supplies in Little Italy were better than those of the alley districts, but only about two-
thirds of the living units in the Albemarle area had indoor water fixtures.45 Indoor toilets
were very rare, and the outdoor privies were inadequate. O f235 privy vaults examined in
East Baltimore in 1907, ninety-two were full or nearly full and thirty-five were
overflowing. Many of the vaults were in such disrepair that inspectors were unable to
determine whether they were constructed of wood, brick, stone, or cement, and eight were
"to all appearances but holes in the ground."46
Although the residential structures of Little Italy were inadequate in some ways,
the neighborhood's taller, wider houses apparently provided a more flexible housing stock
than the tiny alley dwellings of the African-American neighborhoods. In bad times
households could bring in boarders, who were often members of the extended family or
emigrants from the same Italian village as the tenant family. In times o f prosperity a
family could lower the occupation density and live more comfortably. Similar structures
43 Ibid., 43.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid., 66.
46 Ibid., 60.
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standing in close proximity along the streets of Little Italy might serve as overcrowded
boarding houses or as fairly comfortable single-family houses for relatively prosperous
small businessmen and their families.47
The range of rental rates in the Albemarle Street area demonstrates the potential to
accommodate a diversity o f housing needs. The average monthly rental for a one-family
house in the Albemarle Street area was $10.46, or almost double the rate for a one-family
house in the Hughes alley district, where a single-family unit rented for $5.42; but the
difference was not nearly as great as these numbers appear to indicate. Because houses
were bigger on Albemarle Street, the average one-family house included more rooms, and
the monthly rental rates per room were very similar in the two areas, with Albemarle
Street slightly higher at $1.68 as compared to $1.58 in the Hughes alleys.48 With rental
units ranging from one-room apartments for $1.68 per month to entire houses at $10.46
per month, Little Italy could accommodate poor tenants who could afford only a single
room, but housing could accommodate prosperous nuclear families, who could afford an
entire single-family house. As a result of this flexibility, families who prospered could
improve their housing conditions without leaving the neighborhood.
The greater size and higher quality of the buildings in Little Italy also provided
suitable housing for those in the Italian community who were prosperous enough to buy
houses. And by the turn of the century, Italians were buying up the houses along most of
47 Housing Conditions in Baltimore. 43; U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll 553, Enumeration District 28. 48 Housing Conditions in Baltimore. 82.
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the streets in the heart of Little Italy, including Albemarle, Trinity, Exeter, Fawn, and
Eastern. Thomas D'Alesandro, the father of Baltimore's first Italian mayor, for example,
bought a house on Albemarle Street in 1906.49 And the D'Alesandro family was not an
isolated case; as many as 20 percent of the houses in the heart of Little Italy were owner
occupied in the first decade of the twentieth century.10
Most o f the home-owning families were headed by the proprietors of small
businesses, such as shoemakers, butchers, and tailors, and in many cases the head of the
household had been in the United States for more than ten years. There were, however,
also laborers and recent immigrants among the homeowners. Ambitious laborers and
recent immigrants could make their mortgage payments by taking in tenants or by
pooling the incomes of several family members/1 Francesco Landini, for example, had
only arrived in the United States in 1904, but by 1910 he owned his home at 313 Exeter
Street, and paid for it through his own income as a butcher, with help from other residents
49 Nancy K. Torrieri, "Residential Dispersion and the Survival of the Italian Community in Metropolitan Baltimore, 1920-1980" (Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, 1892), 56.
50 The 20 percent estimate is based on a sample from the 1910 census reports, including approximately 170 families living on blocks in which virtually all the residents were Italian-born or the children of the Italian-born. In this sample group, which included Albemarle Street, Eastern Avenue, Exeter Street, High Street, and President Street, 34 families owned the homes in which they lived at the time of the census. U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll 553, Enumeration District 28, sheets 1A to 7A and 13B to 19A.
51 U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll 553, Enumeration District 28.
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of the house, who included three of his brothers and five other boarders.52 In other cases,
the employed members o f the household included teenage children.53 Buonoventuro
Trombetta, for example, owned a house at 234 Albemarle Street, although he had a
relatively low income as a city laborer and his household included a wife and eight
children. Probably, the house was paid for in part by the incomes of his sons, ages 20 and
14, who worked in a tailor shop, and his daughter, age 17, who worked in an overall
factory.54
The housing stock available to African-Americans and Italian immigrants
provided the physical settings in which their social lives were organized, and when
outsiders observed these minority communities, housing conditions established a
prominent framework that influenced perceptions and judgments about the social,
cultural, and moral lives of the inhabitants. After observing the crowding and the
diversity of living arrangements in Little Italy in 1907, a social reformer concluded that
the squalor and disorder had a morally corrupting influence on the lives of the inhabitants
of crowded boarding houses. The report of the 1907 housing investigations, for example,
hinted at the prevalence of prostitution among the boarding house residents, noting that
one Italian woman who operated an especially crowded and dirty establishment offered to
send the housing investigators a "springa chicken."55
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid.
55 Housing conditions in Baltimore. 43.
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These social reformers made even harsher judgments about the moral standards of
residents in the alley districts. They described the residents of the African-American
slum districts as "gregarious, light-hearted, shiftless, irresponsible alley dwellers."56 The
middle-class social reformers were struck by the number o f instances in which unmarried
couples not only lived together, but openly acknowledged that their relationships were
casual. In one instance, a man simply stated in response to a question as to the number of
occupants in his apartment, "I lives here with a lady friend." In another instance a young
woman described the occupants of her small apartment as "Only me and another girl and
two gentlemen," and the housing investigator added the comment that "Both couples
occupied the same bedroom."57
The housing investigators who observed these conditions pondered whether the
slum dwellers' "failings are the result of their surroundings, and to what extent the
inhabitants, in turn, react for evil upon their environment."58 Ultimately, however, the
housing investigators placed less blame on slum conditions and more on the character of
the residents, referring to them as "degenerates" and as people with "an entirely
undeveloped moral sense."59
Most of the city's middle-class citizens were native-born whites and descendants
of northern and western Europeans, and when they observed conditions in the slums of
56 Ibid., 17.
57 Ibid., 17-18.
58 Ibid., 17.
59 Ibid., 18.
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East and West Baltimore, they often judged African-American and Italian-immigrant
slum dwellers negatively. But not everyone in Baltimore perceived all slums and slum
dwellers as a single, undifferentiated mass. At least for the more careful observers,
including some of the reformers who investigated housing conditions in 1907, the alleys
of West and South Baltimore appeared to be very different from the tenements of Little
Italy. These differences must also have been obvious to the African-Americans and the
Italian immigrants who inhabited the neighborhoods. Thus, the character of the housing
stock in African-American and Italian-immigrant neighborhoods reinforced the city's
cultural norm of racial and ethnic separation. As a result of the observable differences in
the physical surroundings in which they lived, African-Americans and Italian immigrants
were perceived as separate groups by the majority of Baltimore's citizens, and although
they shared the status of outsiders, they also perceived themselves as separate groups.
When African-Americans and Italian immigrants looked for work in Baltimore,
they had to choose from among the opportunities presented within the existing social and
economic order. Furthermore, members of the majority community, who usually made
the decisions about hiring and firing, had clearly established cultural preferences that
guided their decisions.
For Italian immigrants, the problem of finding work was complicated by the fact
that competition for jobs meant that some conflict between immigrants and American
working people, whether black or white, was inevitable.60 Many African-Americans
60 Gwendolyn Mink, Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development: Union. Party and State. 1875-1920 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
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perceived the high rate of immigration in the late nineteenth century as an economic
threat,61 and by the turn of the century, when the proportion of Italians among the new
immigrants had become clear, the opposition to immigration included a specifically anti-
Italian component.62 It appears, therefore, that there was an inherent basis for some
conflict between African-Americans and newly arrived Italian immigrants in Baltimore.
But the occupational distribution of Baltimore's African-American and Italian-immigrant
workers influenced interactions between established workers and newcomers, and the
occupational distribution of these workers depended in part on their prior experiences and
in part on conditions in the city.
African-Americans and Italian immigrants for the most part had limited ranges of
employment opportunities in Baltimore. The skills and experiences of workers were
important, and these personal assets might expand the range of choices available to some
workers, but even workers with useful experience faced limitations. An important
limitation for workers who migrated to cities was the fact that employers often had
preconceived ideas about the relationship between workers' ethnic characteristics and
1986), 124; David Montgomery, The Fall of the House o f Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism. 1865-1925 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 48-49; John W. Knight, "The Working Man and Immigration," Charities 4 (May 1895): 363-75.
61 At the Indiana State Afro-American Convention o f 1899, for example, one speaker, noting that more than 250,000 former slaves were unemployed, argued that "All of the coal mines and other industries should have been filled as far as possible with those people and not by foreigners who have not done anything to make the country what it is." Indianapolis Freeman. 29 July 1899.
62 "The View of the Italian Socialist," Charities 12 (May 1904): 447; WashingtonBee. 30 September 1905.
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their abilities to perform various jobs.63 When the United States Immigration
Commission surveyed managers in the clothing industry in Baltimore, several executives
in the largest companies expressed definite opinions about the qualities of various ethnic
workers. The general manager o f one factory said he preferred Russian Hebrews because
they were the most efficient, adaptable, and industrious. The same general manager
reported that among other immigrants he favored Poles and Lithuanians, but he disliked
Italians. The president of one o f Baltimore's largest manufacturing companies stated a
clear preference for German workers, but when forced to hire recent immigrants, he
preferred Russian Hebrews and Poles because he believed they were the most
progressive, efficient, adaptable, and industrious. Lithuanians and Italians, according to
this executive, were the least desirable among the new immigrants.64 Other prejudices
were simpler: it was, for example, generally understood that African-Americans were
ineligible for apprenticeships in bricklaying, carpentry, painting, and other skilled
63 The attitudes of Baltimore employers about race, ethnicity, and work were representative of attitudes noted among employers in other cities. An industrial employer in Pittsburgh developed an elaborate chart on which thirty-seven racial and ethnic groups were rated for suitability for a variety of jobs and working conditions. For work as a machinist's helper, for example, white Americans were rated as good, while Italians were rated as fair, and black Americans poor. White Americans, black Americans, and Italians were all rated as poor for dirty working conditions, while Poles, Russians, and Jews were rated as good. John Bodnar, Roger Simon, and Michael P. Weber, Lives of Their Own: Blacks. Italians, and Poles in Pittsburgh. 1900-1960 (TJrbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982), 240. See also Suzanne W. Model, “Work and Family: Blacks and Immigrants from South and East Europe,” in Immigration Reconsidered: History. Sociology, and Politics, ed. Virginia Yans-McLaughlin (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 132.
64 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 11, pt. 6, Immigrants in Industries: Clothing Manufacturing. 418.
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trades.65
African-American and Italian-immigrant workers in Baltimore at the turn of the
century were relatively unskilled, but most of these workers had acquired useful
experience as a result of their rural origins and as a result of the jobs they had performed
in the transition to city life. Among the most common occupations of African-Americans
and Italian immigrants in Baltimore, for example, were pick and shovel laborers, wagon
drivers, and street peddlers, all of which called for skills that might be acquired on a farm.
In clearing or draining farmland, operating farm equipment, and handling crops in the
rural South or the Italian countryside, African-Americans and Italian immigrants prepared
themselves to dig trenches, transport goods, and sell produce in the streets of the city.
The census data for 1900 demonstrate the degree to which African-Americans and
Italian were concentrated in jobs as laborers, teamsters, and peddlers. There were 23,461
African-American males and 1,187 Italian males in the workforce of Baltimore, and
laborers, wagon drivers, and peddlers accounted for approximately 54 percent of African-
American men and 44 percent of the Italian men.66
65 Slattery, "Twenty Years' Growth of the Colored People in Baltimore,” 523.
66 U.S. Census Office, Twelfth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1900: Occupations (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1902), table 43. The published census reports for 1910 do not include occupational data for Italians; the data for immigrants is aggregated under the heading foreign-born whites. The Manuscript Census reports, however, show that in 1910, as in 1900, the percentages of African- Americans and Italian-immigrants were high in these three categories. The published reports for 1900, which are used here, do not include data for persons bom in Italy. "Italians" in the 1900 reports refer to persons with one or both parents bom in Italy. Thus, there is no distinction between Italian immigrants and their American-born children.
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Competition between African-Americans and Italians, however, was not uniform
across these three categories; the aggregate numbers suggest thatItalians did not compete
for jobs as wagon drivers, which was an important occupational field for African-
Americans, but there was a potential for intense competition between African-American
and Italian peddlers and laborers. Among the wagon drivers, there were 3,003 African-
Americans, a figure amounting to nearly 13 percent o f the African-American male
working population, but only twenty-four of the Italian males were employed in these
occupations.67 Among the peddlers, there were 273 Italians and 339 African-Americans.
The figure for the Italians amounts to approximately 23 percent of the Italian male
working population. Although the 339 African-Americans listed as retail businessmen
represents a low percentage of the entire African-American workforce, on the basis o f the
relative numbers of peddlers in the Italian community and the African-American
community, the Italians might well have seen the African-Americans as a significant
source of competition.
For both African-Americans and Italians, laboring jobs provided an important
source of employment. African-Americans were the backbone of Baltimore's labor force.
Of the 23,461 African-American males in Baltimore's workforce in 1900, roughly 39
percent, or a total o f9,267 men, were laborers.68 As compared to the major centers of
immigrant population in the North, a smaller proportion of Baltimore's Italian immigrants
67 Twelfth Census: Occupations, table 43.
68 Twelfth Census: Occupations, table 43.
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were unskilled laborers.69 Nonetheless, 221 Italian men, or about 19 percent of the male
Italians in Baltimore's workforce, were unskilled laborers in 1900.70
Tum-of-the-century Baltimore provided an excellent setting for Italian immigrants
to make use o f their agricultural origins by working as fruit peddlers. With its railroad
connections, its harbor, and its proxim ity to the farmlands of the interior, Baltimore was a
major center o f the American produce industry.71 Trading in fruits and vegetables was
important in Baltimore's Italian immigrant community, especially among the Sicilians.72
Some of the wealthiest businessmen in Little Italy were fruit importers. Michele Vicari,
who was bom into a wealthy Sicilian maritime family, founded the Vicari Fruit Company
and was the first Italian to be elected Director o f the Merchants' Fruit Exchange o f
Baltimore.73 The Di Giorgio and Lanasa families owned shipping lines and engaged in
the wholesale fruit business on an international scale.74
69 Torrieri, "Residential Dispersion and the Survival of the Italian Community in Baltimore," 34.
70 Twelfth Census: Occupations, table 43.
71 Robert Deupree, The Wholesale Marketing of Fruits and Vegetables in Baltimore (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1939), 12-13.
72 Baltimore American. 7 July 1905. The incorporation of Baltimore's Italian Fruit Dealers' Association was an event worthy of attention in the Italian-American press of New York City. New York II Progresso Italo-Americano. 9 July 1905.
73 Baltimore Catholic Mirror. 14 July 1906.
74 Baltimore City Directory for 1909 (Baltimore: R. L. Polk & Co., 1909); Distinguished Men of Baltimore (Baltimore: Baltimore American, 1914), 123; Humbert S. Nelli, The Business of Crime: Italians and Syndicate Crime in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Phoenix Books, 1981), 83-84.
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Reflecting this Italian presence in the city's produce industry, nearly all the Italian
peddlers in Baltimore in 1900 were fruit vendors.75 Typically, these small-scale street
vendors rolled their pushcarts down to the piers at Camden and Light streets where the
ships of the Di Giorgio and Lanasa families delivered bananas and other tropical fruits
from South America.76 African-Americans were, for the most part, shut out o f this trade,
and the 339 African-Americans who were retailers in 1900 represented only 1.4 percent
of the African-American men in the city's workforce. Furthermore, these retailers were
probably not in direct competition with the Italian fruit vendors, as the African-
Americans were not concentrated in fruit vending, and even those who handled produce
probably traded crops grown in the Maryland countryside, where the African-Americans
were more likely to have contacts.77 Thus, some competition among African-American
and Italian produce vendors was inevitable, but conflict was attenuated by the division of
the market.
In contrast to wagon drivers and peddlers, African-American laborers competed
75 Baltimore City Directory for 1899 (Baltimore: R.L. Polk & Co., 1899), 1772. The Directory for 1899 lists thirty-one names under "fruit, retail," and all but three have Italian names, such as Anarino, Azzarello, Barranco, Dantoni, De Fatta, lanello, Maranto, Palmisano, Spicuzza, Trombetta, and Zito. No African-Americans are identified among the retail fruit dealers. (African-Americans are identified in the Directory by marking asterisks next to their names.) The retailers listed in the Directory were small shop owners, but far more Italians were street vendors. The prevalence fruit vendors in Little Italy can be seen in the manuscript census reports; see, for example, U.S Manuscript Census 1900, Maryland, microfilm roll 609, Enumeration District 51.
76 Interview with J.P., July 23,1979, number 096, BNHP; Deupree, Wholesale Marketing of Fruits and Vegetables. 39.
77 BaltimoreCity Directory for 1899
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intensely with Italian immigrants for work on Baltimore's public works projects. With
nearly 40 percent of African-Americans and nearly 20 percent of Italians working as
laborers, these jobs provided an important source of employment in each community.
Furthermore, nearly all laboring jobs were insecure and most laborers were unemployed a
few months in each year.78 African-American and Italian-immigrant laborers regularly
engaged in searches for short-term, insecure laboring jobs, and it is likely that they
encountered each other at job sites where not all applicants could be hired.
The potential for conflict among laborers was exacerbated by the arbitrary
processes by which workers were selected for hirings or lay offs. When seeking work,
laborers usually relied on word of mouth communications about which work sites might
be hiring on a given day, then simply arrived ready for work in the morning. When more
applicants arrived than were needed, the selections were made on the spot according to
the whims of the foreman. Workers sometimes had no idea why they were fortunate
enough to be chosen. One immigrant from Abruzzi, for example, remembered that in one
of his first experiences as an American laborer he arrived at the job site on a cold morning
and found "People on this side, people on this side. They looking down in the hole." Then
the foreman shouted "Hey you! What do you want? A job?"- and the young Italian
laborer and his brother were chosen from among the dozens ofjob seekers. The
immigrant guessed that he and his brother had been hired because they were wearing
78 U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll SS3, Enumeration Districts 28 and 29; and microfilm roll 558, Enumeration Districts 280-95.
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clothes that made them look ready to work, although he could not be sure.79 Lay offs
were carried out in an equally abrupt and arbitrary way, with decisions often depending
on who had won the foreman's favor.80
A variety of industrial jobs were available in Baltimore at the turn of the century,
but hiring in factories was often determined on the basis of race and ethnicity. Unlike
many Northern cities in this period, Baltimore did not have a single dominant industry.
The city employed approximately 25,000 industrial workers in the manufacture of a wide
range of products, including garments, chemicals, canned produce, machinery, pianos,
and beer.81 Men's clothing was the city's most important product, and by 1905 Baltimore
was ranked fourth among American cities in clothing manufacturing.82 Employment in
the garment factories of Baltimore, however, was dominated by Russian Jews, and there
were only a few Italians and virtually no African-Americans in these factories.83 In 1910,
when there were 28,280 African-American men in Baltimore's workforce, only twenty-
nine African-American men worked in suit, cloak, coat, and overall factories.84
79 Interview, J.M., May 1973, Towson State College Oral History Program, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
“ Ibid.
81 Roderick N. Ryon, "Baltimore Workers and Industrial Decision-Making, 1890- 1917." Journal ofSouthern History4 (November 1985): 566.
82 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 11, pt. 6, Immigrants in Industries: Clothing Manufacturing. 407.
83 Ibid., 419.
84 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States Taken in 1910: Population (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1913), 4:537-38.
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Lesser industries were scattered throughout the city, and in many cases they
reinforced the ethnic identity o f the neighborhoods in which they were located. In the
Hampden and Woodberry sections of North Baltimore, native whites worked in cotton
mills; Polish women worked in the canning factories along the waterfront of East
Baltimore; German workers dominated employment in the city's breweries; and Irish-
Americans and German-Americans were dominant among the skilled craftspeople of
Oldtown.85
Because preconceived ideas about racial and ethnic characteristics were often
important to employers, African-Americans and Italian immigrants, for the most part,
found very limited employment opportunities in the factories of tum-of-the-century
Baltimore. The clothing industry, in which the number of Italians increased after 1905
provided an exception.86 But the clothing industry also demonstrated the importance of
racial and ethnic prejudices in employment. In the face of a perceived labor shortage,
employers in this industry continued to exclude the city's large, and often under
employed, African-American workforce, while actively seeking immigrant employees;
and in choosing workers, employers were not influenced "to any great extent" by the skill
or experience of European immigrant applicants.87
Relatively few African-Americans and Italian Americans had white collar jobs in
85 Ryon, "Baltimore Workers and Industrial Decision-Making," 569-71.
86 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 11, pt. 6, Immigrants in Industries: Clothing Manufacturing. 408.
87 Ibid., 411.
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Baltimore at the turn of the century. The exclusion of African-Americans from
managerial positions was almost complete. Among the city's 28,280 African-American
male workers in 1910, the number of managers and superintendents in manufacturing
was, remarkably, zero. In contrast, among the 33,289 foreign-bom white residents of the
city, the number of such superintendents and managers was eighty-nine.88
In occupations in which individual initiative mattered more than industrial hiring
practices, however, substantial numbers of African-American and Italian men created
their own opportunities. Hundreds of African-Americans and Italians operated small
businesses such as barber and shoe repair shops, and among Baltimore's saloonkeepers in
1900, there were more than seven hundred African-Americans and twenty-six Italians.89
African-Americans and Italian immigrants were not well represented in
professional practices in Baltimore in this period. According to census data for 1900, the
professional population o f the city included 419 African-Americans and 81 Italians.90
Although the numbers represent 7 percent of the Italian-born men in the city and only 2
percent of the African-American men, it is questionable whether the figures are truly
representative of the number of Italians with professional standing in the city. Of the 81
Italians included as professionals, 64 were categorized as musicians or teachers of music.
Among these musicians, however, there were probably a substantial number of hurdy
gurdy operators and organ grinders. Hurdy gurdies and organ grinders with monkeys
88 Thirteenth Census. 4:537-38.
89 Twelfth Census: Occupations. 490-93.
90 Twelfth Census: Occupations. 489-90.
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were commonin the streets of Baltimore at the turn o f the century, and there were so
many organ grinders living in the area of Eastern Avenue and President Street that the
block was known as "Monkey Row."91
African-Americans practiced medicine in the African-American community at the
turn of the century, and some African-American physicians participated in public health
projects, but they were excluded from the city's hospitals.92 African-Americans were not
permitted to practice law in Maryland until 1885, when Everett Waring was admitted to
the bar after a decade-long struggle.93 By 1900, there were forty-seven African-American
doctors and sixteen African-American lawyers in the city.94
As is demonstrated by the movement to open the practice of law to African-
Americans, despite their relatively small numbers, African-American professionals, with
community support, could be effective in opposing discrimination. In 1876, in defiance
of a Maryland statute that limited the practice of law to white men, two African-
Americans, James H. Wolf and Charles S. Taylor, began a quest for admission to the state
bar. When Wolf and Taylor were denied admission, Rev. Dr. Harvey Johnson, pastor of
the Union Baptist Church of Baltimore, led the African-American community in a nine-
91 Interview with J.B., 10 August 1979, number 210, BNHP; Interview with A.S., 11 July 1979, number 095, BNHP. There were, of course, also formally trained musicians among Baltimore's Italian-immigrant residents, and several of them played in the city's municipal band. Interview with G.D., 19 July 1979, number 91, BNHP.
92 Olson, Baltimore. 234.
93 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 10 March 1910.
94 Twelfth Census: Occupations. 489-90.
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year struggle, which ended in 1885 with a ruling by the Supreme Court o f Baltimore in
favor of permitting African-Americans to practice law in the Maryland courts. Everett
Waring was the first African-American admitted to practice law, and the second was
Harry S. Cummings, who then went on to become Baltimore's first African-American
City Council member.95
As is illustrated by the experiences of these African-American lawyers, the
presence of a large African-American community in Baltimore not only provided a
potential clientele for African-American professionals, but also provided the community
support necessary to make African-American professionals influential in civic life.
Although they were few in number, the tradition o f community-supported activism often
made Baltimore's lawyers and other professionals effective opponents o f racially
discriminatory laws.96
The professionals listed in the 1900 census data included only one Italian
physician and one Italian lawyer.97 Language barriers probably restricted Italian access to
professional positions, but by 1909 the numbers o f Italian physicians and lawyers were
growing, although even at that date there were fewer than twenty Italian physicians and
fewer than ten Italian lawyers in Baltimore.98
95 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 10 March 1910.
96 Olson, Baltimore. 234; BaltimoreAfro-American Ledger. 10 March 1910; "Along the Color Line," Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races 3 (March 1912): 189.
97 Twelfth Census: Occupations. 489-90.
98 Baltimore Citv Directory for the Year Commencing April 1st 1909 (Baltimore: R.L. Polk & Co., 1909).
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A small elite o f African-Americans and Italians owned businesses on a larger
scale or were widely recognized for their professional standing. J. H. Murphy, for
example, published the Baltimore Afro-American.99 and a few prominent African-
American ministers, such as George F. Bragg, Jr., exchanged views on political strategy
with the most powerful political leaders in the city.100 E. J. Waring, Harry S. Cummings,
W. Ashbie Hawkins, and a handful of other African-American attorneys participated in
important litigation involving civil rights.101 Among Italians, there were a few
businessmen of great wealth, such as the Michele Vicari, Joseph Di Giorgio, and Antonio
Lanasa, all of whom presided over companies engaged in the wholesale fruit business.102
A few African-Americans, such as H.S. Cummings, Marcus Cargill, and Hiram Watty,
gained prominence in politics, but among Italian immigrants the first political leaders to
be recognized on a city-wide basis did not emerge until the end of the first decade of the
twentieth century.103
99 Robert J. Brugger, Maryland: A Middle Temperament 1634-1980 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 419.
100 Charles J. Bonaparte to George F. Bragg, Jr., 29 February 1904, container 203, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
101 Olson, Baltimore. 234; Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 10 March 1910; "Along the Color Line," Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races 3 (March 1912): 189.
102 Distinguished Men of Baltimore ^Baltimore:Baltimore American, 1914), 123; Obituary, Michele Vicari, Baltimore Catholic Mirror. 14 July 1906; Humbert S. Nelli, The Business of Crime: Italians and Syndicate Crime in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Phoenix Books, 1981), 83-84.
103 Baltimore Citv Directory (Baltimore: R.L. Polk & Co., 1899), passim.
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The employment data for African-American and Italian-immigrant women reveal
some important differences between the communities. In 1900, the total African-
American working population included 44,479 individuals, of whom 21,018, or 47
percent, were women working outside the home. In contrast, only 139, or roughly 10
percent, of the Italian working population of 1,326 were women working outside the
home.104 Among the African-American women, 19,716, or approximately 94 percent,
were domestic and personal service workers. Only 39, or approximately 28 percent, of
the Italian women worked in these occupations.105 Because many Italian women earned
money by taking in boarders or sewing in the home,106 these data probably understate the
number of Italian women who earned additional money for their households.
Nonetheless, the relatively high number of African-American domestic workers as
compared to Italian domestic workers represents a significant difference in the kinds of
wage-earning jobs performed by African-American and Italian women.
The data for African-American and Italian women in Baltimore are, in fact,
consistent with the data for other cities. In Philadelphia, for example, African-American
women had a high incidence of employment as domestics, and they were more likely than
immigrant women to work outside the home, while Italian women were the least likely of
104 Twelfth census: Occupations, table 43.
105 Ibid.
106 U.S Manuscript Census 1900, Maryland, microfilm roll 608, Enumeration Districts 50 and 51; Ryon, "Baltimore Workers and Industrial Decision-Making," 569.
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all women to work outside the home.107 Similarly, according to census data from New
Orleans in 1900, of a total African-American wage-earning population of 37,515,
approximately 41 percent, or 15,448, were women. In contrast, only 292, or roughly 7
percent of the total Italian wage-earning population o f4,083 were women. Among the
African-American female wage-eamers in New Orleans, approximately 87 percent were
employed in domestic and personal service, while the same figure for Italian women was
26 percent.108
These differences between African-American and Italian- immigrant women were
not the result of different cultural preferences. In this matter, the cultural preferences of
African-Americans and Italian immigrants were similar. For African-American women
in the rural South, freedom meant, among other things, relief from the dual demands of
slavery, under which African-American women were forced to provide labor for their
masters before they could care for their own families. Consequently, among African-
American families, there was a strong preference that women not work directly for
whites.109 When African-American women moved into urban settings, the same
preferences applied, and African-American women found domestic service in white
households especially distasteful because work in this setting recreated the uncomfortable
107 Barbara Klaczynska, "Why Women Work: A Comparison of Various Groups— Philadelphia, 1910-1930,” Labor History 17 (Winter 1976): 75-77 and 82.
108 Twelfth Census: Occupations, table 43.
109 Jacqueline Jones, Labor of Love. Labor of Sorrow: Black Women. Work, and the Family, from Slavery to the Present (New York: Basic Books, 1985; Vintage Books, 1986), 90.
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dual labor demands of the slave system.110 Similarly, among southern Italians there was a
powerful sentiment against permitting women to work in settings in which they were not
under the supervision of male relatives. For this reason, Italian families were strongly
disinclined to allow women to perform domestic work outside their own homes.1"
Despite the similar preferences of African-Americans and Italians, it was far more
difficult for African-American women to avoid domestic service. The experiences of
African-American families were markedly different from the experiences o f Italian
families. These differences began in their pre-migration lives in the rural South and the
Italian countryside, then carried over into city life. Although African-Americans in the
rural South struggled to establish an independent basis on which to support their family
lives, most farm families were forced into sharecropping because they could not acquire
their own land and equipment. Under sharecropping arrangements, however, white
landowners and African-American farmers often worked together on the same land on
which they had worked as masters and slaves. Furthermore, white landowners controlled
access to vital resources, which enabled them to exercise some control over the
organization of labor within the families of their tenants.112 A financially pressed
African-American family, for example, could be pressured to put family members to
work under the direction of the landowner in exchange for desperately needed cash and
110 Ibid., 126-27.
111 Phyllis Williams, South Italian Folkways in Europe and America (New York: Russell and Russell, 1938), 81; Yans-McLaughlin, Family and Community. 170.
112 Royce, Origins of Sharecropping.95; Jones, Labor of Love. 83.
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supplies, and often the work the landowner wanted from African-American women was
domestic service. 113
When African-Americans relocated to cities, they did not escape economic
pressures or gain complete control over their working lives. In cities such as Baltimore
African-Americans faced severe discrimination in employment. With African-American
families subject to such economic pressures, it was difficult for African-American women
to reject domestic service jobs, since these were virtually the only jobs offered by
employers who habitually took race and ethnicity into account in their hiring decisions.
Italians, too, were subject to economic exploitation and employment
discrimination, but abuses against Italians did not include interference with traditional
family arrangements. In the Italian countryside, there was no tradition of intimacy
between oppressor and oppressed, as there was in the American South. Isolated in remote
mountain villages, southern Italian peasants maintained a moral code based on omerta. a
self-conscious independence from outsiders, and outsiders included not only civil
authorities but also landlords, who often resided in distant cities.114 The exclusionary
code of omerta was complemented by strong peasant traditions of la famielia and
campanilismo. or deference to the authority of the family and the village.115 These
113 Jones, Labor of Love. 82-83.
114 Williams, South Italian Folkways. 7.
115 Lafamiglia includes more than a setting for raising children; in traditional Italian life it is the center of society's basic mode of organization, and it comes into play in matters of economics, politics, work, religion, and love.Campanilismo means the unity of everyone who lives within the sound of the church bell. Rudolph M. Bell, Fate and Honor. Familyand Village: Demographic and Cultural Change in Rural Italy since 1800
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traditions reinforced coherence within kinship groups and among fellow villagers and
fortified these local communities against all those who lived beyond the sound of the
village church bell.116 Civil authorities and absentee landlords might oppress Italian
villagers economically, but these distant oppressors where effectively excluded from
interfering with the family lives of the villagers.
When they emigrated to American cities, Italians faced limitations as a result the
ethnic prejudices of employers, but these limitations were never as severe as the
limitations African-Americans faced. In Baltimore, African-Americans were excluded
from skilled trades and factory work, while Italians were welcomed into the building
trades and gained a foothold in clothing factories. Regarding the employment of women,
white native-born employers, guided by a collective memory of American slavery,
assumed that the most appropriate work for African-American women was domestic
service. The same employers may well have wanted to employ Italian women as
domestic servants,117 but there was no widely accepted tradition of associating Italian
women with domestic service work. Reinforced by their southern Italian village
traditions, buoyed by greater economic opportunities, and blessed with a less restrictive
range of choices, Italian-immigrant women found it easier than African-American women
to avoid distasteful domestic service.
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1979), 3; Yans-McLaughlin, Family and Community. 123-25; Robert A. Orsi, The Madonna of115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem. 1880-1950 (New Haven: Yale University Press,1985), 34.
116 Williams, South Italian Folkways. 9.
117 "The Servant Problem," Baltimore Sun. 18 October 1898.
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The daily lives o f African-Americans and Italian immigrants, of course, included
more than efforts to provide for material needs by acquiring housing and employment. In
each community, the church was an important center for activities, and the experiences of
African-Americans and Italian immigrants in their religious lives could also affect the
ways they perceived each other.
For the most part, African-Americans and Italian immigrants did not worship
together: nearly all Italians were Catholics, and most African-Americans were
Protestants. Among the Italians there were some minor exceptions. The relationship
between Italian immigrants and the American Catholic Church was often strained,118 and
occasionally there were defections. Sicilian immigrant, Dr. Augustine Palmisano, for
example, was a member of the Holy Nativity Protestant Episcopal Church when he died
in 1928.119 Among the planners of the city's Columbus Day celebration in 1909 was
Reverend Francesco Guglielmi of the First Italian Methodist Church, which was located
at 322 South High Street, just a block or two from St. Leo's.120 Even among the few who
separated from the Catholic Church, however, it is unlikely that Italians came into contact
with significant numbers of African-Americans in their churches.
On the other hand, a substantial minority of African-Americans were Catholics,
and this religious minority within the African-American community provided an
118 Rudolph J. Vecoli, "Prelates and Peasants: Italian Immigrants and the Catholic church," Journal ofSocial History 2 (Spring 1969).
119 "Augustine Palmisano," Dielman-Hayward Files, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
120 Baltimore American. 12 October 1909.
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important basis for shared experiences between African-Americans and Italian
immigrants. Catholicism had a long history in Maryland, and even in the antebellum
period some Catholic slaveholders arranged to have priests baptize their slaves and teach
them the rituals of the Catholic church.121 In 1828, Father Nicholas Joubert established a
society of African American women to serve as teachers for African-Americans in
Baltimore, and in 1829 the Catholic Church officially recognized Father Joubert's society
as the Oblate Sisters of Providence.122 Until a public school system for African-
Americans was established after the Civil War, the Catholic Oblate Sisters provided the
only formal education that was available to African-Americans in Baltimore.123
Before the middle o f the nineteenth century, however, there were no separate
Catholic churches for African-Americans, and the integration of African-Americans into
white parishes was unsuccessful. White Catholics viewed African-Americans as
intruders in their churches. When African-Americans attended mass with white
Catholics, seating was segregated, with African-Americans confined to a few rear pews,
and most church activities were conducted on a whites-only basis.124 When crowding
provided a basis for rationalizing their actions, white priests excluded African-Americans
121 Narrative of Charles Coles,15 November 1937, in George P. Rawick, ed., The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Co., 1972), vol.16, Kansas. Kentucky. Maryland. Ohio. Virginia, and Tennessee Narratives.4-5.
122 John T. Gillard, The Catholic Church and the American Negro (Baltimore: St. Joseph's Society Press, 1929), 16.
123 Slattery, "Twenty Years' Growth of the Colored People in Baltimore," 521.
124 Gillard, Catholic Church and the American Negro. 68.
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even from the back rows.125
The Catholic Church hierarchy in Baltimore did not respond to the problem of
racial friction by encouraging integration, but instead through the development of a
system of segregated Catholic Churches. In 1863, a group of Catholic priests purchased
a Unitarian Chinch building at Calvert and Pleasant streets in central Baltimore and
converted it into the Church of St Francis Xavier, the first Catholic Church in the United
States for the exclusive use of African-Americans.126 By the early 1880s, approximately
7,000 of Baltimore's 53,000 African-Americans were Catholics, and it was clear that a
single church could not accommodate the needs of the Baltimore's entire African-
American Catholic population.127 In 1883, St. Monica's Church was opened for the use of
African-American Catholics in South Baltimore, and in 1888, St. Peter Clavefs Church
was opened for the use of African-American Catholics in Northwest Baltimore.128
The experiences of Italian immigrants in the Catholic Church were, in many ways,
similar to those of African-Americans. When Italian immigrants appeared in American
parishes, the immigrants were often assigned to the rear pews that were set aside for
African-Americans, and sometimes the Italians were openly denounced as "dagos" from
the pulpit129 In Baltimore, the Catholic establishment responded to Italians with muddled
125 New York Tribune. 6 August 1904.
126 Gillard, Catholic Church and the American Negro. 30.
127 BaltimoreCatholic Mirror. 2 April 1881.
128 Slattery, "Twenty Years' Growth of the Colored People in Baltimore," 524.
129 Vecoli, "Prelates and Peasants," 230.
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references to the racial problems presented by the exotic newcomers. At times Catholic
leaders fretted over the presence o f Italians, who constituted a troublesome "dark skinned
race."130 In other instances, Church officials in Baltimore noted that associations between
African-Americans and Italian immigrants needed to be monitored closely to prevent
miscegenation because "Passion pours a flood tide at all times through the veins of the
races of southern Europe."131
In the 1880s, Baltimore's powerful Catholic leader, Archbishop (later Cardinal)
Gibbons, perceived the African-Americans and the Italian immigrants in the city's
churches as a part of the same problem. On several occasions, Church officials in Rome
asked Gibbons embarrassing questions about the poor treatment of African-Americans
and Italian immigrants in American Catholic churches.132 Gibbons' solution was to
reduce tensions in the churches o f his city by removing the troublesome African-
Americans and Italian immigrants to new churches: St. Peter Claver's was built in
Northwest Baltimore for African-Americans, and St. Leo's which was built in Little Italy.
Thus, there was an appearance of segregation in Gibbons' policies, but it is
important to note that the establishment of separate churches for African-Americans and
Italian immigrants was consistent with the treatment of other Catholics. By the turn of
the century, Baltimore's Catholic churches included six separate parishes for Germans,
130 Baltimore Catholic Mirror. 25 March 1905.
131 Baltimore Catholic Mirror. 17 November 1906.
132 John Tracy Ellis, The Life o fJames Cardinal Gibbons Archbishop of Baltimore 1834-1921.2 vols. (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1952), 1:341-42 and 2:401-2.
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two separate parishes for Poles, as well as separate parishes for Bohemians and
Lithuanians.133 Furthermore, in many cases Cardinal Gibbons and other Church officials
spoke out against unjust treatment of African-Americans and Italian immigrants.
Gibbons denounced lynching,134 and strongly opposed Jim Crow laws and the
disfranchisement of African-Americans.135 In its editorial columns, Baltimore's Catholic
newspaper defended Italian immigrants against nativist critics of American immigration
policy,136 and when a production o f the racist play, "The Clansman," was planned in the
city, the newspaper's editors argued against the production.137
Nonetheless, the organization of the Catholic parishes in Baltimore reflected the
pervasive pattern of racial and ethnic separation that provided the context for relations
between African-Americans and Italians in the city. As a result of this pattern of
separation, Catholic Italian immigrants and Catholic African-Americans did not worship
together. Neither Italian immigrants nor African-Americans, however, created this
system of segregated churches. The ethnically and racially segregated churches of
Baltimore were products of conflicts among American-born, Irish-American, and
German-American Catholics. When African-Americans, Italian immigrants, and other
133 Ibid., 1:336.
134 James Gibbons, "Lynch Law: Its Causes and Remedy," North American Review 587 (October 1905).
135 James B. Crooks, Politics and Progress: The Rise of Urban Progressivism in Baltimore (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968), 60.
136 Baltimore Catholic Mirror. 15 July 1905.
137 Baltimore Catholic Mirror. 6 October 1906.
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immigrants from southern and eastern Europe established separate churches, they were
simply following a well-established pattern in the city's churches.
Thus, as African-Americans and Italian immigrants went about their daily lives at
the turn of the century, they faced some common problems, but they also found that many
elements of their social, economic, and cultural lives highlighted the separations between
their two communities. In their homes, in their places of employment, and in their
churches, they often found that their prospects for comfort, prosperity, and peace of mind
were diminished as a result o f their status as strangers among the established ethnic
communities of Baltimore. At the same time, they learned that the circumstances of their
lives varied in ways that corresponded to their racial differences.
In seeking housing, African-Americans and Italian immigrants found that their
choices were limited. But they were limited in different ways, as poverty and
discrimination forced many African-Americans into the alleys o f West Baltimore, while
Italian immigrants had more choices and found somewhat better housing stock in East
Baltimore. Differences in the structure of the housing available to African-Americans and
Italian immigrants affected the ways African-Americans and Italian immigrants perceived
their places within the overall social organization of the city. The housing available to
Italian immigrants was not only superior in size and condition, but also provided a more
adaptable setting for family life. Poor immigrants could find affordable living space in
Little Italy by sharing rooms and taking in boarders. At the same time, the larger houses
of Little Italy, with their more wholesome streetfront locations, provided Italian
immigrants with opportunities to improve their living conditions without leaving their
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community. With good fortune, an Italian nuclear family could take over an entire house,
and live in a setting that was roughly comparable to the standard prevalent in more
prosperous neighborhoods. African-Americans could move into better housing on the
streetfronts of West Baltimore, but white residents of West Baltimore often responded
with stiff resistance. In short, through housing conditions, African-Americans and Italian
immigrants could readily observe that social acceptance within Baltimore’s more
privileged communities was more accessible to Italian immigrants than to African-
Americans.
Taken as a whole, the working lives of African-Americans and Italian immigrants
provided more bases for conflict and separation than for unity and cooperation. More
often than not, work reinforced racial and ethnic distinctions. Employment opportunities
varied on the basis of experience, as well as on the basis of the urban economy and
employers' preconceived ideas about race and ethnicity. When African-Americans drove
their wagons through the streets of Baltimore and Italian vendors maneuvered their
pushcarts, they were reminded of their different experiences in the rural South or the
Italian countryside. When Italian men were welcomed into clothing factories and
African-Americans were excluded, they were reminded that their present prospects were
different because they were defined as separate elements in the social and economic life
of the city. Cultural differences were underscored when economic pressures forced
African-American women into distasteful domestic work, while Italian women earned
money by sewing in their own homes.
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On the other hand, in their working lives, African-Americans and Italian
immigrants faced some common problems. African-Americans and Italian immigrants
sometimes worked side by side in Baltimore, and after years of mutual toil as
construction laborers, Italians occasionally expressed their respect for the skill and work
habits of African-Americans.138 Although employers might treat them differently under
some circumstances, employers nonetheless expected African-Americans and Italians
alike to work hard for low pay without job security, especially in laboring jobs. When a
young immigrant from Abruzzi reported to a construction site on a cold morning hoping
to be chosen for work, he might see the African-Americans on the other side of the trench
as competitors. He might also observe, however, that African-Americans stood in the
same cold and faced the same uncertainties as the Italians; and the African-Americans,
like the Italians, were not among those who issued the arbitrary and confusing commands
that called some to work and sent away others.
In their churches, African-Americans and Italian immigrants found more
differences than common experiences. The major difference was obvious: most African-
Americans were Protestants, while most Italian immigrants were Catholics. Nonetheless,
a substantial minority of African-Americans shared the Catholic faith with Italian
immigrants, and African-American and Italian-immigrant Catholics faced similar
instances of discrimination in Catholic churches. But even in those instances in which
Baltimore’s African-Americans and Italian immigrants shared a common Catholic faith,
138 Interview with R.M., August 21,1979 and interview with B.A., September 21, 1979, numbers 141 and 170, BNHP.
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African-Americans of West Baltimore and Italian immigrants of East Baltimore rarely
worshipped together because Catholic Church leaders systematically separated
parishoners on the basis of race and ethnicity.
Living in their different social, economic, and cultural settings in West and East
Baltimore, African-Americans and Italian immigrants faced a series of crises in the early
years of the twentieth century. As they lived through these crises, African-Americans and
Italian immigrants interacted with each other and, simultaneously, with other ethnic
groups throughout the city. Through these interactions, African-Americans and Italian
immigrants learned about each other and about the social significance of race and
ethnicity in the city. The first of these crises was a great fire in the city center in 1904.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 5
1904: THE GREAT FIRE
Baltimore’s great fire of 1904 was a city-wide disaster that revealed elements of
the local culture in a way that single events rarely can. The fire was extraordinary in its
dimensions, and it was located in the very center of the city. As a result, the event was
unique in the degree to which it provided a common experience for residents of
Baltimore. The sights and sounds of the fire were so dramatic that even in a city the size
of Baltimore they reached the eyes and ears of nearly all residents. And when the flames
finally subsided, residents from all quarters of the city shared in the losses because the
burned district was not in any of the city's many separate neighborhoods, but rather in the
common core of the city where nearly all permanent residents of Baltimore engaged in
some transactions, whether through employment, commerce, or recreation.
Because the disaster provided a city-wide experience that was shared to such an
unusual degree, the events surrounding the fire and the city's subsequent recovery provide
insights into the set of assumptions that guided behavior in matters such as race relations.
In the aftermath of the fire, city residents responded to the problems o f distributing public
assistance and employment to residents directly affected by the disaster. Through these
responses to a city-wide social crisis, Baltimore residents revealed their underlying, and
127
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often unexamined, assumptions about the nature of the ties among residents of the city, as
well as the nature of divisions that separated the same residents.
The importance of the fire to the people of East Baltimore is illustrated by the
recollections of several city residents seventy-five years after the event. An eighty-two
year old African-American man recalled that several blocks to the east of Jones Falls
sparks glowed in the wind above the rooftops and the frightened residents o f his
neighborhood believed the entire city was doomed.1 Another eighty-two year old
remembered that closer to Jones Falls, in Little Italy, families loaded household goods
and children into pushcarts and retreated.2 The collective memory of the Italian
community was probably best represented in a sixty-two year old woman's restatement of
her grandfather's account of the fire. According to this account, which was consistent
with the memories o f many in Little Italy, at the height of the blaze, with a west wind
driving the flames toward Jones Falls, a statue of St. Anthony altered the course of the
fire and saved Little Italy. As the old people of Little Italy recalled the event, when the
fire appeared ready to leap over Jones Falls, their parents and grandparents gathered at S t
Leo's Church to pray for their community. The Italians then took the statue of St.
Anthony from the Church to face the fire from the edge of Jones Falls, and the fire
suddenly stopped.3
1 Interview with J.J., July 25,1979, number 092, Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project (BNHP), Oral History Collection, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
2 Interview with M.D., May 29,1979, number 053, BNHP.
3 Interview with I.E., July 10,1979, number 079, BNHP; Interview with M.D., May 29,1979, number 053, BNHP.
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Thus, memories of the great fire o f 1904 remain alive in the local culture of East
Baltimore, and for good reason: although the fire stopped at Jones Falls and spared Little
Italy, on the west side of Jones Falls, in the commercial heart of the city, the strong winds
of February 1904 drove the flames over seventy-three city blocks, destroying 1,343
buildings.4
The fire started on February 7,1904, in a wholesale dry goods house at Hopkins
Place and German Street, near what is now Hopkins Plaza in the center of modem
Baltimore. Because the fire began in a commercial district on a Sunday morning in the
coldest part of the winter, there was ample time for the blaze to grow before it was
discovered. In any case, it was easy for the fire to spread quickly among stacks o f
blankets and cotton goods.5 By the time Mr. S. F. Ball, the first known eyewitness to the
disaster, saw flames enveloping the John E. Hurst & Co. dry goods warehouse, the
building was about to explode. As Mr. Ball turned toward the burning building, the
flames reached a gasoline tank, which erupted in a powerful blast.6 After the initial
gasoline explosion, the fire was clearly beyond the bounds of an ordinary city fire. The
blast scattered burning debris in all directions and ignited fires in buildings on all four
comers of the intersection of Hopkins Place and German Street. Within a few minutes
4 Annual Report of the Burnt District Commission Created bv Act of General Assembly. 11 March 1906,19, microfilm, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; John M. Powell, "History of Baltimore 1870-1912," in Baltimore: Its History and Its People. 3 vols. (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1912), 1:348.
5 Powell, "History of Baltimore," 1:343.
6 Baltimore Sun. 8 February 1904.
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firefighters arrived, but the spreading fire easily outran the efforts of the first firefighters
on the scene.7
Throughout Sunday and into Monday, the sights and sounds of the unfolding
disaster reached virtually every resident o f the city. The strong west winds intensified,
and the masses of flames and swirling cinders filled the sky above the tops of the ten and
twelve story buildings in the center of the city. Updrafts and strong winds carried clouds
of smoke and embers far beyond the center of the city, and chunks of charred wood fell to
the ground at Broadway and McElderry Street, approximately two miles from the fire
line.8 At the height of the disaster, the night reverberated with terrifying sounds: the roar
of the fire, the rumbling of massive brick buildings crashing to the ground, and the
booming of explosions set off when the flames enveloped fuel tanks or the fire fighters
dynamited buildings ahead of the fire line.9 Thirty hours after the fire started, at about
5:00 p.m. on Monday, February 8, the fire was finally declared under control. The
firefighters had not stopped the fire; instead the flames had swept across the city from the
northwest to the southeast, then had stalled when the wind faded with only water to the
south and east and burned out ruins to the north and west10
The burned out area covered almost the entire commercial core of the city. On the
north the fire line extended along Fayette and Lexington Streets, where major buildings
7 Ibid.
8 Baltimore Sun. 10 February 1904.
9 Baltimore Sun. 8 February 1904; Powell, "History of Baltimore," 1:348.
10 Baltimore Sun. 9February 1904.
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including, the Post Office, City Hall, and the Court House, were damaged, but not
destroyed. On the west, the fire extended to Park Avenue. The fire ended at the harbor
on the south, where many of the city's shipping facilities were destroyed. On the east, the
fire did not cross Jones Falls, except that immediately adjacent to the harbor, there was a
small burned area, including the President Street Station, a few houses, and some
wharves." From east to west, the burned out area extended 3,800 feet, and from north to
south it extended 2,900 feet12 Among the structures lost to the city were twenty banking
and trust company buildings, nine hotels, seven daily newspaper plants, nine
transportation headquarters, and one church.13 Early estimates of the total property losses,
including goods and equipment as well as real estate, ranged from $75,000,000 to
$150,000,000.14
There were a few fragments of good fortune in the disaster. Although there were
many injuries, including more than fifiy fire fighters, there was only one fatality.15
Because the fire was confined to the commercial district, many valuable buildings were
lost, but residential areas were spared, and very few residents lost their homes.
Additionally, even before the fire was completely extinguished, many city officials and
11 Baltimore Sun. 9 February 1904; Citizens' Emergency Committee Minute Book. MS 237, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
12 Powell, "History of Baltimore," 1:348.
13 Burnt District CommissionAnnual Report. 1906: Lewis, "History of Baltimore," 1:348.
14 Baltimore Sun. 9 February 1904.
15 Baltimore Morning Herald. 9 February 1904.
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leading businessmen noted that the destruction provided a rare opportunity to modernize
an extensive area in the heart of the city under a single, coordinated plan. For many
people in Baltimore, "the first thought was not how to simply restore the city, but how to
make a greater one,"16 and within a few days citizens of Baltimore were discussing
proposals to widen downtown streets and modernize shipping facilities.17
The fire also provided a unifying experience for most citizens of Baltimore.
Throughout the emergency, visible and audible manifestations of disaster reached most of
the city's residents, and the need for cooperative effort was compelling. The entire city
fell into darkness when the fire destroyed the United Electric Light and Power Company
plant. When the city's street cars stalled with the loss of electric power, the crews
remained with the cars, while their wives and children, and in some cases residents along
the streetcar lines, brought them food and drink.18 Along President street in Little Italy,
seventy-five Italian men, women, and children abandoned their homes at the height of the
fire, and V. J. Shimek, who was described in the press as "a big-hearted Bohemian,"19
provided the Italian fire victims with shelter and food at his home on North Broadway.
As injuries mounted along the fire line, women volunteered their services as nurses for
16 A Short History Showing How the Work of Rehabilitation and Improvement of the City of Baltimore Was Begun and Carried Through after the Great Fire of February 7 and 8. 1904. Together with a List of the Members of the Emergency Committee and the Reports of the Subcommittees, microfilm, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
17 Baltimore Sun. 10 February 1904.
18 BaltimoreSun. 9 February 1904.
19 Baltimore MorningHerald. 13 February 1904.
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the injured firefighters.20
The flames threatened community institutions, but some were saved through
spontaneous cooperative efforts. Chief Judge Henry D. Harlan and employees of the
courts worked together through the night to preserve records at the Courthouse, and,
despite some damage around the window frames, the building was ultimately preserved.
At the Baltimore Chrome Works, near the harbor, the factory roof caught on fire, but
workers fought off the flames, saving the company-and their jobs.21
Despite many extraordinary cooperative efforts, when the flames were finally
extinguished, it was apparent to everyone that the destruction and damage had touched
some of the most prominent visual symbols of the Baltimore's prestige and prosperity,
including the city's tallest commercial buildings, the main Post Office, the Courthouse,
and wharves in the inner harbor. And, most importantly, with a few exceptions, such as a
residential area near the harbor, the burned area was in the common core of the city, and
not the racial and ethnic enclaves around the city center.
In the first few days after the fire, state and city officials acted to meet the
emergent needs of the city. By Wednesday, February 10, members of the State Senate
and General Assembly proposed an appropriation in excess o f $100,000 for the relief of
those left destitute by the disaster.22 A day later Mayor Robert McLane formed a
Citizens' Emergency Committee composed of prominent business leaders, most of whom
20 Baltimore Sun. 10 February 1904.
21 Baltimore Sun. 9 February 1904.
22 Baltimore Sun. 10 February 1904.
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owned property in the burnt district23 The Mayor charged this advisory committee with
the responsibility to make recommendations as to the most appropriate measures to serve
the public welfare during the city's period of recovery.24 In a message dated February 11,
1904, Mayor McLane called both City Council branches25 to special sessions beginning
on Friday, February, 12.26
Within the first ten days after the fire, two major concerns arose in the meetings of
the Citizens' Emergency Committee and the special sessions o f the City Council. First,
there was a need for immediate financial relief for citizens who faced acute hardships in
the aftermath of the fire. Although the fire destroyed few residences, there were
enormous property losses, and the destruction brought many businesses to a halt,
throwing thousands of people out of work. Second, there was a need to expedite the
removal of thousands of tons of rubble that choked city streets. Until workers could clear
the streets, businesses could not resume operations and property owners could not begin
to rebuild the city.
In the first days of the emergency, it was not clear whether there was an
immediate need for increased financial aid for victims of the fire. Politicians at the state
23 A Short History Showing How. 33.
24 Citizens' Emergency Committee Minute Book
25 Beginning in 1898, the Baltimore City Council was divided into two Branches. The First Branch was composed of twenty-four Council members, one from each of the city's wards. The Second Branch was composed of five members: a President, who was elected by the voters of the city at large, and four district members, each of whom was elected from a councilmanic district created by grouping six of the city's wards.
26 Citv Council. FirstBranch Journal. 12 February 1904.
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and city levels quickly announced that money would be made available for needy
citizens, but on the day after the fire Walter Ufford, General Secretary of the Charity
Organization and the Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor,
reported that his organizations had received very few requests for assistance. According
to Ufford, the most acute suffering would probably be delayed because the fire affected
businesses rather than residences. Ufford suggested that the most pressing need was not
financial aid for individuals, but instead for the provision of temporary quarters for
burned-out businesses.27 A week later, Secretary N. G. Grasty of the municipal board of
charities announced that only about twenty city residents had applied to his agency for
relief. Most of the applicants, according to Grasty, were mechanics who requested help
in the form of work after they had lost their tools in the fire.28
Individual City Council members noted, however, that some of their constituents
had in fact lost their homes as well as their jobs; and the First Branch of the Council
unanimously passed a resolution declaring that, "although the late catastrophe may be
termed 'A rich man's fire,"’ the catastrophe had not only destroyed the property of the
wealthy, but had also "precipitated others, of good and industrious habits, into a state of
actual want and distressful suffering."29
Although the Maryland Legislature appropriated money for a substantial relief
fund, the delivery system for welfare benefits in Baltimore at the turn of the century was
27 Baltimore Sun. 10 February 1904.
28 Baltimore Morning Herald. 16 February 1904.
29 City Council. First Branch Journal. 15 February 1904.
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through private charities, not public agencies. Charity in Baltimore was managed
through benevolent institutions, most of which were connected with churches or managed
by religious organizations.30 The churches and religious organizations in turn were
closely identified with ethnic populations. To deal with the hardships caused by the fire,
city leaders established a Citizens' Relief Committee. The Relief Committee attempted
to alleviate the suffering of workers in two ways: first by assisting displaced workers in
finding new employment; and second, through payments and loans to those in immediate
need.31
In carrying out these responsibilities, the Citizens' Relief Committee sought some
assistance from public institutions, but the Relief Committee relied more heavily on the
city's private charity organizations. With the assistance of the Maryland State Bureau of
Industrial Statistics, the Relief Committee identified workers who were in need ofjob
placement assistance, and the Committee provided placement services directly to
individuals in need.
In providing payments and loans to the needy, however, the Committee did not
allocate resources directly to individuals on an as-needed basis. The rule for providing
loans and direct payments was, "so far as possible, sufferers should be dealt with by their
own friends and associates."32 The "friends and associates" recognized by the Relief
30 Charles Hirschfield, Baltimore. 1870-1900: Studies in Social History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1941), 133.
31 Report of the Citizens' Relief Committee Appointed after the GreatBaltimore Fire of Fehruarv7 and 8.1904.9, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
32 Ibid.
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Committee were, for the most part, the charity organizations that served specific ethnic
communities within the city. Among the organizations recognized by the Relief
Committee were the Hebrew Benevolent Society, the German Society, and the St.
Vincent dePaul Society. The Relief Committee recognized no African-American
organizations, and when the Relief Committee convened a conference to plan relief
activities with church organizations, thirty ministers and rabbis were invited, but there
were no African-Americans among the invitees.33 The Relief Committee noted, however,
that the Federated Charities were available for persons not included in the work of the
other recognized organizations.34
Unlike African-Americans, Italian immigrants were recognized by the Relief
Committee. Citizens in Little Italy formed an Italian Relief Committee, which the
Citizens1 Relief Committee recognized because, despite the relatively small damage in
residential areas, there were significant losses in Little Italy as a result of its proximity to
the burned area.35 Many in Little Italy, for example, peddled fruit, which they usually
obtained from wharves in the burnt district.
When the relief distributed throughout the city is compared on an ethnic basis, it
is clear that the tiny Italian community received a disproportionate share. In many cases,
33 Baltimore Morning Herald. 27February 1904. The names of the thirty individuals were listed in the Mominy Herald, and their races were checked through the Baltimore City Directory for 1904 (Baltimore: R. L. Polk & Co., 1904), which identifies African- Americans in its listings with an asterisk. 34 Report of the Citizens Relief Committee. 9.
35 Ibid.
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the relief distributed to the Italian community was in the form of assistance for coal,
provisions, and furniture, but the Italian Relief Committee also found jobs for Italian men
and women and provided capital to set up several Italian businesses.36 Taking all forms
of aid into account, the aggregate amount o f aid provided for the Italian community was
comparable to the aggregate amounts provided for other communities, but the Italian
community's proportionate share was actually much higher because the Italian population
of Baltimore was far smaller than the German, Jewish, and African-American
communities.37
Table 1. Distributions of Aid bv the Citizens' Relief Committee
To Religious and Ethnic Charities Italian Relief Committee...... $3,999.02 to 168 families German Society...... $614.75 to 32 families St. Vincent dePaul Society...... $917.50 to 66 families Hebrew Benevolent Society...... $4,296.40 to 238 families Federated Charities ...... $4,774.02 to 488 families
Other Distributions Directly from Committee (to 134 families) Payments...... $5,986.03 Loans...... $1,037.00
Source: Report of the Citizens' relief Committee. 11.
36 Ibid., 21.
37 In 1900, the population of Baltimore was 508,957, of whom approximately 15.6 percent, or 79,258, were African-Americans and approximately 16 percent, or slightly more than 81,000, were foreign-born. The German-born population was 7.8 percent, or approximately 39,700, and the Russian-bom population was 2.8 percent, or approximately 14,250. By comparison, the Italian-born population was quite small, including only .5 percent of the city's total population, or roughly 2,000 residents. D. Randall Beime, "The Impact of Black Labor on European Immigration into Baltimore's Oldtown, 1790-1910." Maryland Historical Magazine S3 (Winter 1988), 332.
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In effect the use of private organizations to distribute financial aid introduced the
city's pervasive patterns of racial and ethnic separation into the process. The city's
leaders did not treat the problem as one requiring common action, with relief distributed
on the basis of individual need. Instead, consistent with Baltimore's clear lines of racial
and ethnic separation, relief was distributed through private charities, most of which
represented the city's various ethnic groups. As a result, the city's responses to the
emergency reflected the disfavored position of the African-American community among
Baltimore's racial and ethnic groups, and the emphasis on assistance to the Italian
immigrant community underscored the problem. The reasons for recognizing a separate
relief organization for the city's small Italian community appear to have been well
founded, but recognition of the particular needs of the Italian immigrant community stood
in striking contrast to the exclusion of African-American community groups from
participation in relief efforts.
The second major concern identified by city officials immediately after the fire
was the need to clear the rubble from downtown streets. Observers of the ruins estimated
that one million cubic yards of debris choked the streets and sidewalks of the fire-swept
district,38 and within days after the fire ended community leaders acknowledged the
importance of restoring commerce to the city's streets. In its organizational meeting, the
mayor's Citizens' Emergency Committee formed several committees, one of which was a
38 A Short History Showing How. 53.
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"Committee on Removal of Debris."39 The first resolution passed by the First Branch of
the City Council in its special sessions included a statement "That the task of removing
the enormous tonnage of debris is recognized as a stupendous undertaking, but for all that
it should be grappled with determinedly."40
The city undertook extraordinary measures to facilitate debris removal, including
requesting permission from the federal government to dump debris in the harbor41 and
arranging for the construction of temporary railroad spurs to carry the rubble away from
the center of the city.42 To pay for these extraordinary measures, the city drew on a fund
of ten million dollars that had been acquired through the sale of Baltimore's interest in the
Western Maryland Railroad Company.43
City Council members noted that the problem of removing debris could be tied to
alleviating the hardships of many of their constituents. The fire had destroyed the places
of employment for 25,000 Baltimore workers, many of whom resumed their employment
in a short time as their employers relocated. State officials reported, however, that 8,000
39 Citizens1 Emergency Committee Minute Book.
40 Citv Council. First Branch Journal. 12 February 1904.
41 Ibid.
42 A Short History Showing How the Work of Rehabilitation and Improvement of the Citv o f Baltimore Was Begun and Carried Through. 54.
43 Semi-Annual and Final Report of the Burnt DistrictCommission Created bv Act of General Assembly. Approved March 11.1904. to His Honor the Mavor for the Six Months Ending Sentember 11.1907. and u p to the Termination o f the Work of the CommissionOctober 23. 1907. microfilm, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Citv Council. First Branch Journal. 10 and 11 May 1904.
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of the displaced workers would be permanently thrown out o f work.44 Two days after the
fire, the city's laborers made it clear to the City Council that the unemployment problem
was a major concern, as thousands o f men crowded around City Hall seeking work or
transportation to other cities.45
By unanimous resolution, the City Council announced support of a policy of
providing aid for fire victims by distributing public works jobs to those thrown out of
work by the fire.46 The plan to alleviate workers' hardships by hiring them to remove fire
debris seemed promising, especially when the city added one thousand extra street
laborers to the payroll in the three weeks immediately following the fire.47
The plan to use city street laborers to remove fire debris, however, was difficult to
implement. Despite the clear public interest in prompt removal of the debris, there were
also private interests that had to be taken into account. The debris was not simply waste
material. As much as 40 percent of the debris was salvageable as building material,
which meant that the debris had considerable value.48 Because the debris was valuable
private property belonging to either the owners of burned buildings or to the insurance
companies who covered the owners' losses, the city could only remove the debris where
44 Baltimore Sun. 24 February 1904.
45 Baltimore Morning Herald. 11 February 1904.
46 Citv Council. First Branch Journal. 12 February 1904.
47 Baltimore American.29 February 1904; Baltimore MorningHerald. 12 February 1904.
48 A Short History Showing How. 53-54.
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there was an immediate menace to public health or safety.49 As a result, private property
rights thwarted the plan to attack the debris problem quickly with an army of city street
laborers. Nonetheless, within a few days an emergency workforce undertook the limited
project of moving the debris out of the streets and dumping it onto the foundations of the
burned buildings.50 By February 15th nearly all the downtown streets were opened,
although the mountains of rubble still needed to be hauled away from the building lots in
the heart of the city.sl
Despite the legal hurdles to a quick resolution of the debris removal problem, the
shared experience of the disaster generated a sense o f unity that encouraged the City
Council to address the problem optimistically. In the immediate aftermath of the fire,
unanimous resolutions emanating from the City Council expressed a pervasive spirit o f
unity: "inasmuch as the fire has scattered misfortune in the homes of families in all parts
of the city, thereby creating a class of unemployed who are anxious for work, some
system should be devised whereby the selection of laborers for city work can be equitably
distributed so far as is practicable."52
Such general policy statements, however, were at odds with the city's established
patterns of racial and ethnic separation. Under normal circumstances, city leaders were
49 A Short History Showing How. 53-54; Citizens’ EmergencyCommittee Minute Book. “Report of the Committee on Debris Removal.”
50 Baltimore Morning Herald. 12 February 1904.
51 Baltimore Morning Herald. 15 February 1904.
52 Citv Council. First Branch Journal. 12 February 1904.
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inclined to exacerbate rather than attenuate ethnic and racial conflicts in matters o f public
employment Baltimore officials readily acknowledged that race was a factor in public
employment53 and at times they openly exploited racial divisions by advocating racial
criteria for public employment In 1905, for example, City Council members publicly
discussed establishing racial policies for hiring city laborers, including limiting the hiring
to "white registered voters."54
Because laboring jobs were important to African-Americans and Italian
immigrants, distribution of public works jobs on ethnic and racial bases generated
tensions between these two groups. In the late nineteenth century, the rising tide of
Italian immigration had exacerbated the economic problems o f unskilled African-
American workers, especially in periods of economic crisis. In 1885, for example, a
surge in Italian immigration to Baltimore had displaced unskilled African-Americans
from laboring jobs on the railroads and waterfronts, and the injury to poor African-
American neighborhoods near the center of the city, such as Pigtown, had been followed
by apparent insult, as the newly arrived Italian immigrants suddenly increased their
visibility in the downtown streets, where the immigrants peddled fruits and peanuts and
performed on harps and organs.55 In 1893, African-American hod carriers had lost their
53 U. S. Industrial Commission, Reports, vol. 15, Reports of the IndustrialCommission on Immigration: Including Testimony with Review and Digest (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1901; repr., New York: Amo Press, 1970), 437-38. 54 Citv Council. First Branch Journal. 21 May 1905.
55 Sherry H. Olson, Baltimore: The Building of an American Citv (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 234.
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union shop rights with contractors working on the North Avenue bridge. The African-
American workers filed a lawsuit, but they lost, and they were replaced by white workers,
many of whom were probably Italian immigrants/6
By the time the city began to implement a program to clear the streets, the unified
response to the fire had already faded and these entrenched patterns of ethnic and racial
separation reemerged. It is important to note that these established patterns o f racial and
ethnic hiring did not always result in complete exclusion of African-Americans, and in
good times African-Americans might be added to street cleaning crews. In 1896, for
example, the Commissioner of Street Cleaning reorganized the department's work teams
and added two African-American brigades. Economically pressured African-Americans
especially welcomed the new jobs because the wage was $1.66 per day, which was higher
than the wage for most laboring jobs.57 In the aftermath of the fire, however, with 8,000
fire-displaced workers suddenly added to the rolls of the unemployed, times were not
good, and the disfavored place of African-Americans in Baltimore's economy became
apparent.
When the question of hiring emergency street cleaning crews arose, Italian
immigrant laborers presented a major obstacle for African-Americans. By 1904, the city
government of Baltimore had a well-established pattern of assisting Italian immigrants by
placing them in public employment.58 Italian immigrants were typically hired by the city
56 Ibid.
57 Ibid.
58 U.S. Industrial Commission, Reports, vol. 15,437-38.
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through referrals from friends and relatives, probably with the assistance of ward leaders.
It is relatively easy to find evidence of such patterns of referral involving Italian
immigrants. Frank Lazzaro, for example, arrived from Italy in 1904, and worked as a
laborer for the City Engineer. When his two sons, ages 21 and 23 arrived from Italy in
1907, they too found employment as laborers for the City Engineer. Angelo Etrusco
arrived from Italy in 1893. He found housing at 303 Albemarle Street and worked as a
city laborer. When Bernard Bartocelli and his son arrived from Italy in 1899, they found
housing next door to Angelo Etrusco and, like Etrusco, they went to work as city
laborers.59 Such instances of employment as city laborers, while common among Italians
in Little Italy, were rare among African-Americans in West Baltimore.60
Despite the initial proclamations in favor of an equitable distribution of public
works jobs after the fire, African-Americans quickly became frustrated, as they faced
blatant employment discrimination in the weeks following the fire. City leaders followed
established patterns and responded to the economic stresses by favoring European
immigrants, including Italians, while excluding African-Americans. All of the one
thousand extra street cleaners hired in the three weeks following the fire were white.61
Through the primary public voice of Baltimore's African-American community,
the Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. African-Americans expressed their bitterness over
59 U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll 553, Enumeration District 28.
60 U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll 558, Enumeration Districts 280-95.
61 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 20 February 1904.
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the racism in the city's responses to the fire emergency. Within two weeks after the fire, a
writer in the Afro-American Ledger noted that all the men hired by the city to clean the
streets were white, and in the same edition o f the newspaper, there was a letter from the
Directors of Baltimore's "Colored" Y.M.C.A. pointing out that hundreds o f African-
Americans had lost their jobs as a result o f the fire. Furthermore, the Y.M.C.A. Directors
attributed the hardships of African-American workers to the many foreign laborers in the
city, and although there were no specific references to Italian immigrants, the writers
emphasized that their complaint was primarily with the recent aliens who were not
citizens.62
At the end o f February, the city laid off the last of the temporary workers hired to
clear the fire debris.63 A writer in the Afro-American Ledger reported with relief that
private contractors were finally beginning to work among the fire ruins, with the result
that a few African-Americans could be found among the workers. The writer summed up
the African-American community's bitterness over Baltimore's official racism: "The
narrowness of the city authorities could only see a man's color when work was to be done
under its management."64
Nearly all residents of Baltimore experienced the effects of the fire o f 1904. The
dramatic sights and sounds of the fire emanated from the center of the city, and the
62 Ibid. 63 Baltimore American. 29 February 1904.
64 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 27 February 1904.
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immediate emergency presented a compelling need for cooperative effort. The burnt
district encompassed much of Baltimore's common core, and although the residents of
Baltimore might not encounter each other on terms of equality in the area ravaged by the
fire, they nonetheless encountered each other there on a regular basis. The burnt district
included streets and structures that were workplaces for the city's executives and laborers,
financiers and deliverymen, clerks and street cleaners, lawyers and policemen, and
physicians and mechanics. The range o f shops in the commercial core of the city
accommodated the needs of Baltimore men and women of all classes and income levels.
The shared experiences of disaster and loss, however, resulted in only a brief
period of unity. In formulating practical responses to the fire, the city had to rely on its
established social, economic, and political institutions, and these institutions reflected the
city's history o f racial and ethnic separation. African-Americans, who shared equally
with other residents in the economic losses, were systematically denied a fair share of the
money and jobs provided for victims of the fire. And when new immigrants seemed to
claim entitlement to greater public benefits than African-Americans, some resentment
against the immigrants was inevitable.
By chance, Italians suffered disproportionate losses in the fire, and were,
therefore, singled out for special attention by the Citizens' Relief Committee. The special
attention given the Italian community may have been justified on humanitarian grounds,
but African-Americans, when contemplating the injustices their own community suffered,
noticed that Italians were conspicuous for having been among the very last of the
immigrants to arrive in America. From their side, Italians, when contemplating the city's
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fair and generous response to Little Italy's hardships, must have noticed that the city's fair
and generous response depended, at least in part, on the identification of Italian
immigrants as members of the white community.
As the relief provided in the aftermath of the fire demonstrates, the problems
faced by African-Americans pre-dated the arrival of Italian immigrants. Although new
patterns o f racial and ethnic segregation were evolving, the racial antagonism and official
racism reflected in the work of the Citizens' Relief Committee and in the city's hiring
practices were rooted in the attitudes and policies of the city's leaders. Nonetheless, these
policies and attitudes affected interactions between African-Americans and Italian
immigrants.
Thus, the experiences of African-Americans and Italian immigrants in the
emergency of 1904 cannot be thought of as a simple interaction between two minority
communities. Race relations in Baltimore, as in any major city, evolved within a network
of social, cultural, and economic interactions. Although the fire and its aftermath
presented common problems for African-Americans and Italian immigrants, the degree of
cooperation or conflict that grew out of those problems was not only a product of the
characteristics of the African-American and Italian-immigrant communities, but also of
the city’s entire network of social, economic, and political relationships.
The great fire of 1904 was a landmark event for Little Italy. It was the first great,
city-wide event that occurred after Little Italy had taken its place among the many
separate ethnic communities of East Baltimore. In living through the fire and its
aftermath, residents of Little Italy began the process of accumulating a set of experiences
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they shared with other ethnic communities in the city. At the very time the Italian
immigrants of Baltimore were undergoing these formative experiences, Maryland’s
Democratic Party leaders were planning a campaign to disfranchise the state’s African-
American voters. As that campaign introduced new tensions into the social life of the
city over the next few years, Baltimore’s Italian-immigrants applied some of the lessons
learned in 1904 and continued to accumulate the social experiences that intertwined the
lives o f the Italians with the lives others throughout the city.
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1905: THE FIRST DISFRANCHISEMENT CAMPAIGN
While most residents of Baltimore were absorbed in efforts to recover from the
great fire, leaders of the Democratic party of Maryland were planning a political strategy
that would increase racial tensions and affect the development of relations between
African-Americans and Italian immigrants in Baltimore for several years. Throughout
1904, Maryland Democrats worked on a plan to disfranchise the state's African American
voters. In different forms, the Democrats’ plan resulted in two major disfranchisement
campaigns, one in 1905 and one in 1909.
The 1905 disfranchisement campaign failed when Maryland voters rejected the
primary vehicle for disfranchisement—a proposed amendment of the state constitution. A
major reason for the defeat of the disfranchisement amendment was that it was
unacceptable to several key Democratic politicians. Despite the anti-African-American
attitudes of most Maryland Democrats, the scheme devised by party leaders presented a
dilemma for some Democrats, and they simply could not stand behind their leaders.
The dilemma of Democratic politicians is illustrated by the actions of two key
figures, United States Senator Isidor Rayner and ward leader Will Garland, each of whom
depended on a base of support in Baltimore. Neither Rayner nor Garland was willing to
150
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stand with his party in the 1905 disfranchisement campaign. Each man campaigned
openly against the disfranchisement plan, and each man made a major contribution to the
plan's defeat, thereby helping to preserve African-American voting rights.
Paradoxically, both Rayner and Garland were openly hostile to African-
Americans. Based on his personal belief in the inherent inferiority of African-Americans,
Rayner regularly advocated the curtailment African-American political rights. In a 1903
speech to Maryland voters, for example, he argued that it would be misguided to treat
African-Americans as equals: "The Declaration of Independence says all men are bom
equal. This is a mistake. All men are not bom equal; they are bom unequal."1 Garland
was even more explicit in his racism. When he campaigned against the disfranchisement
plan, he always prefaced his remarks with assurances that his opposition to
disfranchisement was not based on sympathy for African-Americans. Campaigning
against disfranchisement in October 1905, he began his speeches with remarks such as,
"There's no man in the state that hates the darky more than I do."2
As is demonstrated by the examples of Rayner and Garland, the Democratic
party's disfranchisement plan was not defeated in Maryland because racism was in
decline in the opening years of the twentieth century. Instead, the opposition to
disfranchisement among Democrats such as Rayner and Garland was based on their ties
to the ethniccommunities of Baltimore. Rayner was the son of Jewish immigrants from
1 Notes on a speech by Isidor Rayner, Westminster, Maryland, October 17,1903, Arthur P. Gorman Papers, MS 706, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
2 Baltimore American. 27 October 1905,16.
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Bavaria, and Garland represented the Third Ward, which was populated by many of
Baltimore's newest immigrants, including most of the city's Italians and thousands of
eastern Europeans. The Democratic party's disfranchisement scheme failed primarily
because Maryland Democrats attempted to carry out their scheme through a proposed
amendment o f the Maryland constitution that threatened the voting rights of immigrants
as well as African-Americans.
The disfranchisement plan of 1905 was the product of a long history of racial
politics in Maryland. Although African-Americans in Maryland maintained their voting
rights at all times after 1870, the Democratic party dominated state politics from 1870 to
1895 without attracting more than a negligible share of the African-American vote. As a
result of African-American loyalty to the Republican party, Maryland remained a two-
party state, but it was a two-party state in which Republican strength was limited to a few
strongholds in heavily African-American counties in southern Maryland and in highland
counties in Western Maryland. These Republican strongholds kept the party alive, but
they were insufficient to prevent the Democrats from carrying the state in every
presidential and gubernatorial election from 1871 to 1892.3
Although nearly one quarter of Maryland's citizens were African-Americans,4
3 In six gubernatorial elections, the Democratic share of the vote ranged from 53.3 percent to 58 percent; in six presidential elections, the Democratic share ranged from 50.3 percent to 56 percent. Margaret L. Callcott, The Negro in Maryland Politics 1870-1912 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969), 33-34.
4 In 1870 there were 175,391 African-Americans in Maryland, which amounted to 22.5 percent o f the state's total population. The potential African-American vote was approximately 35,000. William Gillette, "Anatomy of a Failure: Federal Enforcement of
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Democrats succeeded in Maryland politics without the African-American vote by
maintaining an efficient party organization based on a division of labor between two
party bosses. United States Senator Arthur P. Gorman o f rural Howard County controlled
the "state crowd," while relying on his Baltimore ally Isaac Freeman Rasin to control the
"city people."5 With a tenuous yet enduring grip on statewide elections, Democrats chose
not to use overt racism in their campaigns from 1870 to the early 1890s. Instead, they
ignored African-Americans in most parts of the state, while making a few uninspired
attempts to organize African-American Democratic clubs in Baltimore.6
A more malevolent attitude surfaced after Democratic successes came to an end in
1895. There had always been fault lines in the Democratic coalition, as the party bridged
class, ethnic, and geographic differences. In the wake of a serious economic slump in
1893, conflicts between urban and rural Democrats, middle-class and working-class
Democrats, and native-born and immigrant Democrats found expression in complaints
about "bossism," corruption in city government, and "ring rule."7 Within a few years,
these divisions undermined Democratic dominance in state elections~a development that
had serious consequences for race relations in Baltimore, as Democrats turned to race as a
the Right to Vote in the Border States during Reconstruction," in Radicalism. Racism, and Party Realignment: The Border States during Reconstruction, ed. Richard O. Curry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969), 265.
5 "Sonny Mahon's Own Story: Autobiography of a Baltimore Boss," BaltimoreSun. 8 October 1922, part 10,1.
6 Callcott, Negro in Maryland Politics. 56-57.
7 Callcott, Negro in Maryland Politics. 83-84.
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device to restore unity to their divided party.
Despite the Democrats’ appeals to white racial solidarity,8 Republicans swept the
statewide elections o f 1895.9 In 1896, McKinley carried Maryland in the Presidential
election, and in 1897, a Republican, William T. Mulster, was elected Mayor of
Baltimore.10 Democrats fought back by increasing their appeals to white racial solidarity,
and, after a series of closely contested elections between 1897 and 1902, they won a
decisive victory in 1903.11
By making the election a referendum on African-American participation in
politics, then winning by overwhelming margins across the state, Maryland Democrats
used the election o f 1903 to establish the basis for their disfranchisement plans.
8 “Sonny Mahon’s Own Story: Autobiography of a Baltimore Boss,” BaltimoreSun. 15 October 1922, part 10,1; Betty Collier Thomas, “The Baltimore Black Community: 1865-1910,” (Ph.D. diss., George Washington University, 1974), 379-80; Callcott, Negro in Maryland Politics. 82-83; John R. Lambert, Arthur Pue Gorman (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1953), 249.
9 The statewide Republican margin in 1895 was fewer than 20,000 votes. Republican gubernatorial candidate, Lloyd Lowndes, outpolled Democrat John E. Hurst by 124,936 to 106,169; Prohibition Party candidate, Joshua Levering drew 7,719 votes, and Henry F. Andrews, representing both the People’s party and the Socialist party, drew 1,381 votes. Calcott, Negro in Maryland Politics. 87. The Republican victory margin was fewer votes than the potential African-American vote in Maryland. The African-American population in Baltimore alone was 67,104 in 1890. U.S. Census Office, Compendium o f the Eleventh Census: 1890 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1894), part I, table 13,490.
10 John M. Powell, “History of Baltimore 1870-1912,” in Baltimore: Its History and People. 3 vols. (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1912), 1:326.
11 Powell, “History of Baltimore,” l:326;Thomas, “Baltimore Black Community,” 385-86; Lambert, Arthur Pue Gorman. 275; Callcott, Negro in Maryland Politics. 99-100.
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Democratic gubernatorial candidate Edwin Warfield began his campaign by announcing,
"I do not want to be Governor of this State unless I am elected by a majority of the white
race in Maryland. This is a contest for the supremacy of the white race in Maryland."12
Under the leadership of Senator Gorman, other Maryland Democrats exploited racial
fears by reminding voters that Republicans sometimes introduced African-Americans into
social as well as political affairs, and to prove their point they reminded Marylanders that
President Roosevelt had invited Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House in
1901.13 Throughout the campaigns o f 1903, Democratic candidates across the state
stirred up racial hatred, referring to African-American voters as "dumb, driven cattle" and
telling white audiences that "The white man is the highest type of the human family; the
negro is the lowest."14 The racial strategy worked: Warfield won the governorship, and
Democrats won a three-fifths majority in the State legislature-a sufficient majority to
approve an amendment of the state constitution and present it to the state's voters.15
As the recognized leader of the Democratic party, Senator Gorman acted promptly
to put his party’s majority to use. In December 1903, he asked John Prentiss Poe, Dean
of the University of Maryland Law School, to prepare a draft of an amendment to the
Maryland Constitution that would disfranchise African-Americans,16 and he began the
12 Callcott, Negro in Maryland Politics. 107.
13 Lambert, Arthur Pue Gorman. 345-46.
14 Baltimore Sun. 22 October 1903.
15 Crooks, Politics and Progress. 57.
16 Ibid., 58.
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new year in 1904 by hosting a meeting o f state Democratic leaders for the purpose of
discussing the product of Poe's efforts. In the early afternoon on Saturday, January 2,
1904, some of the most important figures in Maryland's Democratic party assembled at
Gorman's farm in Howard County. Among Gorman's guests were Governor Edwin
Warfield, Attorney General William S. Bryan, Democratic State Chairman Murray
Vandiver, and John Prentiss Poe.17
The amendment under discussion, which would become popularly known as the
Poe Amendment, included a "grandfather clause" and an "understanding clause." The
grandfather clause would grant the right to vote to all persons who had been entitled to
vote in Maryland on January 1, 1869, and to their male lineal descendants. The
understanding clause would provide that all persons not granted the right to vote under
the grandfather clause would be required to demonstrate civic competence by explaining
a section of the Maryland Constitution, with a local registration official standing in
judgment as to applicant's success in the exercise.18
The strategy underlying the proposed amendment was to isolate African-
Americans, but the proposed amendment fell short of the goal because its provisions also
posed a threat to the voting rights of immigrants. Because African-Americans had been
denied the vote in Maryland until the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment of the
Federal Constitution in 1870, no African-American would benefit from the grandfather
17 A. P. Gorman Diary, January 3,1904, Arthur P. Gorman Papers, MS 706, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
18 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 10 June 1905; Crooks, Politics and Progress. 58.
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clause, and no African-American would be permitted to vote until his constitutional
interpretation had been accepted by a registration official. Because most white
Marylanders met the requirements of the grandfather clause, few white voters would have
to undergo scrutiny by the registration officials. Unlike most white Marylanders,
however, many immigrants and their descendants did not qualify under the grandfather
clause. Instead, immigrants who had arrived in Maryland after 1869, along with their
descendants, would face the same voter qualification test as African-Americans.
Maryland Democrats discussed these provisions at Senator Gorman's home for
several hours, with the meeting ending long after sunset on the Winter evening,19 but the
long meeting failed to unite Democratic leaders behind Gorman's plan. Instead, the
discussions revealed weaknesses in the Democrats' position, both among Senator
Gorman's "state crowd" and among Isaac Rasin's "city people." At the planning session
on January 2,1904, Gorman found that two powerful state Democrats, Governor
Warfield and Attorney General Bryan, had been "impracticable and rather inclined to be
troublesome."20 Warfield and Bryan favored disfranchisement, but they objected to the
understanding clause, in part because they believed it violated the provisions of the
Fifteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, and in part because the
effectiveness of the understanding clause required fraud on the part of local registration
19 A. P. Gorman Diary, January 2,1904, Arthur P. Gorman Papers, MS 706, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
20 Ibid.
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officials.21 As an alternative to the understanding clause, Governor Warfield and
Attorney General Bryan proposed aproperty qualification.22 Gorman, however, was
alarmed by the property qualification's potential to create a class division within the
Democratic party, and he ruled it out quickly.23 Despite his firm stand on this issue,
Gorman failed to resolve the rift between his state machine and the Warfield-Bryan
faction.
Perhaps even more damaging to Gorman’s plan was lack of support among city
Democrats. Neither Isidor Rayner, who was about to become Maryland's second
Democratic United States Senator, nor Isaac Rasin, acknowledged leader of the
Democratic city machine, was among those present at Senator Gorman's farm. Later, at a
critical point in the disfranchisement campaign, Senator Rayner made a dramatic, public
break with the party.24 In a quieter way, Rasin’s reluctance to support the plan may have
been even more damaging. As the most experienced and influential Democrat in
Baltimore, Rasin’s support was essential.23 As the disfranchisement campaign began in
21 A. P. Gorman Diary, January 3,1904, Arthur P. Gorman Papers, MS 706, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore; Crooks, Politics and Progress. 59.
22 A. P. Gorman Diary, January 3,1904, and January 12,1904, Arthur P. Gorman Papers, MS 706, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
23 A. P. Gorman Diary, January 12,1904, Arthur P. Gorman Papers, MS 706, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
24 Baltimore Sun. 18 October 1905; Baltimore World, clipping, and Senator Isidor Rayner to Senator Arthur P. Gorman, Arthur P. Gorman Papers, MS 706, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
25 “Sonny Mahon’s Own Story: Autobiography of a Baltimore Boss,”Baltimore Sun. 8 October 1922, part 10, p. 1.
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early 1905, however, Rasin's lack of enthusiasm for the Amendment was so noticeable to
his Republican adversaries that they suspected he secretly opposed it.26
For Baltimore's tiny Italian immigrant community, these weaknesses in the
position of the Democratic party represented an opportunity for integration into the
political process. Divisions within the party underscored the importance of the immigrant
communities of Baltimore, and, in an intense, high-stakes struggle, even a small
community could influence the outcome, provided the community was coherent The
nature of the disfranchisement campaign also emphasized the primacy of race over
nationality, and, because there were divisions among native whites, native-white
politicians were under pressure to expand their constituencies. Thus, white politicians
had an incentive to define "white" broadly in matters involving groups of ambiguous
racial status. These circumstances guaranteed that all European immigrants would be
defined as white, which was especially important to Italians because their origins were
closer to Africa than any other group of European immigrants in Baltimore.
The political struggle over the Poe Amendment ultimately facilitated the
integration of Italian immigrants into the city's political culture. By inadvertently
threatening the voting rights of European immigrants along with the rights of African-
Americans, the Poe Amendment campaign pressured Democrats to prove their loyalties
to their immigrant constituencies. When Democratic party leaders such as Senator
26 Charles J. Bonaparte to President Theodore Roosevelt, March 14,1905, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 161, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
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Rayner, Isaac Freeman, and Third Ward Leader William Garland abandoned their party
in order to demonstrate their allegiances to their immigrant constituents, Italian
immigrants learned that they need not always be strangers in Baltimore. In the process,
the immigrants began to internalize some unexamined assumptions about the social
environment of Baltimore: to the extent that Italian immigrants learned what it meant to
be a real American from leaders like Senator Rayner and William Garland, they learned
that the first criterion for acceptance was whiteness.27
In contrast to the opportunities the Poe Amendment created for Italian immigrants
in Baltimore, these political developments presented a potential political disaster for
African-Americans, and Baltimore’s African-American leaders mobilized quickly.
Within weeks after Senator Gorman launched the disfranchisement campaign, John H.
Murphy, publisher of the Baltimore Afro-American Ledger, announced the danger to his
community, calling the disfranchisement campaign "one of the greatest disasters that
colored people of this state have experienced since the days of slavery.”28 In January
1904, Murphy joined many o f Baltimore's leading African-American ministers,
politicians, and businessmen at a meeting in the Bethel A.M.E. Church on Saratoga
Street. At this meeting, Murphy, along with W.H. Alexander, Harry S. Cummings,
Hiram Watty, George F. Bragg, Jr., and others, founded the Maryland Suffrage League to
27 Noel Ignatiev, in How the Irish Became White (New York: Routledge, 1995), suggests that Irish immigrants learned similar lessons about American culture after they arrived in northern cities in the nineteenth century.
28 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 30 January 1904.
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defend the franchise and oppose Jim Crow laws.29
When Gorman and his followers presented the proposed Amendment to state
legislators in early 1904, African-Americans were relatively isolated. A few Quakers and
Congregationaiist ministers joined the protests against the State Assembly's passage of
the Amendment,30 but most of Maryland's citizens were unaware of the early
maneuvering in the disfranchisement campaign. Especially noteworthy was the absence
of opposition to the Amendment by immigrants, who, apparently, had not yet realized
that most foreign-born citizens and their descendants would fail to qualify for protection
under the grandfather clause. Despite the potential for strong opposition to the
amendment and the lack of unity among Democrats, little opposition materialized when
the Amendment passed the State Senate on February 26,1904, and the House of
Delegates on March 3, 1904.31 Over the opposition of their own governor, Democratic
leaders succeeding in forwarding the proposed amendment to the Clerk of the Maryland
Court of Appeals for publication in the Fall o f 1904. The proposed amendment required
one additional procedural step for final adoption—approval by a majority of Maryland
voters in the general elections of November 1905.32
In late 1904, facing the immediate prospect of adoption of the Poe Amendment,
29 Ibid.
30 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 27 February 1904; Crooks, Politics and Progress. 59.
31 Crooks, Politics and Progress. 59.
32 Ibid., 59.
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African-American leaders carried their concerns to the highest levels of the Republican
party. Because disfranchisement would virtually guarantee Democratic majorities in
Maryland for the foreseeable future, national figures in the Republican party began to
take notice of the calls fbr assistance. In December 1904, Harry S. Cummings, a member
of the Judiciary Committee of the Maryland Suffrage League,33 joined James H. Hayes of
the National Negro Suffrage League in an hour-long discussion of African-American
voting rights with President Roosevelt at the White House.34 In early 1905, Charles J.
Bonaparte, the leader o f President Roosevelt's 1904 campaign organization in Maryland,
emerged as a major figure among the political opponents of the Poe Amendment. By
March 1905, Bonaparte was clearing his personal schedule for October and November in
anticipation of a busy political campaign.35
Bonaparte's emergence as the most politically powerful opponent of the Poe
Amendment dramatically improved the prospects of anti-Amendment forces. As a
Harvard-educated lawyer and a personal friend of President Roosevelt, Bonaparte had
political influence reaching to the national level.36 As the grandson of the French
emperor's brother, and the great grandson of one of Baltimore's wealthiest merchant-
33 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 6 February, 1904.
34 James H. Hayes to Booker T. Washington, December 27,1904, in Louis R. Harlan and Raymond W. Smock, eds., The Booker T. Washington Papers (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972-89), Vm, 168-9.
35 Charles J. Bonaparte to Sallie G. Gaynor, March 25,1905, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 161, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
36 Colored American Magazine 9 (July 1905): 355.
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capitalists, he had prestige and wealth.37 National African-American leaders viewed him
with cautious respect, recognizing that his wealth, prestige, and access to the President
made him a potentially valuable ally.
Despite their respect for Bonaparte's political power, however, African-Americans
worried about the depth and sincerity of Bonaparte's commitment to African-American
rights. One African-American publication assessed Bonaparte's position on civil rights
issues as "square to the four winds, with an inclination to give just a little to the wind
from the South."38 Nonetheless, it was clear that African-Americans, with no more than
20 percent of the electorate, could not defeat the Poe Amendment without allies among
white politicians.39 As early as February and March of 1904, Baltimore's African-
American leaders publicly acknowledged Bonaparte as an important ally.40
Thus, when the Poe Amendment was presented to the voters of Maryland in 1905,
Senator Arthur Gorman and Charles J. Bonaparte, as the two leaders with the most
political power, were in the best positions to formulate the campaign's general political
strategies. The strategies formulated by Gorman and Bonaparte revealed the importance
37 Crooks, Politics and Progress. 14-15.
38 Colored American Magazine9 (July 1905): 355.
39 The final voter registration figures for the 1905 election show that approximately 15 percent of Baltimore's voters were African-Americans: Total registered voters 119,691; white registered voters 102,005; African-American registered voters 17,686. Baltimore Sun. 22 October 1905.
40 Charles J. Bonaparte to Rev. George F. Bragg, Jr., February 29,1904, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 203, Library of Congress, Washington, DC;Baltimore Afro- American Ledger. 5 March 1904.
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of race in Maryland politics. For the city's Italian immigrants, many of whom had very
limited experience in American politics, these strategies provided clues to what it meant
to be American.
Senator Gorman's strategy was to present the Poe amendment as a racial issue.
The Amendment was necessary, Gorman argued, to preserve the integrity of political
institutions that rightly belonged to white men. African-Americans were unfit to
participate in Maryland politics, according to Gorman, and as head of the Democratic
party--the white man's party-he was determined to prevent Republicans from
unscrupulously manipulating African-American votes for Republican political gain.
As the recognized leader of the anti-Poe Amendment forces, Bonaparte's strategy
was to present the Amendment as bad public policy that posed a threat to the voting
rights of many white Marylanders. To counter the Democratic strategy of attempting to
unify white voters, Bonaparte urged African-Americans to attenuate their protests and
decrease their visibility. At the same time, Bonaparte presented the arguments o f the
Amendment's opponents in non-racial terms. He contended that all Marylanders should
oppose the Amendment in order to prevent a cynical, corrupt band of machine politicians
from fastening an unbreakable grip on the controls of state government.
In implementing Gorman's strategy, Murray Vandiver, Chairman of the
Democratic party State Central Committee, advised party regulars that the guiding
principle had been adopted unanimously at the state Democratic convention: "The
political destinies of Maryland should be shaped and controlled by the white people of
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the state."41 Vandiver followed through on this strategy by asking Democratic party
officials in each county to recommend a competent and popular young man to travel
around the county and organize a "White League" to support the Democratic ticket and
promote the adoption of the Poe Amendment.42 As if toemphasize the importance of the
unity of the white race, and not merely support among white voters, Vandiver followed
up the first request with a request for the name of a "lady" in each county to organize a
"White League" among the women.43
In implementing his strategy for opposition to the Poe Amendment, Bonaparte's
first concern was to de-emphasize the race issue.44 When he briefed President Roosevelt
on the Poe Amendment, he wrote to the President that "the 'ring' counts upon the
prejudice against 'niggers' to put it through."43 In his advice to African-Americans,
41 Murray Vandiver to Thomas Hall Robinson, June 6,1905, Thomas Hall Robinson Papers, MS 1473, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore. Thomas Hall Robinson was a Maryland State Senator from Harford County. He was a trusted ally of Senator Gorman and was among those who gathered at Gorman's farm for the initial PoeAmendment strategy session on January 2,1904.
42 Murray Vandiver to Thomas Hall Robinson, July 10, 1905, Thomas Hall Robinson Papers, MS 1473, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
43 Murray Vandiver to Thomas Hall Robinson, July 11,1905, Thomas Hall Robinson Papers, MS 1473, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
44 Bonaparte had learned important lessons about race in Maryland politics when he had managed President Roosevelt's campaign a year earlier. Maryland Republicans believed that Roosevelt had run poorly in Maryland because white voters associated the Republican party with African-Americans. Louis McC. to Charles J. Bonaparte, October 27,1904, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 67, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
45 Charles J. Bonaparte to President Theodore Roosevelt, March 14,1905, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 161, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
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Bonaparte recommended a low-key approach that would minimize the visibility of
African-Americans. He told a member of the promotion and publicity committee o f the
Baltimore Suffrage League, for example, that a "temperate and manly" statement of
protest from African-Americans was appropriate, but "ill considered language might
readily inflame the prejudices on which its advocates rely."46
Bonaparte also emphasized the dangers the Poe Amendment posed for immigrant
voters. The significance of the immigrant vote came to Bonaparte's attention as result of
inquiries about the prospects of the Amendment in Western Maryland, where many
immigrants worked in coal mines. In June 1905, before public attention had focused on
the disfranchisement campaign, Republican leaders suggested to Bonaparte that there was
an opportunity to recruit independent Democrats to the anti-Amendment cause if they
could convince immigrant workers in Western Maryland that the Poe Amendment was
not only a "Negro problem," but instead a problem that affected the "foreign element."47
Upon further inquiry, Bonaparte learned that a German-American organization was
already distributing Anti-Poe Amendment pamphlets in Western Maryland. Bonaparte
and his advisers quickly perceived the potential importance of immigrants in all parts of
Maryland, especially the heavily populated wards of East Baltimore, and the anti-Poe
Amendment team was soon discussing the distribution of pamphlets to immigrants
46 Charles J. Bonaparte to George F. Bragg, Jr., February 29,1904, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 203, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
47 John E. Semmes to Charles J. Bonaparte, June 19,1905, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 72, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
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throughout the state.48
The general strategies outlined by these powerful American political leaders
suggested the best course for new immigrants in American politics: it was not only
unnecessary, but also counterproductive, to seek political alliances with African-
Americans. Gorman's example demonstrated that some important political leaders
succeeded by first defining African-Americans as an inherently disadvantaged underclass,
then separating themselves completely from African-Americans. On the other hand,
Bonaparte's example reinforced the definition o f African-Americans as outsiders, and
demonstrated that African-Americans could be a political liability for those who
cooperated with them. Despite the surface disagreements between Republicans and
Democrats, the campaign strategies made it clear that there were common underlying
assumptions about the place of African-Americans in American society and in American
politics. These assumptions provided a common ground for white Americans who
otherwise differed in their views.
Bonaparte and Gorman were important figures in the disfranchisementcampaign
of 190S. Each man articulated general strategies that influenced campaign workers
within the political hierarchy he led; each man spoke to large crowds at rallies throughout
the Poe Amendment campaign; and the general policies outlined by Gorman and
Bonaparte established a framework in which the citizens of Maryland participated in the
campaign. Neither Gorman nor Bonaparte, however, could control the ways in which
48 Day Allen Willey to Charles J. Bonaparte, July 11,1905, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 72, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
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individual political campaigners interacted with voters when the contest heated up in
October and November. Above all, neither Gorman nor Bonaparte communicated
effectively with the ordinary citizens of Baltimore, such as the African-Americans in
West Baltimore and Italian immigrants in East Baltimore. For purposes of understanding
the disfranchisement campaign's influence on relations between the ordinary African-
American and Italian-immigrant residents of Baltimore, the limitations of these men were
as noteworthy as their strengths.
In Bonaparte's case, despite his power and prestige at the national level, he was
not considered a regular among local Republicans. Bonaparte's primary interests were
national reform issues, such as those championed by the National Civil Service Reform
League, of which he was a founder. His position of leadership in the Maryland
Republican party was based on his association with President Roosevelt, along with his
appointment as Roosevelt's Secretary of the Navy in June 1905.49 Among Baltimore
politicians, Bonaparte's patrician, aloof demeanor won little favor, and party regulars
mocked him as the "Imperial Peacock of Park Avenue."50 He proved his ability as a
leader and organizer in the disfranchisement campaign, but he lacked the politician's
common touch. He held office by appointment, not election, and he rarely met personally
with either African-Americans or immigrants.
In Gorman's case, he simply did not have control of all the factions o f his party.
At the highest levels, men with independent bases of power, including Governor
49 Callcott, Negro in Maryland Politics. 123.
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Warfield, Senator Rayner, and Attorney General Bryan, publicly disagreed with Gorman
and the party regulars. Even more damaging to Gorman's communications with ordinary
voters in Baltimore, however, was the fact that control o f the Democratic party had
always been divided between Gorman's "state crowd” and Isaac Freeman's "city people."
Although he was not ideologically committed to an anti-immigrant position, Gorman's
political base was in rural Howard County, and he left the Democratic party's relations
with urban immigrants in the hands of Isaac Rasin, who, in the opinions of political
insiders, was more adept than Gorman in relating to the common people.51 As a result, it
was relatively easy for a large contingent of Baltimore's rank-and-file Democrats—
immigrant voters and their supporters—to rebel against Gorman's scheme when they
perceived it as a threat to immigrant voting rights.
Thus, despite the importance of the general strategies outlined by Bonaparte and
Gorman, local leaders—people much closer to the ordinary citizens of Baltimore-
mediated the political messages of the campaign. These local leaders linked the
generalizations of Bonaparte and Gorman to the specific details of political life in the
city. In doing so, these local leaders profoundly influenced relations between African-
Americans and the thousands of Italians who came to the city from the end of the
nineteenth century to the beginning of the First World War.
Throughout the Summer and Fall of 1905, the African-Americans of Baltimore
50 Lambert, Arthur Pue Gorman. 124.
51 "Sonny Mahon's Own Story: Autobiography of a Baltimore Boss,"Baltimore Sun. 8 October 1922, part 10,1.
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accepted Bonaparte's position as leader of the anti-Poe Amendment forces,12 but their
trust in Bonaparte was never complete. As a matter o f political expediency, African-
American leaders recognized that Bonaparte's ability to command the resources o f the
Republican party represented the best hope of preserving the franchise. At the same time,
however, African-Americans recognized that, in Bonaparte's priorities, the interests of the
Republican party preceded those of African-Americans. Bonaparte, for example, quietly
induced President Roosevelt to drop Harry S. Cummings from consideration fr>r
appointment as the Collector of the Port of Baltimore, primarily because Bonaparte
feared Democrats could use the appointment to arouse racial anxieties during the 1905
campaign.53 Similarly, in September 1905 Bonaparte allowed the state convention of the
Republican party to adopt a platform plank that denounced the idea of social equality for
African-Americans.54 In each case, Bonaparte's decision may have made sense from his
perspective as leader of the Republican party, but, to African-Americans, it was clear that
they had been excluded from the decision-making process in a matter calling for a careful
assessment of the delicate balance between political expediency and the long-term
interests of the African-American community.
52 George F. Bragg, Jr., to Charles J. Bonaparte, June 1,1905, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 69, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
53 Charles J. Bonaparte to President Theodore Roosevelt, March 14,1905, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 161, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
54 George F. Bragg, Jr., to Charles J. Bomaparte, September 23,1905 and Charles J. Bonaparte to George F. Bragg, Jr., September 26,1905, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, containers 69 and 162, Library of Congress, Washington DC; "Maryland's Struggle," ColoredAmerican Magazine 9 (October 1905): 538; "Maryland's Grapple with the Demagogue," Voice of the Negro 2 (November 1905):748-50.
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During the 1905 campaign, African-American leaders in Baltimore took
Bonaparte's advice into account, but, because they were aware of Bonaparte's priorities,
they never blindly followed his lead. Bonaparte was inclined to communicate his
instructions in the campaign through a hierarchy in which African-Americans were not
highly placed. In his correspondence, communications with members of the Maryland
Suffrage League were rare, although he responded to a letter from Rev. George F. Bragg,
Jr., and he met at least once with Harry S. Cummings.55
In any case, African-American leaders did not passively await instructions from
Bonaparte. The founders of the Maryland Suffrage League were established professionals
who knew how to acquire financial and political resources. J.H. Murphy, a founding
member of the Suffrage League, was the publisher of the Baltimore Afro-American
Ledger.56 Murphy, in the opinion of Booker T. Washington, was a "good and strong
...Washingtonite,"57 and Washington assisted Murphy and the Suffrage League during the
disfranchisement campaign. Over the course of the campaign, Washington provided
financial assistance, furnished circulars,58 and rallied support for the anti-Poe
Amendment campaign among national organizations, such as the Constitutional League
55 Charles J. Bonaparte to Rev. George F. Bragg, Jr., February 29,1904, and Charles J. Bonaparte to Harry S. Cummings, June 23, 1905, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, containers 203 and 161, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
56 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 6 February 1904.
57 Emmett Jay Scott to Booker T. Washington, November 1,1903, in Harlan and Smock, eds., Booker T. Washington Papers. 7:323.
58 Booker T. Washington to Harry S. Cummings, September 26,1905, in Harlan and Smock, eds., Booker T. Washington Papers. 8:373.
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of the United States.39 Because they needed the assistance of Bonaparte and the
Republicans, but they also had a degree of independence, African-American leaders in
Baltimore cautiously avoided actions that might undermine Bonaparte and the
Republican party, but African-Americans followed a course that was not always
consistent with Bonaparte's counsel to conceal themselves from white voters.
The most prominent voice of the African-American community in the
disfranchisement campaign was Murphy's Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. In view of
Murphy's membership on the Promotion and Publicity Committee of the Maryland
Suffrage League,60 it is likely that the Afro-American Ledger's opinions were consistent
with those of the Suffrage League. Coverage of the disfranchisement campaign in the
Afro-American Ledger demonstrates that African-Americans initially attempted to
promote inter-racial themes. Early in the campaign, for example, an Afro-American
editorial declared that the "common people of all races and tongues ought to stand
shoulder to shoulder."61 In June 190S, it was reported in the Afro-American that the
Suffrage League had passed a resolution appealing to voters of all races to unite in an
effort to defeat the amendment.62
As the campaign intensified over the Summer, however, African-Americans grew
39 Booker T. Washington to Andrew B. Humphrey, September 29,1905, in Harlan and Smocks, eds., Booker T. Washington Papers. 8:381.
60 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 6 February 1904.
61 Ibid.
62 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 10 June 1905.
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increasingly frustrated by the unresponsiveness of whites to inter-racial appeals. In June
1905, the Afro-American included an editorial commenting on the good feeling in the
white community, while also noting the fact that African-Americans and whites rarely
had the opportunity to meet as brothers.63 By August, editorials in the Afro-American
included complaints about the insensitivity of immigrants to the plight of Afro-
Americans.54 At the same time, the Afro-American was issuing pleas to African-
Americans to try to make contact with whites in order to enlist support for the campaign
against the Poe Amendment.65 By October and November, however, the Afro-American
was filled with appeals to self-reliance and pleas to get all African-Americans out to the
polls.66 The final note sounded by the Afro-American was one of self-reliant pride: "We
have raised money from among our own hard working people, not going to the other race
for a penny. We have held our meetings; we have organized and aroused our own
people.... We approach the election with new experiences and more self-reliance."67
It is clear that the African-American community was feeling considerable
frustration in struggling with the balance between self-reliance and cooperation during
the Summer and Autumn of 1905. Despite the obvious basis for inter-racial cooperation
presented by the Poe Amendment's threat to the voting rights o f both African-Americans
63 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 17 June 1905.
64 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 12 August 1905.
65 Ibid.
66 For example, Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 27 October 1905.
67 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 4 November 1905.
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and European immigrants, there was no active cooperation between African-Americans
and immigrants. In the social and political environment o f Baltimore in 1905, it was, in
fact, unlikely that African-Americans and immigrants would actively cooperate. Some of
the barriers to such inter-racial cooperation are evident in the experiences of Italian
immigrants in the disfranchisement campaign of 1905.
Although Italian immigrants had contacts with both major parties, many
Republicans and reformers communicated with immigrants in a condescending style that
discouraged active participation. Charles Bonaparte was as cosmopolitan as anyone in
Baltimore. He corresponded in French with family and business associates in Europe,
and there is no indication o f overt ethnic prejudice against European immigrants in his
personal papers. As a philanthropist, his beneficiaries included projects for Italian
immigrants.68 Nonetheless, in his political positions, he was widely separated by class
interests from most o f the Italian immigrants of Baltimore. He opposed Baltimore's free
school system, for example, because he considered it to be in principle the same as "a
free-soup house."69 Similarly, he worked diligently for the prohibition of working-class
amusements, such as slot machines on Eastern Avenue in Little Italy.70 In the campaign
of 1905, Bonaparte had almost no direct contact with Baltimore's Italian voters, most of
68 Louis O'Donovan to Charles J. Bonaparte, (undated, included in general correspondence for 1904), Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
69 Lambert, Arthur Pue Gorman. 124.
70 Memorandum from G. Warner to Hon. Yates Pennington regarding slot machine investigation, August 17,1903, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 208, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
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whom were economically and socially remote from his world.
Other patrician reformers, less cosmopolitan than Bonaparte, were even less likely
to communicate effectively with Italian immigrants. To many reformers, Italian
immigrants were not merely economically and socially distant fellow citizens, but
undesirable, unwanted strangers. In speeches delivered at such organizations as the
Women's Mission Society, reformers worried out loud about their responsibilities to
America's "hordes" of Italians, who were people of the "lowest order of intelligence."71
To such reformers, the only hope was that Italian immigrants might note the "great ability
of Americans" and "learn from American teachers."72
The condescending attitudes of reformers were reinforced by a major Baltimore
Republican newspaper, the American. The American's reporters found it difficult to
imagine the Italian strangers as active participants in the political process. In the
American's accounts, Italian immigrants frequently appeared as passive children awaiting
instructions from political leaders who told them "their duty."73 Thesechildlike
immigrants, according to the American, were "anxious to hear expositions of the
amendment by men bom and brought up in this country and, therefore, qualified to
dissect it as no man of foreign extraction might be expected to do."74
71 Baltimore American. 2 November 1905.
72 Ibid.
73 Baltimore American. 6 November 1905.
74 Baltimore American. 27 October 1905.
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Confronted with the attitudes of Republicans and reformers, Italian immigrants
were more likely to come under the influence of Democrats, but the Democratic party
was in disarray. Over the course of the campaign, Senator Gorman's political
organization splintered in Baltimore primarily as a result of Gorman's failure to solve the
problem o f the effects of the Poe Amendment on immigrant voters.”
The most dramatic example of the Amendment's divisive influence within the
ranks of the Democratic party came when Democratic United States Senator Isidor
Rayner broke with his party at the height of the disfranchisement campaign. In the
Summer of 1905, Senator Rayner came under heavy pressure from Jewish leaders in
Baltimore to withdraw his support of the Poe Amendment. Despite this pressure,
Democratic leaders hoped that Rayner’s support could be maintained by emphasizing the
importance of the Poe Amendment to white racial solidarity.76 In mid-October, however,
Senator Rayner split with his party, arguing that the Poe Amendment would adversely
affect the rights o f more than 30,000 immigrants and their descendants.77 Senator
Gorman and his followers bitterly attacked Senator Rayner for his alleged duplicity in the
75 Baltimore Deutsche Correspondent 7 October 1905; Crooks, Politics and Progress. 63-64. There were nearly 30,000 naturalized male citizens of voting age in Maryland at the turn of the century. These naturalized citizens represented only 9 percent of the vote, but the Poe Amendment also raised anxieties among the descendants of naturalized citizens, many o f whom were also left out of the grandfather clause. Probably as many as 15 percent o f Maryland's voters were immigrants or immigrants' descendants who would be affected by the Poe Amendment. Callcott, Negro in Maryland Politics. 116.
76 Murray Vandiver to Senator Arthur P. Gorman, August 30,1905, Athur P. Gorman Papers, MS 706, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
77 Baltimore Sun. 18 October 1905.
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matter,78 and Senator Gorman attempted to recover some ground for the Democrats by
challenging Rayner to public debate in Baltimore.79 But the damage caused by Senator
Rayner's defection just three weeks before the elections was irreparable.
For the immigrants of East Baltimore, Senator Rayner’s example gave the
Democratic party credibility, but the primary source of information about the
disfranchisement campaign for immigrants was not political conflict between United
States Senators. Within the communities of East Baltimore, immigrants responded to the
Poe Amendment on their own terms. Baltimore's influential German-American
community took the lead in urging the city's immigrant communities to rally against the
Poe Amendment.80 Within a week after the appeal was issued by the German-American
community, Baltimore's immigrants formed the Maryland Foreign-Born Citizens League,
a coalition with representatives from nine nationalities, including Italians.81
Alert ward politicians responded to the aroused immigrants of East Baltimore by
restating anti-Poe Amendment arguments in terms consistent with the traditional values
of Maryland Democrats. The message of the Democratic party was carried to Little Italy
by men like third ward leader William Garland—men who lived in East Baltimore and
who were skilled in ethnic politics. Garland, who succeeded as a ward leader in the city's
78 BaltimoreWorld. 24 October 1905, clipping in Arthur P. Gorman Papers, MS 706, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
79 Senator Isidor Rayner to Senator Arthur P. Gorman, October 23,1905, Arthur P. Gorman Papers, MS 706, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
80 Baltimore Deutsche Correspondent 7 October 1905.
81 Baltimore American. 15 October 1905; Baltimore Sun. 15 October 1905.
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most heavily immigrant district, knew how to win the trust o f the Italian working people
of Baltimore. He spoke plainly, defended his immigrant constituents, and delivered city
jobs. The Baltimore American and the reformers at the Women's Mission Society might
see Italian immigrants as strangers, but Garland saw them as potential teammates on
"King Bill's" Third Ward Democratic Organization baseball team, which reflected the
ward's ethnic diversity.82
Garland's opportunity to demonstrate his skill in ethnic politics came in early
October 1905, when Senator Gorman ordered Democratic executives and candidates to
go on record in support of the Poe Amendement. Acting in his capacity as Third Ward
executive, Garland issued a defiant statement: "The people in my ward are opposed to the
amendment and I am opposed to it."83 When Gorman and the Democrats attempted to
discipline Garland, they succeeded only in increasing his visibility and effectiveness.84
In the last few weeks of the campaign, Garland became a popular speaker at
immigrant anti-Amendment rallies.85 During the critical weeks preceding the election, he
was the most effective campaigner in Little Italy, and on election eve he addressed a rally
of Italians at Thalia Hall in the heart of Little Italy on Pratt Street near Exeter. He
addressed Italian immigrants as "friends and fellow citizens" and he reminded them of his
82 Baltimore Sun. 30 April 1910. Among Garland's players were young men named Lanatello, Potocki, Reilly, Pfarr, Weber, and Carter.
83 Baltimore Sun. 5 October 1905.
84 BaltimoreDeutsche Correspondent 8 October 1905 and 19 October 1905; Baltimore Sun. 18 October 1905 and 20 October 1905.
85 Baltimore Deutsche Corresnoondent 27 October 1905.
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history of working with Italian immigrants.86 Above all, he emphasized that his
connection with Italian immigrants was personal, and that his loyalty to his immigrant
constituents was even more important to him than his loyalty to Democratic candidates.87
Participation by Italian immigrants in political organizations led by men like
William Garland meant that cooperation with African-Americans was out of the question.
Democrats openly spoke o f their party as the "white man's party," and even when he
broke with the Gorman's regular Democrats, Garland was careful to protect his status as a
"white man's" ward leader. In the initial announcement of his break with Gorman and the
regular Democrats, Garland defined himself in raw, racist terms: "There isn't any man in
the city who hates the 'nigger' more than I do, but I have not been treated right by the
party."88 Furthermore, Garland's racist remarks were not incidental or inadvertent. He
made it a point to begin his speeches to immigrants with a reiteration of the theme,
usually beginning with a remark very similar to his initial statement, such as "There's no
man in the state that hates the darky more than I do, and if I thought this amendment was
fair and square to put the darky out, I'd vote for it."89 Garland also incited fears of the
alliance of Republicans and African-Americans, suggesting that a Republican registrar
might well allow "darkies" to vote, while turning away immigrants.90
86 Baltimore American. 6 November 1905.
"Ibid.
88 Baltimore Sun. 5 October 1905.
89 Baltimore American. 27 October 1905.
90 Ibid.
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Maryland voters overwhelmingly rejected the Poe Amendment in November
1905. In Baltimore, the Amendment was rejected by a two to one margin.91 No group of
white voters in Baltimore voted more heavily against the Amendmentthan the Italian
immigrants of Ward Three: In the 3rd precinct—the precinct most representative o f Little
Italy—the vote went against the Amendment by a total o f 82 to 33.92
Despite the strength of anti-Amendment sentiment among immigrants, and
Italians in particular, the hopes for inter-racial cooperation expressed by the editors of the
Afro-American Ledger in early 1905 were never realized. The common interests of
African-Americans and Italian immigrants in the defeat of the Poe Amendment did not
provide a sufficient basis for active cooperation, either through independent
organizations, such as the Suffrage League and the Maryland Foreign-Born Citizens
League, or through the major party organizations.
The failure of Italian immigrants to cooperate actively with African-Americans in
the campaign of 1905 was the result of the network relationships within which African-
Americans and Italian immigrants encountered each other. Enmeshed in a network of
racially and ethnically defined political, social, and cultural institutions, African-
Americans and Italian immigrants did not simply assess their own political interests and
act accordingly. Instead, they participated in the political process through organizations
shaped by the city's history of racial division. African-Americans were completely
excluded from Democratic party functions, while their relations with Republicans were
91 Brugger, Maryland. 422-24.
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the product of a long history of racial politics in which black and white Republicans
almost necessarily developed separate visions about the proper balance between inter
racial cooperation and the need to compromise under the pressures of racist attacks.
Italian immigrants had contacts with both parties, but Democrats, under the guidance of
experienced ward politicians like Isaac Rasin and Will Garland, were more adept at
communicating with recent immigrants; and the Democratic party, without reservation,
proclaimed itself the white man's party.
In living through the crisis in race relations brought about by the 1905
disfranchisement campaign, Italian immigrants learned about their new city, and African-
Americans learned about the new immigrants who were arriving in great numbers from
the southernmost parts of Europe. Direct contacts between Italian immigrants and
African-Americans were rare, and, for both African-Americans and Italian immigrants,
the learning process occurred through inferences drawn without careful analysis, rather
than through sharply defined experiences.
For those Italians who reached 1905 without clear ideas about the social
implications of race in Baltimore, however, the general strategies adopted by the major
political parties provided clues about the place of African-Americans in Maryland society
and politics. Republican efforts to de-emphasize race made it clear that they were
embarrassed about their alliance with African-Americans. Democrats excluded African-
Americans and derided Republicans for practicing inter-racial politics, thereby
92 BaltimoreDeutsche Correspondent. 9 November 1905.
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reinforcing the idea that cooperation with African-Americans would be a disastrous
mistake for immigrants, who were themselves struggling to shed the status of strangers in
their new land.
Perhaps the most important sources o f information for Italian immigrants were
ward politicians, such as Will Garland, who communicated effectively with Italians and
other new immigrants. The ward leaders taught the newcomers that, in the society and
culture of ordinary American working people, African-Americans were not only to be
avoided, but also despised. If Italian immigrants missed the significance of the
underlying assumptions of men like Gorman and Bonaparte, men like Garland made the
message explicit. Italians learned that the best course was not to attempt to find strength
through unity with African-Americans, but to shun African-Americans and make it clear
to other Americans that Italians were different from African-Americans. By the time the
disfranchisement campaign of 1905 ended, it was very clear to Italians that the campaign
against African-Americans was not an isolated event. Instead, as demonstrated by the
strategies and rhetoric of the disfranchisement campaign, African-Americans were
relegated to a separate and unequal status on a permanent basis.93 For Italians who
wanted to protect their interests in America, the lesson was unmistakable. The way for
Italian immigrants to become real Americans was to define themselves as white
93 Several historians have recently examined the development of a “white” identity among working-class Americans in the nineteenth century. Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White: David R. Roedicer. The Wages o f Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (London: Verso, 1991); Alexander Saxton, The Rise and Fall of the White Republic: Class Politics and Mass Culture in Nineteenth-Centurv America (London: Verso, 1990).
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Europeans and to make sure other Americans remained aware that Italians were separate
from African-Americans.
For African-Americans, the events of 1905 conveyed the lesson that Italian
immigrants were strangers among Americans, but nonetheless white strangers who, in a
racial crisis, could gain more acceptance in their new land in a few years than African-
Americans had gained through bitter centuries of struggle and undercompensated toil.
Furthermore, the campaign demonstrated to African-Americans that appeals for inter
racial cooperation were futile, even when directed to Italian immigrants, who were among
the very newest and most vulnerable immigrants. The messages o f Gorman, Bonaparte
and other American leaders, restated in explicit terms by men like Garland, had reached
the Italian immigrants.
The lessons of the 1905 disfranchisement campaign helped to define relations
between African-Americans and Italian immigrants as the Italian-immigrant community
grew rapidly over the next few years. Because they were among the most recent arrival
to the city, however, Italian immigrants played only a small part in the 1905 campaign.
When the disfranchisement issue resurfaced in 1909, the Italian community was ready to
play a greater role in the struggle, and the nature of that role was shaped in part by the
lessons of 1905.
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1909: THE SECOND DISFRANCHISEMENT CAMPAIGN
At the height of Maryland's first disfranchisement campaign in the Autumn of
1905, many residents of Baltimore probably did not know there was an Italian
community in their city. On Columbus Day in 1909, however, Little Italy's growing
importance in the life of the city was obvious to nearly everyone in Baltimore. In
response to a request from the Italian societies of Baltimore, Governor Austin Crothers
had issued a proclamation calling for a holiday to celebrate the Italian navigator's
accomplishments; and on October 12,1909, four thousand people joined the celebration
by marching from Little Italy to the central business district, then to the Columbus
Monument in Druid Hill Park in northwest Baltimore. All along the parade route, green
and red Italian banners mingled with flags of red, white, and blue, and, if there was any
doubt as to whether the Italian community of Baltimore warranted official recognition,
Governor Crothers dispelled it by leading the parade with Baltimore Mayor John Mahool
at his side.1
The Columbus Day parade of 1909 demonstrated that the Italians of Baltimore
1 Baltimore American. 10 October 1909 and 13 October 1909.
184
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had grown in numbers and self-confidence, as well as in the esteem of the city's other
ethnic communities. Close behind Governor Crothers and Mayor Mahool, in the first of
three divisions o f the parade, the United Daughters o f Italy waved to the crowds from
their carriages, and they were followed by Baltimore's leading Italian societies.2 The
officers of the Columbus Day Association, President Joseph Di Giorgio, Vice President
Antonio Dimarco, Secretary P.F. Pepitone, and Treasurer Dr. Augustine Palmisano
undoubtedly took great pride in the fact that leaders of several of Baltimore's other ethnic
communities joined the Governor and Mayor in acknowledging that Little Italy had
earned a place of respect in the city.3
When the marchers assembled around the Columbus Monument in Druid Hill
Park, Joseph Di Giorgio introduced the Governor, who praised the Italian immigrants of
Baltimore for helping America in the work of progress.4 At the end of the day, three
hundred of Baltimore's leading citizens gathered at a banquet at which P. F. Pepitone
served as toastmaster, and Governor Crothers, Mayor Mahool, Judge Heusler, State's
Attorney A.S.J. Owens, Professor Joseph Guigliuzza, Joseph Di Giorgio, and Vincent
Dimarco delivered speeches.3 The next day, a Baltimore daily newspaper acknowledged
Baltimore's Italians as "one of the most estimable elements of the population" and praised
2 Baltimore American. 13 October 1909.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
s Baltimore American. 10 October 1909.
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the Italians as "Industrious, happy, thrifty, [and] progressive."6
The rapid growth of Baltimore's Italian immigrant community from 1905 to 1909
was a local manifestation of a worldwide phenomenon. For Italians, the period from
1898 to 1914 constituted the years of massive emigration to "La Merica,"7 and more
Italian immigrants arrived in the United States in the first ten years of the twentieth
century than in any other decade.8 In the two peak years of the decade, 1906 and 1907,
nearly 560,000 Italian immigrants arrived in the United States~a figure nearly matching
the total for the decade from 1890 to 1899.9 Baltimore received enough of these world
travelers in the years from 1900 to 1910 to increase the city's Italian-born population
from 2,042 to 5,043.10
During this period, the identity of Little Italy as a community o f southern Italians,
with strong representation from Abruzzi, Molise, and Sicily, began to emerge, and
members of the original Italian community noticed the sound of previously unfamiliar
6 Baltimore American. 13 October 1909.
7 Martin Clark, Modem Italy 1871-1982 (New York: Longman Inc., 1984), 165.
8 Alan M. Kraut, The Huddled Masses: The Immigrant in American Society. 1880- 1921 (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, Inc. 1982), table, pp. 20-21.
9 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States. 1911 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1912), 98-99; Kraut, Huddled Masses. 20.
10 U.S. Bureau o f the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States Taken in 1910: Abstract of the Census (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1913), 63,95, and 210.
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southern Italian dialects in the streets.11 Because many second- and third-generation
Italian-Americans maintained their ties with Little Italy, the three thousand Italian-born
residents added to the city's population from 1900 to 1910 represented only part of the
increase in the Italian community. Thus, the city-wide Columbus Day celebration of
1909, which was in marked contrast to the quiet Columbus Day banquet a group of
Italians had held four years earlier, demonstrated a dramatic increase in Baltimore's
Italian population over the decade, and especially in the years from 1905 to 1909.12
This was also a period in which the Italian community in Baltimore grew in social
complexity. As Little Italy grew, more members of the community acquired wealth,
power, and positions of leadership. These changes corresponded to a heightened capacity
to participate in and influence affairs on a city-wide level.
For immigrants, the most accessible paths to social and economic power were
through business enterprises. The most important industry in which Italian immigrants
found business opportunities in Baltimore was trading in fruits and vegetables. Many
Italian immigrants came from rural areas and arrived in America with skills and
knowledge that were useful in the produce industries clustered around Baltimore's harbor.
Italians who had emigrated from rural areas, for example, often had practical knowledge
11 Interview with J.B., August 10,1979, number 210, Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project; interview with J.P., September 12,1979, number 162, Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project (BNHP), Oral History Collection, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
12 Baltimore Sun. 12 October 1905.
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about the storage and handling of perishable fruits and vegetables.13 Italian immigrants
were able to start their own businesses by retailing produce on a small scale, and the
prevalence of Italians in such businesses in Baltimore was obvious at the turn o f the
century in city directories.14
By 1905, several Italian-born businessmen had established substantial retail
enterprises. In that year, for example, following a dispute with importers, a group of fruit
vendors formed the Italian Fruit Dealers' Association, a corporation established for the
purpose of assuring that importers treated retailers fairly. A single retailer, Frank Serio,
provided most of the $20,000 raised to start the new organization.ts
In the same period, a few Italian immigrants expanded their businesses beyond the
scale of local retail operations, and, by 1909, a handful of Italian immigrants were major
figures in international wholesale produce importing firms. Michele Vicari came to
Baltimore from Milazzo, Sicily, in 1893, and, by the time he died in 1906, he presided
over a large wholesale fruit importing business and had been elected director of the
Merchants' Fruit Exchange of Baltimore.16
13 Robert Deupree, The Wholesale Marketing of Fruits and Vegetables in Baltimore (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1939), 12-13; Interviews with M.G., August 24,1979, V.L., August 23,1979, and J.P, July 23, 1979, numbers 140,138, and 096 BNHP.
14 Baltimore City Directory for 1899 (Baltimore: R.L. Polk & Co., 1899), 1772.
ts Baltimore American. 7 July 1905; New York II Proeresso Italo-American. 9 July 1905.
16 Baltimore Catholic Mirror. 14 July 1906.
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The Di Giorgio and Lanasa families were even more prominent than Vicari. In
the first decade o f the twentieth century they competed for predominance in the wholesale
fruit importing business.17 Antonio Lanasa had been the leading fruit importer in
Baltimore as early as the late 1890s.18 Joseph Di Giorgio did not arrive in the United
States until the late 1890s, but, by 1907, Di Giorgio and his family had matched Lanasa's
businesses by operating through several inter-related companies, including the Atlantic
Fruit Company and the Baltimore Fruit Exchange.19 The Di Giorgio family eventually
surpassed Lanasa, and, in the early twentieth century, presided over one of the most
important enterprises on Baltimore's waterfront.20
By 1909 several members of Baltimore's Italian community had also established
themselves in professions. Gabriel Poggi, for example, went to work at age seventeen in
the Kelly Pharmacy, where he cleaned the store and took messages. Alert and intelligent,
he eventually learned to compound prescriptions, and when he bought out Kelly in 1913,
17 Humbert S. Nelli, The Business of Crime: Italians and Syndicate Crime in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 83-84.
18 Ibid.
19 Baltimore City Directory for 1909 (Baltimore; R.L. Polk & Co., 1909), 248; Distinguished Men of Baltimore (Baltimore: Baltimore American, 1914), 123; Nelli, Business o f Crime. 83.
20 In December 1907, Joseph Di Giorgio's house was firebombed. Lanasa was convicted o f the crime in 1908, and although an appeals court set aside the conviction, Lanasa's enterprises declined as a result of the episode. The Di Giorgio family continued to preside over one of Baltimore harbor's major enterprises. Baltimore Sun. 21 March 1909; Baltimore Citv Directory for 1909.617; Distinguished Men of Baltimore. 123.
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he renamed the business Kelly-Poggi Pharmacy, the name by which it is still known.21
Augustine Palmisano, the immigrant boy who had arrived in the city in the 1880s,
became a barber, then a physician. He served his community as Ward Three Health
Warden, assuring that children in East Baltimore received the free vaccinations provided
for them by the city government.22 Another Italian physician, John J. Valentini, had been
bom in America and had been educated in the city's public schools and the College of
Pharmacy of Baltimore University. Valentini combined medicine with politics by
serving as the Physician for the Baltimore Fire Department and the Executive for the
Democratic party in Ward Three.23 Even more successful in politics was Augustine
Palmisano's younger brother, Vincent, who started a real estate business before he studied
law and was admitted to the Maryland Bar in 1909. Four years later, he was elected to
the House of Delegates, becoming the first Italian to hold elective office in Maryland.24
Later Palmisano became Baltimore's first Italian-American representative in the United
States Congress.25
On Columbus Day in 1909 politicians in Baltimore and Annapolis were especially
21 Interview with J.P, September 12,1979, number 096, BNHP.
22 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 4 September 1909; "Augustine Palmisano," Dielman-Hayward Files, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore
23 Distinguished men of Baltimore. 84.
24 Baltimore Evening Sun. 6 September 1913 and 3 November 1913; Baltimore American, 6 November 1913.
25 "Vincent L. Palmisano," Vertical Files, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore; Distinguished men of Baltimore. 84.
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alert to all these indications of social and political maturation in Little Italy because in
October 1909 the citizens of Maryland were engaged in a political struggle over an
amendment o f the state constitution, just as they had been in October 1905. The
amendment would, if ratified, disfranchise African-Americans and profoundly alter the
balance o f power in state politics. Although Senator Arthur Gorman had died in 1906,
Austin Crothers had succeeded Edwin Warfield as governor in 1907, and as the state's
new Democratic governor, Crothers took up Senator Gorman's cause and resumed the
effort to eliminate tens of thousands of African-American Republicans from the voter
rolls. On Columbus Day 1909, just three weeks before the voters of Maryland would be
asked to pass judgment on the Democrats' disfranchisement scheme, a parade beginning
in Little Italy and passing through the heart of Baltimore—with four thousand marchers
and tens of thousands of spectators-provided an ideal setting in which Governor Crothers
could demonstrate his respect for Baltimore's Italian community.
Despite the decisive defeat of the Poe Amendment in 1905, Maryland Democrats
had some reasons to hope for success in 1909. Many leading citizens of Maryland who
had opposed the Poe Amendment in 1905 nonetheless believed that African-Americans
were unqualified to vote. As a result, there was potential for broader support for a
disfranchisement scheme, and, when Austin L. Crothers was elected governor in 1907, he
set out to reopen the disfranchisement campaign on a basis that would appeal to foreign-
born citizens, independent voters, and reluctant Democrats. Immediately after he was
elected, Crothers called a party conference for the purpose of drafting a new
disfranchisement amendment that would eliminate the African-American vote without
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threatening foreign-born or other white voters.26
The initial disfranchisement conference under Crothers' leadership demonstrated
the Governor's understanding of the weaknesses that had undermined the Poe
Amendment. Attorney General Isaac Lobe Straus, a descendant of Jewish immigrants,
was assigned the task of drafting a new constitutional amendment. Former Governor
Warfield and former Attorney General Bryan, Democrats who had withheld support from
the Poe Amendment, attended the initial conference, as did Leigh Bonsai and William
Reynolds, both of whom were members of the Reform League, one of the key political
elements in the coalition against the Poe amendment.27 Thus, from the earliest planning
stages of the 1909 disfranchisement campaign Governor Crothers attempted to calm the
anxieties of immigrants, attract independents, and unite Democrats.
Following Governor Crothers' lead, Isaac Straus drafted a proposed amendment
with the concerns o f immigrants and independent voters in mind. In order to reassure
immigrants, the proposed amendment, popularly known as the Straus Amendment,
included a grandfather clause that covered not only those who had been eligible to vote in
1869, but also all immigrants naturalized from 1869 to the date of ratification of the
amendment. Because many independents and reform Democrats had been offended by
the Poe Amendment's potential to introduce fraud into voter registration tests, Straus
modified the tests applied to those not included in the grandfather clause: everyone not
26 James B. Crooks, Politics and Progress: The Rise of Urban Progressivism in Baltimore(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968), 63-64.
27 Ibid.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 193
covered by the expanded grandfather clause would be required to qualify to vote by
passing a written test or meeting a property qualification.28
Although there were differences between the Poe Amendment and the Straus
Amendment, the Democrats' underlying strategy was the same in 1909 as it had been in
1905. Under Gorman's leadership, disfranchisement had been presented to the voters as a
racial issue, and the Democrats' strategy had been intended to unite whites and isolate
African-Americans. The strategy had failed in 1905 because the Poe Amendment
alienated significant blocks of white voters. By drafting the Straus Amendment with the
weaknesses o f the Poe Amendment in mind, the Democrats' hoped that whites would
unite in the 1909 disfranchisement campaign, leaving African-Americans hopelessly
isolated.
For Italian immigrants, the Straus Amendment was only marginally less
threatening than the Poe Amendment. Some residents of Little Italy had been naturalized
between 1869 and the 1909, and a few more had begun the naturalization process by the
end of the first decade of the century. Most Italian-born men in Little Italy in 1909,
however, were recent immigrants, who were classified simply as “aliens.”29 Thus, a few
residents of Little Italy might come within the grandfather clause of the new amendment,
but even those few probably had dozens of friends, neighbors, and relatives who, if they
28 Crooks, Politics and Progress. 63-64; BaltimoreAfro-American Ledger. 1 February 1908; Baltimore Sun. 29 April 1909.
29 U.S. Manuscript Census 1910, Maryland, microfilm roll 553, Enumeration Districts 27 and 28.
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chose to become citizens and voters, would face the same qualifying tests as African-
Americans. Furthermore, the Italian immigrants who did not come within the grandfather
clause could become naturalized and pass the voter qualifying test at some later date, yet
they would not be able to free their American-born descendants from the burden of the
qualifying test
For Republicans and other opponents of the Democratic party, of course,
disfranchisement raised the possibility of permanent Democratic majorities across the
state. Therefore, the new disfranchisement plan generated opposition even without regard
to questions of racial or ethnic fairness. As a result, anti-Amendment forces rallied
quickly, and the task of leading the opponents of disfranchisement again fell to Charles J.
Bonaparte.30 After serving in the Roosevelt administration as Secretary of the Navy and
Attorney General, Bonaparte had strengthened his ties to national leaders. With his ties
to the national Republican party, Bonaparte was able to enlist the aid of major political
figures. He obtained a statement of opposition to the Straus Amendment from President
Taft, and although he could not bring the President to Maryland to campaign against the
Straus Amendment, Bonaparte invited Vice President James Sherman.31
In laying out a general strategy for the anti-Straus Amendment campaign,
Bonaparte relied heavily on the experiences of 1905. Once again, the overall plan was to
emphasize the importance of the disfranchisement issue to white European immigrants,
30 Charles J. Bonaparte to Dr. Bernard C. Steiner, October 18,1909, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 164, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
31 Charles J. Bonaparte to Vice President Sherman, October 8,1909, Charles J.
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while de-emphasizing the tie between African-Americans and the Republican party.32
From the very beginning of the 1909 campaign, Republicans assumed the
disfranchisement issue would be decided by the foreign-born vote.33
Bonaparte identified the heavily immigrant areas of Western Maryland and
Baltimore City as the primary building blocks o f an anti-amendment majority,34 but he
made no plans to get out the vote in African-American population centers. In Baltimore,
the anti-amendment headquarters was set up at 220 East Baltimore Street, where it was
surrounded by the city's immigrant neighborhoods. At this location, Bonaparte planned
to have speakers available every day for noontime rallies.35 Bonaparte did not identify
the heavily African-American counties of southern Maryland as a major focus of the
campaign, and when he outlined plans to deliver campaign literature in Baltimore on a
door-to-door basis, he targeted German, Italian, Yiddish, and Bohemian neighborhoods,
while noting that no literature was needed for "the sections occupied principally by
negroes."36
Bonaparte Papers, container 164, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
32 "Appeal to Citizens of Foreign Descent," undated, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 203, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. 33 Baltimore Sim. 25 April 1909.
34 Charles J. Bonaparte to William F. Stone, September 28,1909, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 164, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
35 Charles J. Bonaparte to Morris Howard, October 8,1909, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 164, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
36 Charles J. Bonaparte to David H. Carroll, October 15,1909, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 164, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 196
Bonaparte was well aware that some of his supporters in the Reform League were
sensitive about appeals to African-American voters in southern Maryland. John Semmes
of the Reform League, for example, believed preservation of the African-American vote
in Baltimore was essential to good government, but he also believed the African-
American vote in southern Maryland was a "menace" to white people because there were
counties in that part o f the state in which nearly half the residents were African-
Americans.37 Despite the fact that the Baltimore Suffrage League was active from the
earliest days of the 1909 campaign,38 Bonaparte maintained no regular correspondence
with African-American leaders in 1908 and 1909.
As in 1905, however, African-Americans leaders in Baltimore did not need
Bonaparte's support or encouragement to rally opposition to the disfranchisement scheme.
The editors of the BaltimoreAfro-American and the officers of the Baltimore Suffrage
League recognized that Crothers' attempts to reach out to immigrants and independents
threatened to leave African-Americans politically isolated.39 In early 1908, the editors of
the Afro-American alerted Baltimore's African-American community, describing the new
crisis in urgent terms: "Let us not wait for friend or foe. Many Republicans are as much
disposed towards disfranchisement as are Democrats, and so we have enemies in our own
camp as well as outside."40 Before most residents of Baltimore were aware a new
37 Crooks, Politics and Progress. 65.
38 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 4 January 1908.
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid.
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disfranchisement campaign was underway, the Baltimore Suffrage League, under the
leadership of W. M. Alexander, began to reorganize for the twin purposes of re-educating
the community and raising money to carry on a new anti-amendment campaign.41
Although appeals to inter-racial cooperation were not abandoned completely in
the 1909 campaign, African-Americans placed greater emphasis on self-reliance from the
outset. Furthermore, the experiences of the 1905 campaign, the Democrats' attempts to
enlist immigrant support, and the ambivalence o f white anti-Straus Amendment leaders
such as John Semmes, left African-American leaders more distrustful of immigrants and
other whites than they had been at the beginning o f the 1905 campaign.42
As they felt increasingly isolated, African-Americans became more frank in their
expressions of frustration over the lost opportunity to create an inter-racial alliance that
would render disfranchisement impracticable. Editors at the Afro-American noted that
African-Americans and Jews had worked together in Baltimore and that Jews, like
African-Americans, had suffered under oppressive majorities; but African-American
anger at Isaac Straus, author of the new amendment, was expressed in bitter terms, which
indicated there was no expectation of cooperation between African-Americans and
immigrants.43 Straus, for example, was labeled "The Prosecuting Attorney of the Colored
Race in Maryland," and, in attacking Straus, the editors of the Afro-American seemed
heedless of whether their tone would alienate all o f the city's many Russian and German
41 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 18 January 1908.
42 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 4 January 1908 and 1 February 1908.
43 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 7 December 1907 and 11 September 1909.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Jews: "Of all the 'Jews' in Baltimore, Isaac Lobe Straus is entitled to the prize."44 And
African-Americans were equally blunt in their criticisms of other potential white allies.
The editors of the Afro-American, for example, frankly stated that "The white voters of
this state are intensely ignorant if they fail to see that the next step in the propaganda of
disfranchisement is to be directed against the white voters."45
The stridency in the appeals of African-Americans in 1909 was also in part the
result of a heightened sense of urgency, as there were indications that the Democrats'
strategy was having some success. Several community leaders who had opposed the Poe
Amendment supported the Straus Amendment.46 In 1905 five hundred Democrats had
joined a Democratic anti-amendment committee, but in 1909 only seventy-five business
and professional men joined a similar organization.47 Although some influential
independent Democrats, such as Leigh Bonsai of the Reform League, remained loyal to
the anti-disfranchisement cause,48 other Democrats of greater influence, including Senator
Isidor Rayner, switched sides and actively campaigned for passage of the Straus
Amendment.49 Despite the fact that the Democrats could not achieve complete unity,
44 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 7 December 1907.
45 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 11 September 1909.
46 Memorandum of Suggestions for the Executive Committee, undated, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 203, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
47 Crooks, Politics and Progress. 67.
48 John B. Hanna to Charles J. Bonaparte, August 3, 1909, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 80, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
49 Baltimore Deutsche Correspondent 15 October 1909 and 19 October 1909.
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they avoided the highly publicized defections that had plagued the Poe Amendment
campaign. William Garland, for example, served as president of the Ward Three
Democratic Club in 1909, but he quietly supported the Democratic candidates in his ward
without taking a stand on the Straus Amendment.10
Perhaps most alarming to African-Americans was a lack of solidarity in
opposition to the Straus Amendment among immigrants. The large and influential
German-American community, which had been solidly opposed to the Poe Amendment,
was divided in the Straus Amendment campaign.51 German-Americans formed the Liga
der Fremdgeboren der Ost-Seite—the Foreign-Born League of the East Side--which
supported the Straus Amendment on the grounds that not a single white voter would be
disfranchised.52 Although many speakers pointed out that the grandfather clause of Straus
Amendment would not protect immigrants who did not achieve naturalization by 1909,53
the anti-Straus Amendment arguments had limited force in the German community,
which, in contrast to the city's southern and eastern European communities, had seen its
peak periods of immigration in the nineteenth century.54 At the German Democratic
Club, speakers debated the merits of the Straus Amendment, convincing many that
foreign-bom citizens who were not protected by the grandfather clause would be allowed
50 Baltimore Deutsche Correspondent 20 October 1909.
51 Baltimore Sun. 25 April 1905.
52 Baltimore Deutsche Correspondent 19 October 1909.
53 Baltimore American 26 September 1909.
54 Baltimore Deutsche Correspondent 4 November 1909.
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to take written tests in their native languages.55 Baltimore's major German language
newspaper, which had been strongly opposed to the Poe Amendment, remained equivocal
in its position on the Straus Amendment, and by the middle of October the paper was
reporting that opposition to disfranchisement was much weaker in the German-American
community than it had been in 1905.56
With the outcome of the disfranchisement campaign more in doubt than it had
been in 1905, all factions devoted more attention to the rapidly growing Italian immigrant
community. As demonstrated by their participation in the Columbus Day celebrations,
Democratic party leaders Governor Crothers and Mayor Mahool used the party's
experience in urban ethnic politics to win support among Baltimore's Italian immigrants.
The Italian community, however, was equally important to the opponents of
disfranchisement, and even the elitist Charles Bonaparte was careful to take Italian
immigrants into account in planning the anti-Straus Amendment campaign of 1909.
Bonaparte did not accept the Italian Societies' invitation to participate in the Columbus
Day parade and banquet,57 and he had virtually no direct exchange of political ideas with
leaders of the Italian community throughout the 1909 campaign. Nonetheless,
Bonaparte's plans for the 1909 campaign, unlike those for the 1905 campaign, included
considerable attention to the problem of communicating with Italian-speaking residents
55 Baltimore Deutsche Correspondent 19 October 1909 and 3 November 1909.
56 Baltimore Deutsche Correspondent. 22 October 1909.
57 P.F. Pepitone to Charles J. Bonaparte, October 4,1909, and Charles J. Bonaparte to P.F. Pepitone, October 5,1909, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 80, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
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of Baltimore. The location of the East Baltimore office o f the anti-Amendment
Campaign Committee was strategically located at the juncture of the city's Italian and
Russian Jewish communities. From the Committee's offices at 220 East Baltimore street,
anti-amendment speakers delivered "rough and ready" talks free of "flights of oratory," as
they attempted to appeal to the working-class residents of the surrounding immigrant
communities.58 Campaign literature was prepared in Italian and delivered door-to-door in
Little Italy,59 and when prominent figures such as President Taft and Cardinal Gibbons
issued statements in opposition to the Straus Amendment, Bonaparte saw to it that the
statements were translated into Italian.60
Bonaparte's attempts to communicate with the Italian community led him to
express some of his views about nativism and racism. In detailed notes outlining the
content of speeches to foreign-born audiences, Bonaparte alluded to recent episodes of
nativism against Italians in the deep South. In Sumrall, Mississippi, for example, local
residents had campaigned to exclude Italian immigrant children from the public schools
in the Autumn o f 1907. When Frank Scaglione, described as "a crippled shoemaker and
leader of the Italian colony," had protested against the discrimination, a local mob had
responded by dragging Scaglione from his home, throwing ropes around his neck, and
58 Charles J. Bonaparte to Charles M. Howard, October 8,1909, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers,container 164, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
59 Charles J. Bonaparte to David H. Carroll, October 15,1909, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 164, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
60 Charles J. Bonaparte to F.D. Madeira, October 18,1909, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 164, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
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beating him.61 Noting the similarity between racist attacks on African-Americans and
the recent nativist attacks on Italian immigrants, Bonaparte suggested there was a parallel
between the Democratic sponsors of disfranchisement in Maryland and Democratic
governors in the deep South, who had done nothing to protect Italian victims of nativist
violence.62
Bonaparte's notes indicate that he was uncertain as to how much of the material
comparing African-Americans and Italians should be included in his speeches, but he did
not hesitate to emphasize that foreign-bom citizens would be placing themselves in great
peril if they allowed themselves to be put in the same category as African-Americans. In
addressing foreign-bom audiences, Bonaparte stated his opposition to disfranchisement
on the basis that, "The Straus Amendment classes with negroes every man of foreign
descent bom in the United States alter January 1st, 1848."63
These references to the treatment of African-Americans were especially resonant
for Italian immigrants, who had suffered more lynchings than other European
immigrants. By explaining his views of the relationship between nativism and racism in
this way, however, Bonaparte described the problem in terms that would preclude
cooperation between Italian immigrants and African-Americans. The underlying premise
in Bonaparte's speeches was not that Italians could find strength through solidarity with
61 "Italians in the South," Outlook 87 (Nov. 23, 1907), 556-57.
62 "Appeal to Citizens of Foreign Descent," 1909, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 203, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
63 Ibid.
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African-Americans, who had the same problems as Italian immigrants, but instead that
Italians had these problems because some Americans identified Italians as a people
similar to African-Americans. Bonaparte, in fact, conveyed the message that Italian
immigrants needed to avoid associations with African-Americans or, like Frank
Scaglione, they would be subjected to discrimination, beatings, and lynchings.
In addition to listening to speeches by political leaders such as Charles Bonaparte,
Italians were far more actively involved in the 1909 campaign than they had been in the
campaign of 1905. Throughout the campaign, members of Little Italy's emerging middle
class of businessmen and professionals spoke out through independent groups, as well as
through the Republican and Democratic parties. When the foreign-bom citizens o f the
city assembled in a rally in opposition to the Straus Amendment in September 1909,
hundreds of Italian immigrants joined the gathering. The Italian representation was
strong enough to warrant the formation of a separate Italian committee, headed by Frank
Culotta and John Monteurro. Under Culotta's leadership, the Italian Committee planned a
series of rallies in Little Italy.64 Culotta also appeared individually at anti-Straus
Amendment events, where he shared the podium with party leaders, including Charles
Bonaparte.65 By late October, Culotta was making regular appearances at which he
predicted the Italian community would oppose the Straus Amendment "in a body."66
64 Baltimore American. 23 September 1909.
65 Baltimore American. 27 October 1909.
66 Baltimore American. 26 October 1909.
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Individual Italians made their views known through letters to Baltimore
newspapers. In a long, carefully-reasoned letter o f November 1,1909, for example,
Joseph Lodato, an immigrant who was seeking naturalization, argued that the Straus
Amendment would inevitably make voting difficult for immigrants in his position.
Lodato noted that, because his naturalization would not be complete until after the
effective date of the Straus Amendment, he and his descendants would be faced with the
same options under the law as African-Americans. Furthermore, he reasoned, since
English was the primary language for most of Baltimore's African-Americans, most
African-Americans would find it easier to prepare for a written test in English than would
Italian-speaking immigrants. Lodato concluded that Italians who were supporting the
Straus Amendment were putting their interests as party men ahead of their duty to their
fellow countrymen.67
As noted in Joseph Lodato's letter, some of Baltimore's Italian immigrants
supported the Straus Amendment, and in several cases the pro-Amendment Italians were
active participants in the 1909 campaign. Democrats made a greater effort to enlist
Italian support than they had made in 1905, and prominent Italians were more visible at
pro-Amendment rallies than they were at anti-Amendment rallies. A few Italians who
were active participants in party organizations openly campaigned for the passage of the
Straus Amendment. At the Italian Democratic Club in East Baltimore, Alexander Cutino,
Dr. Vincent Portu, and Antonio Dimarco organized rallies at which, according to the pro-
67 Baltimore American. 1 November 1909.
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Amendment press, there was an enthusiastic response to speeches in favor of the Straus
Amendment.68
The pattern of Italian involvement on the pro-disfranchisement side of the
campaign suggests that there was a correlation between assimilation and pro
disfranchisement views. Although the evidence is far too sparse to establish such a
connection with any certainty, there are indications that Italian immigrants shared with
other foreign-bom citizens of Baltimore an idea that pro-Amendment views became more
prevalent among immigrants as they gained a greater understanding of American public
affairs.69 The German-language Deutsche Correspondent, for example, openly took pride
in the fact that Baltimore's German-Americans were not as strongly against the Straus
Amendment as were the city's other immigrant communities.70 In the opinion of the
editors of the Deutsche Correspondent the independence o f the German-American
community in this matter was a sign of the ability of German-Americans to understand
public affairs in an American city. Early in the campaign of 1909, editors at the Deutsche
Correspondent complained of the lack of independent thought among Italians and Poles,
who seemed to remain as strongly against disfranchisement in 1909 as they had been in
1905.
Although the editors of the Deutsche Correspondent never directly commented on
the level of assimilation among Baltimore's Italians and Poles, the clear implication was
68 Baltimore Sun. I November 1909.
69 Crooks, Politics and Progress. 63.
70 Baltimore Deutsche Correspondent 4 November 1909.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. that Italians and Poles were not well informed about American affairs and, as a result,
were easily misled.71 When Dr. Augustine Palmisano took a public stand in favor of
disfranchisement, the editors of the Deutsche Correspondent praised Dr. Palmisano for
his positive influence on Italian immigrants and attributed Palmisano's public stance to
his high standing in the city at large.72
Joseph Trombetta, who was identified as an employee of the Di Giorgio Fruit
Company, explained his view of the Straus Amendment in terms that suggested that he
also believed support of disfranchisement was an indicator of civic competence. When
Trombetta expressed support for the Amendment, he explained to his fellow Italian
citizens the importance of participating in the open discussion of public affairs.
Trombetta, reported that he had been apprehensive about the Amendment until he had
spoken to people with knowledge of such matters and learned that the Amendment would
not affect the foreign-bom citizen. Trombetta also reported what he had learned about the
"good" effects the Amendment would have: "The passage of the amendment will create
more interest in the affairs of the government by the foreign-bom citizens and it will
show them their superiority over the black man."73
The Straus Amendment was defeated in November 1909 by a statewide margin of
16,261 votes, while the margin against the Amendment in Baltimore was 11,772.
Although 54.2 percent of the statewide vote went against the Straus Amendment, the
71 BaltimoreDeutsche Correspondent 10 October 1909.
72 Baltimore Deutsche Correspondent 14 October 1909.
73 BaltimoreSun. 21 October 1909.
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opposition to disfranchisement had weakened since 1905, when the statewide margin had
been 34,058 and the margin in the city had been 20,790.74 A decline in opposition to
disfranchisement among immigrant voters accounted for much of the change, and Italian
immigrants were among those who shifted significantly toward the disfranchisement
position. In the 3rd precinct of Baltimore's Third Ward, which included the core of Little
Italy, the margin against disfranchisement declined from 82 to 33 votes in the election of
1905 to 66 to 27 votes in the election of 1909.
Table 2. Vote Against Disfranchisement in 1905 and 1909
1905 Against For Maryland ...... 104,286 ...... 70,220 Baltimore...... 46,845 ...... 26,309 Little Italy (3rd precinct)...... 82...... 33
1909 Against For Maryland ...... 106,069 ...... 89,808 Baltimore...... 34,573 ...... 25,797 Little Italy (3"1 precinct) ...... 66 ...... 27
Sources: Baltimore Deutsche Correspondent 9 November 1905 and 3 November 1909; Baltimore Sun. 9 November 1905 and 3 November 1909.
By 1909 it was clear that the possibility o f cooperation between African-
Americans and Italian immigrants had dissolved. A comparison of the disfranchisement
74 John M. Powell, "History of Baltimore 1870-1912," in vol. 1, Baltimore: Its History and Its People (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1912), 390; Betty Collier Thomas, "The Baltimore Black Community: 1865-1910" (Ph.D. diss., George Washington University, 1974), 394.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 208
campaigns of 1905 and 1909 shows that lessons Italian immigrants had learned in
observing the disfranchisement campaign in 1905 were given practical application in
1909. In 1905 Italian immigrants in Baltimore had learned that in a competitive political
environment characterized by racial conflict, immigrants were needed as political allies.
It was, however, not only African-Americans who needed them as allies, but also white
Republicans and white Democrats. At the same time, Italian immigrants learned that, in
the view of white Democrats, African-Americans were despised outsiders, and in the
view of white Republicans, an alliance with African-Americans could be a political
embarrassment.
What was communicated in political discourse was reinforced in the physical and
social realities o f the city. African-Americans lived apart from whites to an increasing
degree, and the housing to which African-Americans were relegated was the poorest
structures in the most unwholesome alleys. Employment was allocated on the basis of
race and ethnicity, with African-Africans last hired for the worst jobs. Even when the
community as a whole shared in the experience of a disaster, such as the fire of 1904,
relief was not delivered by the community as a whole based on individual need, but
instead through a system of racially and ethnically segregated charities, with charities
representing African-Americans getting the smallest share.
By 1909 Baltimore's Italian community had had ample opportunity to learn these
lessons, and through the events surrounding the Columbus Day parade of 1909, the white
citizens of Baltimore had invited Italian immigrants to join the white community.
Without reflection, most of the Italian immigrants accepted.
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The experiences of 1905 to 1909, in effect, had offered Baltimore's Italian
immigrants two alternative visions of their place in America. On the one hand, Italian
immigrants could imagine themselves as Frank Scaglione, the shoemaker in Sumrall,
Mississippi, who defended his community against hatred and exclusion, only to be
overwhelmed by a violent majority community. On the other hand, the Italian
immigrants o f Baltimore could imagine themselves as Augustine Palmisano, the Sicilian
boy who came to America in the 1880s and learned to participate in the world of white
middle-class professionals, for which the white American residents of Baltimore treated
him respectfully and congratulated him for his responsible participation in public affairs.
Italian immigrants, not surprisingly, found it appealing to see themselves as Augustine
Palmisano, the potential ally of white politicians, but not so appealing to see themselves
as Frank Scaglione, the potential ally of outcast African-Americans.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 8
1910-1913: HOUSING SEGREGATION ORDINANCES
When Maryland Democrats attempted to disfranchise African-Americans in 1905
and 1909, they were in step with national events. In the early years of the twentieth
century, African-Americans lacked political influence in most regions o f the United
States. South of Maryland, African-Americans were barred from voting as a result of
successful disfranchisement campaigns, and in the North there were too few registered
African-American voters to influence public affairs.1 As might be expected, the political
disadvantages of African-Americans were associated with corresponding social
consequences. In 1896, the United States Supreme Court provided a basis for legalized
segregation, when it held in Plessv v. Ferguson that distinctions based on race were
permissible under the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments.2 Segregation was clearly
ascendant in the following years, as Jim Crow laws enforced racial separation in a
1 Harvard Sitkoff, A New Deal for Blacks: The Emergence of Civil Rights as a National Issue (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 41.
2 Melvin I. Urofsky, A March of Liberty: A Constitutional History o f the United States (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988), vol. 2, Since 1865.481.
210
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widening circle of social activities.3
Baltimore was subject to the same social and political forces as other American
cities, and, by 1910, segregated facilities were common in the city. African-Americans,
for example, could not use the front door of the Johns Hopkins University Hospital.4 In
the commercial areas of the city, department stores were not overtly segregated, but some
store owners diverted African-American women from shopping for clothing on the main
floors and directed them instead to basement departments.5 Although concerts at the
Peabody conservatory were open to African-Americans, segregated seating was instituted
in 1904.6
As a result of Baltimore's position between North and South, however, the city
did not become as rigidly segregated as many other cities. For most African-Americans
in the United States, the unfavorable political climate would not begin to change until the
1930s, when significant numbers of African-Americans began to appear on the voting
registers o f northern cities;7 but Baltimore was ahead of most American cities in such
developments. As early as the 1890s, African-American voting strength was sufficient to
3 C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow 2d rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966)67-74.
4 Interview with E.R., October 8,1979, number 172, Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project (BNHP), Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
s Anonymous interview, July 25,1979, number 094, BNHP;Baltimore Afro- American Ledger. 16 April 1910.
6 Robert J. Brugger, Maryland: A Middle Temperament 1634-1980 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 422.
7 Sitkofif, A New deal for Blacks. 88-90.
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control a seat on the Baltimore City Council, and at least one African-American sat on the
Council throughout the first two decades of the twentieth century.8 Furthermore,
Baltimore’s African-American community was large enough to support its own
professional class, giving the community some political advantages that would not
become manifest in northern cities until a few decades later.9
African-Americans in Baltimore did not face fewer Jim Crow proposals and
segregation schemes than African-Americans elsewhere, but, with a substantial number
of voters and a core of professionals prepared to speak for the community, Baltimore's
African-Americans were able to resist. Each time a new segregation plan surfaced, a
dedicated group of African-American editors, lawyers, ministers and other professionals
rallied the community, and sometimes African-Americans won.10 In 1902, for example,
the Baltimore Park Board banned African-Americans from the picnic areas of city parks,
but the Board reopened the parks to African-Americans in 1905 in response to a petition
drive led by Rev. George F. Bragg.11
Similarly, African-Americans defeated attempts to segregate transportation
facilities. Although some white citizens called for separate seating on the city's
8 Suzanne Ellery Green, "Black Republicans on the Baltimore City Council, 1890- 1931," Maryland Historical Magazine 74 (September 1979).
9 BaltimoreAfro-American Ledger. 10 March 1910.
10 Baltimore Morning Herald. 29 February 1904; Brugger, Maryland. 422.
11 Baltimore American. 6 September 1905.
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streetcars, African-Americans continued to ride without restrictions;12 and when the B&O
Railroad tried to establish a Jim Crow waiting room in Baltimore, the African-American
community protested, and the railroad gave up the project.13
As a result of African-American resistance throughout the first decade of the
twentieth century, segregation remained a contested matter in Baltimore, and the contest
continued into the second decade. The Autumn of 1910 found J.H. Murphy, editor of
Baltimore's Afro-American Ledger, once again sounding the alarm in the city's African-
American community.14 Murphy's concern was a proposed ordinance that would prevent
African-Americans from moving into housing in Baltimore's white neighborhoods. The
concern turned out to be well founded: the City Council passed the ordinance in
December 1910, inspiring a series of such ordinances in southern and border cities over
the next few years.15 Following Baltimore's lead, Winston-Salem, Norfolk, Richmond,
Atlanta, S t Louis, Louisville, and several other cities passed housing segregation
ordinances between 1910 and 1916.16
In Baltimore, the struggle over housing segregation ordinances lasted from 1910
12 Baltimore Sun. 2 August 1908.
13 Crisis 3 (March 1912): 185.
14 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 24 December 1910.
15 Gilbert T. Stephenson, "The Segregation of White and Negro Races in Cities," SouthAtlantic Quarterly 13 (January 1914): 1-2; Roger Rice, "Residential Segregation by Law, 1910-1917." Journal of Southern History 34 (Mav 1968): 179-99.
16 George C. Wright, Life Behind a Veil: Blacks in Louisville. Kentucky. 1865-1930 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985), 120.
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to 1913, and, throughout the struggle, neither Baltimore's Italian-immigrant community
nor any of Baltimore's other European-immigrant communities came to the aid of the
city's African-Americans. As a result of patterns in race relations that were firmly
established in Baltimore by 1910, European immigrant communities had some success in
forming coalitions among themselves, but African-Americans were excluded from such
coalitions. Despite appeals from African-Americans for support, despite warnings from
some reformers that housing segregation ordinances might also be enforced against
European immigrants, and despite a history of housing discrimnation against some of
Baltimore's European immigrants, especially eastern European Jews, African-Americans
found virtually no political allies among Baltimore's immigrants as they fought the
segregation ordinances from 1910 to 1913.
As is illustrated in the political contest over the residential segregation ordinances,
by 1910 the line of division between Baltimore's African-Americans and Baltimore's
European immigrants was sharply drawn. Over the course of the disfranchisement
campaigns of 1905 and 1909, the glimmer of hope that coalitions might be formed with
local communities of European immigrants had been extinguished. In response to these
developments, African-Americans devised a political strategy based on uniting with other
African-Americans across the United States in national organizations. The National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League, for
example, were founded in this period, partly as a result of the Baltimore segregation
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ordinances.17
The political contest over the segregation ordinances grew out of changing
residential patterns in West Baltimore. At the turn of the century, housing was not
completely segregated in West Baltimore, but for the most part African-Americans
occupied the lower quality housing in the alleys near the city center, while whites lived in
the bigger houses on the wide, through streets farther to the northwest.1' From the end of
the nineteenth century to 1910, tensions increased steadily, as African-Americans moved
out of the alleys whenever they could raise the money and overcome white resistance.19
By 1910 confrontations were not unusual between whites and new African-American
residents of predominantly white streets, such as McCulloh and Lafayette. Whites in
these areas not only protested, but also sometimes expressed their resistance through
vandalism and violence.20
17 Charles F. Kellogg, A History of theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 1909-1920 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967), 184; Nancy Weiss, The National Urban League. 1910-1940 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), 9-10; Rice, "Residential segregation by Law," 182.
18 "Baltimore," Crisis 1 (November 1910): 11; Paul A. Groves and Edward K. Muller, Journal of Historical Geography 1 (1975): 169; Cynthia Neverdon-Morton, "Black Housing Patterns in Baltimore City, 1885-1953," Maryland Historian 16 (Summer 1985): 25-26.
19 "Baltimore," Crisis 1 (November 1911): 11; Roger L. Rice, "Residential Segregation by Law," 180; Interview with E. H., July 26-30,1979, number 100, BNHP.
20 Balitmore Sun. 28 April 1910; "Some Trouble on McCulloh Street," Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 10 September 1910; "A Year of Segregation in Baltimore," Crisis 3 (November 1911): 28.
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With the unrest in Northwest Baltimore ripe for political exploitation, George W.
West, a Councilman from a white ward in West Baltimore, introduced a segregation
ordinance for consideration by the City Council in the Fall of1910.21 The ordinance was
drafted for West by Milton Dashiel, a local attorney who claimed to be an expert in
constitutional law.22 Under the provisions of the West Ordinance, blocks inhabited by
residents of a single race could not be integrated; no African-American could move into
an all white block, and no white could move into and all African-American block.23
Because the West Ordinance was based on residence, not ownership, it was possible
under the Ordinance for a property owner to be barred from living in his or her own
property if the property was in a block in which all the residents were of a different race
than the owner.24 Violations were punishable by a fine of$100, a year in jail, or both.25
The City Council's Committee on Police and Jail held hearings on the West
21 W. Ashbie Hawkins, "A Year of Segregation in Baltimore," Crisis 3 (November 1911): 28-29.
22 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 1 October 1910; Rice, "Residential Segregation by Law," 181. In private correspondence, Charles J. Bonaparte mocked Dashiel's claim to be an expert in constitutional law. Bonaparte, who was very active in the Baltimore legal community, commented that he had never heard of Dashiel before the ordinance proposal, despite Dashiel's self-proclaimed stature as a legal expert. Bonaparte to Moorfield Storey, February 11,1911, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container166, Library of Congress. Bonaparte correctly predicted that the ordinance drafted by Dashiel in 1910 would not withstand judicial scrutiny. Election Campaigns, 1911, undated, Charles J. Bonaparte papers, container195, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
23 Stephenson, "Segregation of White and Negro Races," 4.
24 Ibid., 17-18.
25 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 1 October 1910.
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Ordinance in September and October 1910, and it was apparent that there would be
intense interest in the outcome of the proposal. White supporters of the Ordinance
contended that real estate in the city should be regulated to preserve its value to white
people because "white men had built the property for themselves only."26 In response to
these provocative arguments, the Afro-American Ledger and other opponents of the
Ordinance rallied the city’s African-Americans. Led by the city's African-American
professional community, African-Americans made a strong showing at the early hearings,
arguing that the Ordinance "would keep colored people in unwholesome alleys, where
they were 40 years ago."27 When additional hearings were held in late October, two
hundred African-Americans crowded into the City Council chambers.28
Throughout the hearings, African-Americans and other opponents of the
Ordinance had cause for hope. Although some white Republican Council members were
absent for crucial sessions and avoided taking a position on the Ordinance, a few white
Republicans immediately joined with African-American Councilman Harry S. Cummings
in opposition to the Ordinance.29 A small group of Socialists also attended the hearings
and announced their opposition to the Ordinance as a violation of the principle of the
26 Ibid.
27 BaltimoreAfro-American Ledger. 8 October 1910.
28 Baltimore Afro-american Ledger. 24 Octber 1910.
29 BaltimoreAfro-American Ledger. 1 October 1910 and 10 December 1910; Greene, "Black Republicans on the Baltimore City Council," 210.
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"brotherhood of man, without distinctions of race, color or creed."30 But the most
significant source of hope for African-Americans was opposition to the Ordinance voiced
by some white business leaders, especially landlords.31 According to the Afro-American
Ledger, a representative of a well-known white family that owned "several hundred
houses" vehemently protested the City Council's interference with private property
rights.32
Because the hearings on the West Ordinance revealed these divisions within the
white community, the housing segregation campaign initially raised the possibility that
African-Americans might defeat the Ordinance through political strategies that had been
employed in blocking the disfranchisement proposals in 1905 and 1909. For this reason,
as they argued the case against the West Ordinance, opponents of the West Ordinance
frequently included appeals to immigrants. J.H. Murphy of the Afro-American Ledger.
for example, raised the question of support from the city's immigrant communities. As
was usual for Murphy, there was a strain of ambivalence in his references to the Jewish
community. Nonetheless, when he complained that "Hebrews" made themselves
"conspicuous by absence," Murphy left no doubt about the fact that he thought housing
segregation proposals raised dangers for immigrants as well as African-Americans.33
Another opponent of the Ordinance reminded the audience of the residential segregation
30 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 8 October 1910.
31 BaltimoreAfro-American Ledger. 29 October 1910.
32 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 1 October 1910.
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of Jews in Russia.34
In stating their arguments in terms of the history o f segregation of Jews in Russia,
opponents of the West Ordinance were aware that their best opportunities to gain allies
were among the most recent and most vulnerable European immigrants. African-
American leaders in Baltimore were aware that Italians were also among the most recent
and most vulnerable European immigrants. The Afro-American Ledger, for example, had
commented on the events that led to the terrorist attacks against Frank Scaglione in
Mississppi,35 and Harvey Johnson, a Baltimore minister, published pamphlets in which he
linked the lynchings of Italians to the need for federal anti-lynching legislation.36 Articles
in Crisis referred to discrimination against Italian immigrants, including instances in
which Italians were treated differently than other European immigrants because some
Americans did not consider the Italians white.37
Thus, it is not surprising that opponents of the West Ordinance attempted to find
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 11 January 1908.
36 Harvey Johnson, The White Man's Failure inGovernment (Baltimore: Afro- American Co., 1900), 7, Daniel Murray Pamphlet Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
37 Crisis 3 (November 1911): 16. Crisis, of course, was published in New York, not Baltimore, but Crisis covered developments in the segregation ordinances in Baltimore, and writers in Crisis included W. Ashbie Hawkins, the Baltimore African-American attorney who litigated the challenges to the validity of the West ordinance. It is very clear that African-American leaders in Baltimore were in contact with the editors of Crisis and were aware of the views expressed in Crisis.
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allies among Italian immigrants. In an Afro-American editorial contending that the West
ordinance was "anti-American," J. H. Murphy called for opposition to the development of
"black belts or Italian belts."38 Other opponents of the West Ordinance picked up
Murphy’s theme. At the first hearing on the Ordinance, Jacob M. Levy, a Socialist,
argued that, if the measure could be enforced against African-Americans, special quarters
in the city would evolve for Jews, Italians, and other immigrants.39
The appeals to European immigrants failed. Apparently, neither Italian
immigrants nor any other European immigrants believed the housing segregation
movement presented a direct threat to their interests, and there were no meaningful
communal ties between the African-Americans in West Baltimore and the European
immigrants in East Baltimore. In contrast to the disfranchisement campaigns of 1905 and
1909, African-Americans did not have the benefit of aroused immigrant communities.
The West Ordinance passed both branches of the City Council in December 1910, and
Democratic Mayor Barry Mahool signed the measure into effect.40
Passage of the West Ordinance in December 1910 did not end the contest over
housing segregation in Baltimore. From the first appearance of the draft prepared by
Dashiel, opponents believed the Ordinance was defective and vulnerable to challenges in
the courts. Even Baltimore's Democratic City Solicitor was reluctant to approve the
38 BaltimoreAfro-American Ledger. 26 November 1910.
39 BaltimoreAfro-American Ledger 8 October 1910.
40 Neverdon-Morton, "Black Housing Patterns," 27; Rice, "Residential segregation by Law," 181.
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Ordinance for the Mayor's signature.41 The first case under the Ordinance came to court
before the end of December 1910, when both a white landlord and his African-American
tenant were charged with violating the law. W. Ashbie Hawkins was the defense attorney
for the tenant, and Henry A. Ulrich, a City Councilman who had opposed the Ordinance,
was the defense attorney for the landlord. In hopes of having theOrdinance overturned,
both defense attorneys requested a jury trial, but the judge saved the Ordinance, at least
temporarily, by dismissing the charges on the ground that the property had been rented
before the Ordinance had gone into effect.42
The initial West Ordinance, however, survived only a short time. In February
1911 the Ordinance was voided for technical flaws, including an improper title.43
Councilman West promptly re-introduced the measure under the title, "An Ordinance for
preserving peace, preventing conflict and ill-feelings between white and colored races .
and promoting the general welfare of the city of Baltimore by providing as far as
practicable for the use of separate blocks by white and colored people for residences,
churches and schools."44 The Council passed the new Ordinance, and Mayor Mahool
41 Charles J. Bonaparte to Moorfield Storey, January 30,1911, container 166, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
42 BaltimoreAfro-American Ledger. 31 December 1910.
43 Charles J. Bonaparte to Moorfield Storey, February 11,1911, container 166, Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, Library o f Congress, Washington, DC; Baltimore sun. S February 1911. Neverdon-Morton, "Black Housing Patterns," 27.
44 Neverdon-Morton, "Black Housing Patterns," 27.
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signed it into effect on April 7,1911.45
Despite its title, the Ordinance brought neither racial separation nor peace to
Northwest Baltimore. The Ordinance had done nothing to relieve the demand for
housing, as both white and African-American populations continued to increase in
Baltimore from 1910 to 1920.46 Even more importantly, the Ordinance had done nothing
to relieve the oppressive living conditions in the alleys.47 As opportunities arose,
African-Americans continued to move into the better houses in the predominantly white
blocks northwest of the alley districts. Inevitably, African-American social and cultural
institutions, such as schools and churches, also continued to relocate farther into
Northwest Baltimore.48
From 1910 to 1913, continuing tensions in Northwest Baltimore not only resulted
in disputes over the enforcement and application of the new Ordinance, but also erupted
in violent confrontations. As mistrust and hostility grew, whites frequently characterized
African-American attempts to move out of the alleys and into streetfront houses as
“invasions.”49 When a mob attacked an African-American man who had moved into a
45 Baltimore American. 8 April 1911; Baltimore Sun. 8 April 1911.
46 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census o f the United States Taken in the Year 1920. vol. 2, Population: General Report andAnalytical Tables (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1922), 47; Brugger, Maryland. 773.
47 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 18 March 1911.
48 "Along the Color Line," Crisis 3 (March 1912): 189; Neverdon-Morton, "Black Housing Patterns," 27-28. Also, see above, Chapter 2, pp. SS-S7.
49 “Baltimore,” Crisis 1 (November 1910), 11; Baltimore American. 8 April
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“white” block, he defended himself, wounding a white boy who had been throwing
stones.S0 Groups of African-American and white boys sometimes engaged in prolonged
stone fights.51 In several instances, mobs of stone-throwing whites drove African-
American families out when they attempted to move into houses in “white” blocks.52 As
a result of such incidents, African-Americans concluded that white policemen could not,
or would not, protect African-Americans from hostile whites, and tensions grew between
African-Americans and the city police force.53 In one instance, a patrolman alleged that a
group of African-Americans fired gunshots at him as he patrolled the neighborhood
shortly after a violent confrontation in which whites drove an African-American family
out of a “white” block.54
While African-Americans and whites confronted each other in the streets,
African-American attorneys fought the West Ordinance in the courts. The immediate
problem for African-American attorneys was defending individuals who were charged
with violations under the Ordinance.55 The more important, long-term goal, however,
1911:Baltimore Evening Sun. 12 May 1913; 15 May 1913; and 25 September 1913.
50 Neverdon-Morton, “Black Housing Patterns,” 27.
51 Baltimore Evening Sun. 25 September 1913.
52 “Along the Color Line,” Crisis 3 (November 1911): 7-8; Baltimore Evening Sun. 26 September 1913.
53 Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 10 September 1910 and 28 January 1911.
54 Baltimore Evening Sun. 26 September 1913.
55 Greene, "Black Republicans," 210; Baltimore Afro-American Ledger. 31 December
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was to have the Ordinance declared unconstitutional. In the Spring o f 1913, a city court
held the ordinance invalid,36 but the City Solicitor advised the city government to
continue to enforce the Ordinance while awaiting a ruling by the Maryland Court of
Appeals.37 Under the leadership of W. Ashbie Hawkins and Councilman Harry S.
Cummings, and with assistance from the NAACP, African-American attorneys carried
the fight to the appellate court. In October 1913, the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled on
the Ordinance in the case of Currv v. Maryland, holding that the Ordinance
unconstitutionally limited owners’ rights to dispose of property.38
The Court of Appeals ruling led to another contest in the City Council, as the
segregationists re-drafted the Ordinance once more. In an attempt to respond to the
Appeals Court decision, Councilman West proposed a “supplemental race segregation
ordinance.”39 In contrast to the earlier versions, which had provided that individual
residential units could not pass from one race to the other, even in “mixed blocks,” the
new proposals would allow “mixed blocks” to become “white or colored.”60 Although
two white Republican Councilmen, Binswanger and Heintzman, joined Harry S.
1910; "Along the Color Line," Crisis. 3 (March 1912): 189.
36 Baltimore Evening Sun. 12 May 1913.
37 Baltimore Evening Sun. 20 May 1913.
38 Kellogg, NAACP. 183-85; Crisis 9 (March 1915): 249.
39 Baltimore Sun. 7 November 1913.
60 Stephenson, “Segregation of White and Negro Races,”4-5; Baltimore American. 9 November 1913.
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Cummings in opposing the supplemental segregation ordinance, several Republicans and
one Progressive were absent when the measure passed by a vote o f 13-3.61 Councilman
Heintzman stated his opposition to the measure on constitutional grounds,62 while
Councilman Binswanger argued that the measure established a precedent o f legislating on
the basis o f‘bigotry.”63
The issue was ultimately resolved by the United States Supreme Court in 1917,
when the Court reviewed a Louisville, Kentucky, law that had been inspired by the
Baltimore Ordinance. When the Supreme Court held in the case of Buchanan v. Warlev
that such laws unconstitutionally interfered with individual property rights, the Maryland
Court of Appeals responded by conceding that the Buchanan decision was also applicable
to the 1913 Baltimore ordinance.64
Thus, the struggle that began in 1910 ended in 1917 with a victory for African-
Americans in the Supreme court65 Although African-Americans succeeded in
overturning the Baltimore housing segregation ordinances, success came only after local
political action had failed and African-Americans had followed a strategy of litigation
61 Baltimore American. 9 November 1913.
62 Baltimore Sun. 7 November 1913.
63 Baltimore American. 9 November 1913.
64 Kellogg, NAACP. 183-84; Wright, Life Behind a Veil. 233-34; Greene, "Black Republicans," 211.
65 The victory was a very limited one. The Supreme Court's decision was based on the protection of property rights not a refutation of Jim Crow laws. Urofsky, Match of Liberty, vol. 2,489.
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coordinated with efforts of national civil rights organizations. With only 15 percent of
the population, African-Americans in Baltimore could not win a local political fight
without allies; but in the struggle over the segregation ordinances the most likely allies of
African-Americans, Italians and other recent European immigrants, proved to be almost
completely unresponsive to the plight of African-Americans. In order to understand the
isolation of African-Americans in the campaign against the segregation ordinances, it is
necessary to consider the issues that captured the attention o f the immigrant communities
of East Baltimore in this period.
In October 1911, just at the time African-Americans in West Baltimore were
immersed in their struggle against the segregation ordinances, residents of East Baltimore
were "drawn together by a common impulse of overpowering indignation."*6 But the
event that brought Italians together with Russian Jews, Poles, and other East Baltimore
immigrants at the Third Ward Democratic Club was not the enactment of a segregation
ordinance. Instead, the European immigrants of the Third Ward were "boiling with
wrath"67 over statements made by Rev. Andrew B. Wood, secretary of the Inter-Church
Federation. In an address before the Methodist Episcopal Ministers Association, Rev.
Wood had contended that the Third Ward, with its diverse immigrant population, was "as
un-American as if it were located in the heart of Africa."68
66 Baltimore Sun. 10 October 1911.
67 Ibid.
68 Baltimore American 10 October 1911.
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The words evoked powerful emotions, especially since Rev. Wood’s statements
echoed statements the immigrants had heard in the disfranchisement campaigns of 1905
and 1909. In those campaigns, supporters of the disfranchisement amendments had
characterized African-Americans as unworthy to participate in American politics, and the
principal reason given for the unworthiness of African-Americans was that they were
ignorant tools of politicians. Now, sounding much like the disfranchisement advocates,
Rev. Wood argued that East Baltimore politicians were "trying to keep the foreign
element in ignorance in order that the residents might be used as tools in fighting the
better element of Baltimore."69 Enraged Third Ward leaders accused the minister of
breaking the Ninth Commandment and threatened to give the minister a "thrashing."70
The controversy provided a perfect setting for newly elected City Councilman
Will Garland to demonstrate the solidarity he had established with his immigrant
constituents after years of campaigning in the Third Ward. As the Third Ward leader
during the disfranchisement campaigns, he had counseled his constituents that they could
oppose the disfranchisement amendments, even though as members of the "white man's
party" they were obligated to hate "niggers"7' and hate "darkies."72 In April 1911, at the
very moment the City Council was focused on the segregation ordinances, Garland had
won a Democratic primary election for the Third Ward City Council seat by a margin of
69 Baltimore Sun. 10 October 1911.
70 Baltimore American. 10 October 1911.
71 Baltimore Sun. 5 October 1905.
72 Baltimore American. 27 October 1905.
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1038 votes to 147.73 In the municipal elections of May 7, 1911, he had defeated Edward
W. Klein, the Republican incumbent, by a solid margin of 1313 to 900.74 At the
swearing-in ceremonies for the new City Council on May 17,1911, "King Bill" Garland
had received the heartiest greeting o f all the honorees.75
Garland knew very well what emotional themes resonated with his constituents,
and, in the controversy over Rev. Wood's remarks, he seized the opportunity to frame the
issue to suit his formula for success. Garland addressed the assembly with tears in his
eyes and his voice trembling with anger, as he reminded the audience that the people of
the Third Ward were "a motley people, but God-fearing and honest."76 Then, with his
voice reaching peak volume, he responded to Rev. Wood's comparison of the Third Ward
to Africa, which was the remark that "seemed to cause the most resentment."77 "Just
think of it," Garland shouted, "A man of the Gospel in a conference o f white people,
compares the people of the Third Ward with negroes. I am as good as Dr. Wood ever
dared to be. When he compares white people with negroes, he is no better than a negro
himself."78
73 Baltimore American. 5 April 1911: Baltimore Sun.5 April 1911.
74 Baltimore American. 3 May 1911; Baltimore Sun. 3 May 1911.
75 Baltimore Sun. 17 Mav 1911.
76 Baltimore American. 10 October 1911; Baltimore Sun. 10 October 1911.
77 Baltimore Sun. 10 October 1911.
78 Ibid.
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The controversy over Rev. Wood's remarks raised the same dilemma as Italian
immigrants had faced in the course o f the disfranchisement campaigns. When native-
born whites treated Italians in the same way they treated African-Americans, the
treatment raised the possibility of a political union between Italians and African-
Americans, since Italians and African-Americans had a common problem. Political
leaders such as Garland, however, educated Italian immigrants in the political culture of
Baltimore. As Garland showed Italian immigrants, accepting the premise that Italians
belonged in the same category with African-Americans was a dangerous trap. Garland
presented a solution that seemed safer within Baltimore's political culture. Garland, in
effect, counseled Italian immigrants to reject the premise as vehemently as possible and
to make it clear that Italian immigrants were deeply insulted by any suggestion that they
were not white. Just as other immigrants had learned in the nineteenth century, the way
to avoid systematic exclusion and discrimination was not to join with African-Americans
in an effort to protect minority rights, but instead to become white.79
The circumstances make it clear that Italian immigrants were receptive to
Garland's views. His recent electoral successes demonstrated that he remained popular in
East Baltimore, and he ran very well in the Italian precincts. In the heavily Italian 5th
precinct, for example, he had won by a margin of 166 to 61 votes, while carrying the
79 Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White (New York: Routledge, 1995); David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (London: Verso, 1991).
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ward by 1313 to 900 votes.80
Garland's popularity was based on the fact that he was, at the time, more effective
in communicating with Baltimore's Italian immigrants than any other politician in
Baltimore. In contrast to Democratic politicians at the city, county and state levels, ward
leader Garland had proven to be a much better judge of the concerns of Third Ward
immigrants in 1905 and 1909, when he had foreseen that immigrants would not vote with
the Democrats if Democrats supported the disfranchisement amendments. Unlike the
many Republican and independent politicians, Garland was close enough to the people of
Little Italy to understand their everyday lives and problems. Republican leader Charles J.
Bonaparte, for example, opposed the disfranchisement amendments and the segregation
ordinances. But he also served as an officer of the Society for the Suppression of Vice,
an organization that sent out investigators to compile lists of slot machines on Eastern
Avenue in Little Italy, including several located at fruit stands in the 800 block.81 In
contrast, Garland had put his career on the line and had been convicted of trying to
influence a Grand Jury in 1908, when he had tried to help an East Baltimore saloonkeeper
charged with selling liquor on Sunday.82
For young Italian immigrants, such as Vincent Palmisano, the contrasts between
Bonaparte and Democratic ward politicians were immediately ascertainable in the streets
80 Baltimore Sun. 3 May 1911.
81 "G. Warner, Jr. to Yates Pennington, August 17,1903," Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 208, Library o f Congress, Washington, DC.
82 "Election Campaign 1911," Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, container 195, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
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of Little Italy. Palmisano's father operated a fruit business for several years, and Vincent
himself, before he began to practice law, ran a poolroom.83 Both Palmisano businesses
were located near the intersection of Eastern Avenue and President Street, the very
location at which Bonaparte's investigators for the Society for the Suppression of Vice
had surveyed slot machines in 1903. The Palmisanos, with family interests in fruit stands
and poolrooms, undoubtedly found it harder to trust the reformer, Bonaparte, than
Garland, a man who might help a saloonkeeper in trouble as a result o f Sunday closing
laws. When Vincent Palmisano was elected to the state legislature in 1913 as part of a
clean sweep of the elections in the City of Baltimore by the Democrats, some
Republicans complained that their defeat was brought on by their party's association with
Anti-Saloon League reformers.84
With Will Garland reinforcing lessons about racial politics that had been learned
in the disfranchisement campaigns of 1905 and 1909, it is not surprising that Italian
immigrants were unresponsive to the appeals of African-Americans. By 1910,
Baltimore's Italian immigrants had been through many experiences in which they
observed, and internalized, the local culture o f Baltimore. In that culture, the way to
avoid exclusion and discrimination was to identify with white Americans and to define
their separation from African-Americans with the brightest possible line of demarcation.
To the extent Italian immigrants had internalized these elements of the local
83 BaltimoreCitv Directory for 1904 (Baltimore: R. L. Polk & Co., 1904); City Directory of Baltimore for theYear Commencing April 1st 1909 (Baltimore: R. L. Polk & Co., 1909).
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culture—to the extent they had become Italian-Americans—they responded readily to the
message of Will Garland, and Will Garland was among the Democratic City Council
members who approved the final version of the housing segregation ordinance in a
straight party vote in November 1913.85 For Italian Americans in Baltimore, the
segregation ordinances were matters o f concern for African-Americans in West
Baltimore, not for white immigrants in East Baltimore.
84 Baltimore Evening sun. 5 November1913; Baltimore American. 6 November 1913.
85 Baltimore Sun. 7 November 1913.
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CONCLUSION
Prejudices based on color and race, have deep roots in European as well as
American history.1 But for tum-of-the-century Italian immigrants, ideas about race and
color were culturally far less important than such notions were to Americans. Race and
color always had less significance for southern Europeans than for northern Europeans.2
As early as the seventeenth century, for example, Englishmen reasoned that humanity
consisted o f a “Great Chain of Color,” with the white descendants of Anglo-Saxons at the
top, followed in gradations downward through Europe’s darker peoples, with Africans at
the bottom.3 But such ideas did not have the same “special value” for southern
Europeans as they had for Englishmen.4
For Baltimore’s Italian immigrants the particular circumstances o f their origins
1 David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), 52; Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro 1550-1812 (Baltimore: Pelican Books, 1969), 6-11.
2 Davis, Problem of Slavery. 53.
3 Jordan, White Over Black. 254.
4 Ibid.
233
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were even more important than the fact that they were southern, rather than northern,
Europeans. Most of the thousands of Italian strangers who arrived in Baltimore at the
turn of the century came from agricultural villages,5 and, for Italian peasants in remote,
homogeneous villages, race was simply not a matter o f concern. As a result, most Italian
immigrants arrived in Baltimore with very limited experience in adapting culturally to
racial and ethnic diversity. Some immigrants, of course, had journeyed to Italian cities or
to other nations in Europe to work as transient laborers at sawmills, mines, or
construction sites before sailing to America. But for most o f the Italian immigrants who
arrived in Baltimore, the city provided their first extended experience in a complex,
culturally diverse, urban society.
The balance of the existing anecdotal evidence favors the conclusion that racial
distinctions had little significance for new Italian immigrants. The example of a
Baltimore-bound Italian child is representative. Within two or three days of her arrival in
America, she saw African-Americans for the first time, and her feelings were neither
hostile nor friendly; instead she felt only amazement at discovering something new. In
her own words, she and her sister simply "had no idea," and they "held hands and walked
backward just to stare at these people."6 This evidence of Italian inexperience in matters
of race is consistent with the findings of historians who haveexamined the interactions of
Italian immigrants and African-Americans in the deep South, where Italian strangers
5 Walter Nugent, Crossings: The Great Transatlantic Migrations. 1870-1914 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 99.
6 Interview with C. M., September 21,1979, number 175, BNHP.
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sometimes offended local whites by mingling freely with African-Americans.7
In view of the evidence of Italian inexperience in matters o f race, the period from
the 1890s to the First World War is crucial to the development o f relations between
African-Americans and Italian-Americans. It was in this period that Baltimore's Italians
adapted culturally to an inter-racial society. With the onset of the war, however, this
formative period ended. Vincent Palmisano's election to the Maryland House of
Delegates in 1913 signaled a transition in Little Italy from a community o f Italian
immigrants to a community of Italian-Americans, and this transition accelerated rapidly
when the war began several months later. By stimulating nativism and by isolating Little
Italy from Europe, the war hindered the renewal o f old-world cultural traits and
strengthened the Italian-American identity of Little Italy.
The nativism generated by the war was one phase of a long-term, cyclic pattern of
rising and ebbing anti-immigrant sentiments. Although nativism had "surged and
subsided" in the decades preceding the War, hostility to immigrants had never completely
abated, even in the best of times.8 At the very time Vincent Palmisano engaged in his
successful campaign for a seat in the Maryland legislature, for example, a group of
miners in the neighboring state of West Virginia attempted to lynch an Italian murder
7 George E. Cunningham, "The Italian, A Hindrance to White Solidarity in Louisiana, 1890-1898, Journal of Negro History 50 (January 1965): 24-25; Jean Ann Scarpaci, "Immigrants in the New South: Italians in Louisiana's Sugar Parishes, 1880-1910," Labor History 16 (Spring 1975): 177; James R. Barrett and David Roediger, "Inbetween Peoples: Race, Nationality and the New Immigrant' Working Class,"Journal of American Ethnic History 16 (Spring 1997): 28.
8 John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism. 1865-1925.2d
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suspect The vigilantes killed a mining official in the process, and a "race war between
Italians and Americans was narrowly averted."9 With the onset of the First World War,
this lingering nativist intolerance escalated,10 stirring the ethnic press of Baltimore to
warn immigrants that it would be prudent to show loyalty to their new land.11
The second important effect of the war was to isolate Little Italy from the Old
World by blocking emigration from Italy. From 1901 to 1910, more than 25,000
European immigrants had arrived in Baltimore. From 1911 to 1914, more than 12,000
additional immigrants had arrived. In 1915, however, the annual total fell to 769, and in
1917 European immigration to Baltimore reached its low point at 333.12 With fewer than
six hundred immigrants arriving from all of Europe in each year from 1916 to 1919, the
proportion of Italian-born immigrants in Baltimore's Italian community declined. From
1900 to 1910, the Italian-bom population of Baltimore had increased from 2,042 to 5,043,
a growth rate of 147 percent; but from 1910 to 1920, the Italian-bom population grew
only from 5,043 to 7,911, a rate of 56.9 percent13 By 1920, the balance between Italian-
ed, with a new Afterword (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988), 329. 9 Baltimore Sun. 18 October 1913.
10 Higham, Strangers in the Land. 248;
11 Baltimore Deutsche Correspondent 5 April 1917.
12 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920. vol. 2, Population: General Report and Analytical Tables (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1922), 788.
13 Ibid., 737. Even the decrease from 146 percent to 56.9 percent understates the effects of the war, as most of the immigrants arrived in the first few years of the decade.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 237
bom and American-born residents of Little Italy had tipped toward the American-bom. In
1920 there were 16,489 Baltimore residents of "Italian stock," including 8,521 American-
bom Italians with one or both parents bom in Italy.14
Thus, the onset of the war marked the end of the formative years of the Italian
community in Baltimore, and the cultural development of Little Italy in this formative
period established the basis upon which Italian-Americans would interact with African-
Americans in twentieth-century Baltimore. It is important to note, however, that African-
Americans were only one among the many ethnic and racial groups with which Italians
interacted. For this reason, developments in race relations are best understood by taking
into account the network of social relations within which all groups in Baltimore
functioned.
Baltimore's complex network of social relations influenced the lives of
immigrants immediately upon arrival in Baltimore. In their new land, Italian strangers
encountered a set of physical and social arrangements that was the product of generations
of cultural interactions, and this pre-existing social geography communicated a great deal
about race and ethnicity. Not only were African-Americans segregated from most
European immigrants and other whites, but the intensity of segregation was increasing as
the African-American community grew. Furthermore, housing for immigrants and
African-Americans was different in quality as well as location, and the small, poorly
constructed alley dwellings allocated to African-Americans unmistakably marked
14 Ibid., 932.
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African-Americans as culturally disfavored and socially and economically disadvantaged.
In seeking employment, Italian strangers found that their skills and prospects were
in many ways similar to those of African-Americans. Like African-Americans, Italian
immigrants derived their employment skills from their agricultural origins, and for the
most part neither African-Americans nor Italian strangers were among those with the
power to allocate work. Furthermore, American employers had a collective reputation for
using repressive tactics against African-Americans and Italian immigrants. When they
reported to their first jobs in Baltimore, unskilled Italians, especially pick and shovel
workers, found that African-Americans and Italian immigrants were similarly vulnerable
in a labor market characterized by short-term jobs and arbitrary hiring and firing.
In seeking employment, however, Italian immigrants also found that their
vulnerability did not necessarily lead to the same disadvantages as did the vulnerability of
African-Americans. The actions of Baltimore employers communicated the fact that race
and ethnicity mattered. For those seeking laboring jobs, race-conscious ward politicians
identified Italian immigrants as white and, therefore, eligible for assistance in attaining
laboring jobs on public works projects. In major industries, such as clothing
manufacturing, American employers allocated a variety of jobs on the basis of ethnicity
and race, and almost always African-Americans were the last workers hired for the least
desirable jobs.
With so many obvious cultural indicators built into the city's labor market, even
those Italians with the most limited language skills could ascertain the racial realities of
Baltimore in the first decade of the twentieth century. They could note, for example, that
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not a single one of the city's 28,000 African-American male workers was classified as a
manager or superintendent,15 while among street laborers the treacherous job of carrying
nitroglycerin over icy pavement was reserved for African-Americans.15
The established churches also communicated the importance o f race and ethnicity
in Baltimore. In the ethnically and racially diverse Catholic Church, religious leaders
resolved conflicts among ethnic groups by organizing parishes on the basis of race and
nationality. In their early experiences in the Baltimore churches, Italian immigrants
found that they, like African-Americans, were viewed as an undesirable group that
presented a problem for church leaders. Consistent with patterns of racial and ethnic
separation in the city, Catholics from among the older ethnic groups combined their
efforts to launch a separate Italian parish long before the city's Italian-immigrant
population was large enough to support a church.
Thus, when Italian immigrants arrived in Baltimore, they were not culturally
predisposed to reject African-Americans, and, in fact, there were some reasons to
cooperate with African-Americans, as they shared with African-Americans the status of
strangers with meager social and economic powers. As Italian immigrants established
new lives in the city, however, they encountered a society in which ideas about race were
manifested in a variety of unspoken ways. Within this setting, from the turn of the
century to the First World War, Italian immigrants lived through a series of events that
15 U. S. Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States Taken in 1910: Population (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1913), 4:537-38.
16 Baltimore Morning Herald. 20 February 1904.
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provided a practical education in American race relations.
The great fire of 1904 enveloped the city in a common tragedy and presented
common challenges for everyone in Baltimore. As Italian immigrants shared these
experiences with others in the city, however, they learned that even in a common crisis
differences in race and ethnicity mattered, primarily because separation on the basis of
race and ethnicity was built into the city's social and cultural institutions. Even when
their values were not articulated, the white residents of Baltimore assumed the natural
order of life in the city called for decisions to be made on the basis of race and ethnicity.
As they sought assistance in recovering from the fire, either through charity or through
employment, Italian immigrants learned that in times o f crisis ethnicity mattered, and
race mattered even more.
Through their participation in the disfranchisement campaigns of 1905 and 1909,
Italian immigrants learned that white Americans did not openly cooperate with African-
Americans, even when circumstances presented common political interests. Because
political campaigns by their very nature call for the articulation of community values, the
political campaigns of 1905 and 1909 exposed Italian immigrants to explanations of the
racial attitudes of the white residents of Baltimore; and often the Democratic ward
politicians who were closest to Italian immigrants explained matters of race in
inflammatory terms. At the same time, in the context o f the intense racism of tum-of-the-
century Baltimore, the historical allies of African-Americans, white Republicans, overtly
signaled their discomfort with the alliance.
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By the time the African-American community faced a series of segregation
ordinances beginning in 1910, it was clear that there was little hope that the common
problems of African-Americans and Italian immigrants would lead to active cooperation.
Through the racial ideology manifested in the social geography of the city, and through
the practical lessons in race relations conveyed during the crises of 1904 through 1909,
the Italian immigrants o f Baltimore had adapted culturally to an American city in which
most residents assumed that racial and ethnic separation was normal, and most residents
believed that it was right and natural for non-white status to carry with it social,
economic, and political disadvantages.
The Italian experience in Baltimore demonstrates that race relations cannot be
understood by assuming that racism and conflict are inherent in interactions between
African-Americans and Italian immigrants. Rather, it is necessary to investigate the
historical bases for the separation of African-Americans from Italian immigrants. Simply
attributing the separation to racial antipathy explains nothing. The idea of race is itself
"something that must be explained."17
The experiences o f Italian immigrants in the formative period of the development
of Little Italy provide some clues about the meaning of race in Baltimore.18 When Italian
17 Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White (New York: Rouledge, 1995), 187; Barbara J. Fields, "Ideology and Race in American History," in J. Morgan Kousser and James M. McPherson, Region. Race and Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 143-177. 18 Edmund S. Morgan, in American Slavery. American Freedom: The Ordeal o f Colonial Virginia (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1975) examines the colonial origins of American racial ideology.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 242
immigrants flooded into the city at the turn o f the century, nativism was rampant in
American society; and for Italians, more than for most immigrants, nativism mingled
with racism to exacerbate the immigrants' sense of vulnerability. As they faced crises
such as the loss of jobs in the fire of 1904 and the threat to their political rights in 190S
and 1909, Italian immigrants sought strategies that would provide shelter from nativism
and racism. In examining alternative strategies, Italian immigrants increased their
understanding of the cultural significance of race in Baltimore. They learned through this
experience that African-Americans were not simply one among many groups within
Baltimore society, but rather that members o f the majority culture assumed that it was
natural and right to relegate African-Americans to the status of strangers in America on a
permanent basis.
The crucial factor that led Italians to isolate themselves from African-Americans
was not competition. Italian immigrants competed with other European immigrants on a
regular basis, yet Italians united with the other European immigrants in the Foreign-born
Citizens League in the 1905 disfranchisement campaign, and Italians shared the stage
with other European immigrants at political rallies in the 1909 disfranchisement
campaign.
In adapting to the complex social environment of Baltimore, the crucial factor for
Italians was the need to define their new cultural identity as Italian-Americans in a way
that made it clear that Italian-Americans did not belong in the same category as African-
Americans. As the European immigrants with origins closest to Africa, Italians faced a
real possibility that members of the majority culture would define Italian-Americans as a
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non-white group. Lynching and peonage incidents in the deep South brought the problem
sharply into focus for two reasons. First such incidents demonstrated that some
Americans already viewed Italian immigrants as a people who warranted the same
treatment as African-Americans. And second, lynching and peonage incidents
underscored the fact that the racism directed at African-Americans was qualitatively
different from the nativism most immigrants endured. Lynching and peonage incidents
dramatically illustrated that white Americans intended to relegate African-Americans to a
separate and permanently disadvantaged status. As this fact of American life became
clearer to Italian immigrants over the course o f the first decade of the twentieth century,
Italians felt ever more urgently the need to define their emerging Italian-American
cultural identity as a cultural identity separate from African-Americans.
The experiences of Italian immigrants in Baltimore were representative of the
experiences of European immigrants in America. With its middle location, Baltimore
brought together diverse aspects of American society and culture. Baltimore was neither
especially noteworthy for its racism nor especially benign in its racism. There were no
lynchings of African-Americans or Italian immigrants in Baltimore from the turn of the
century to the First World War, but the threat of lynching was occasionally used against
African-Americans.19 In closely contested political campaigns and in periods of tension
such as during the housing segregation campaigns, there were many episodes of violence.
In short, Baltimore was similar to other American cities in its social tensions.
19 Baltimore American. 10 September 1905.
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Furthermore, recent studies suggest that, for immigrants who preceded Italians in
the journey from Europe to the cities of America, there were similar experiences in race
relations. In a study of nineteenth-century immigrants, for example, Noel Ignatiev
concludes that Irish immigrants developed a white racial identity and a hostile posture
toward African-Americans because the Irish perceived African-Americans as a permanent
underclass.20 The Irish, like the Italians of Baltimore, separated themselves from African-
Americans not because o f hostility generated by economic competition, but because
African-Americans were deprived of the opportunity to compete on an equal basis with
other workers. If Irish immigrants had asserted their solidarity with African-Americans,
they would have been inviting Americans to think of the Irish as a group that should also
be denied the opportunity to compete on an equal basis with other workers.
The great danger for Italian immigrants in Baltimore, and probably for
immigrants elsewhere in America, was not that they would be forced to compete with
African-Americans. The great danger for Italian immigrants was that they, like African-
Americans, would become Americans, but remain strangers in their own land.
20 How the Irish Became White. 98.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. SOURCES CONSULTED
Manuscripts
Charles J. Bonaparte Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Citizens Emergency Committee Minute Book, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
Dielman-Hayward Files, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
Arthur P. Gorman Papers, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
Italians in Baltimore, Vertical Files, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore.
Vincent L. Palmisano, Vertical Files, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore.
Thomas Hall Robinson Papers, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
U.S. Federal Manuscript Census, 1880, Maryland. Microfilm. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC.
U.S. Federal Manuscript Census, 1900, Maryland. Microfilm. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC.
U.S. Federal Manuscript Census, 1910, Maryland. Microfilm. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC.
Interviews
Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project Interviews, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
Towson State College Oral History Program Interviews. Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.
245
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Federal Government Reports
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920. Vol. 2. Population: General Report and Analytical Tables. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1922.
______. Negro Population in the United States. 1790-1915. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918.
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U.S. Bureau of Labor. The Slums o f Baltimore. Chicago. New York, and Philadelphia. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1894.
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______. Twelfth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1900: Population. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1902.
U.S. Immigration Commission. Reports of the Immigration Commission. Chairman, William P. Dillingham. Vol. 4. Emigration Conditions in Europe. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1911.
______. Reports of the Immigration Commission. Chairman. William P. Dillingham. Vol. 5, Dictionary of Races or Peoples. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1911.
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______. Reports of the Immigration Commission. Chairman, William P. Dillingham. Vol. 18, Immigrants in Industries: The Floating Immigrant Labor Supply. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1911.
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U.S. Industrial Commission. Reports. Vol. IS, Reports of the Industrial Commission on Immigration: Including Testimony with Review and Digest Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1901; reprint New York: Amo, 1970.
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Baltimore Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor. Housing Conditions in Baltimore: Report of a Special Committee of the Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor and the Charity Organization Society. Submitting Results of an Investigation Made bv Janet E. Kemp. Baltimore, 1907.
BaltimoreCity Council First Branch Journal.
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Report of the Citizens' Relief Committee Appointed after the Great Baltimore Fire of February 7 and 8,1904. Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
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A Short History Showing How the Work of Rehabilitation and Improvement of the City of Baltimore Was Begun and Carried Through after the Great Fire of February 7 and 8, 1904, together with a List of the Members of the Emergency Committee and the Reports of the Subcommittees. Microfilm. Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Newspapers and Periodicals
Baltimore Afro-American Ledger
BaltimoreAmerican
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Baltimore Catholic Mirror
Baltimore Deutsche Correspondent
Baltimore Evening Sun
Baltimore Morning Herald
Baltimore Sun
Cleveland Gazette
Colored American Mapazine
Crisis : A Record o f the Darker Races
Huntsville fAlahamal Gazette
Indianapolis Freeman
New Orleans Daily Picayune
New Orleans Times-Democrat
New York D Progresso Italo-Americano
New York Times
New York Tribune
Outlook
Richmond Planet
Voice of the Negro
Washington Bee
Washington Evening Star
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 249
Books
Baimonte, John V. Jr. The Spirit of Vengeance: Nativism and Louisiana Justice, 1921- 1924. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986.
Barker, Danny. A f ife in Jaz? Edited by Alyn Shipton. London: Macmillan, 1986.
Barton, Josef. Peasants and Strangers: Italians. Rumanians, and Slovaks in an American Citv. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975.
Bayor, Ronald H. Neighbors in Conflict: The Irish. Germans. Jews, and Italians of New York Citv. 1929-1941. 2d ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988.
Bell, Rudolph M. Fate and Honor. Family and Village: Demographic and Cultural Change in Rural Italy Since 1800. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.
Berlin, Ira. Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.
Bodnar, John, Roger Simon, and Michael P. Weber. Lives of Their Own: Blacks.Italians, and Poles in Pittsburgh. 1900-1960. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982.
Bodnar, John. The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985.
Briggs, John W. An Italian Passage: Immigrants to Three American Cities 1890-1930. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978.
Browne, Gary Lawson. Baltimore in the Nation. 1789-1861. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980.
Brugger, Robert J. Maryland: A Middle Temperament 1634-1980. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.
Brundage, W. Fitzhugh. Lynching in the New South: Georgia and Virginia 1880-1930. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.
Callcott, Margaret Law. The Negro in Maryland Politics 1870-1912. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969.
The Church of St Leo the Great of Baltimore 1881-1981: The Heart of Little Italy. Baltimore: Church of St Leo the Great Press, 1981.
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Cinel, Dino. From Italy to San Francisco: The Immigrant Experience. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982.
Clark, Martin. Modem Italy 1871-1982. New York: Longman, Inc., 1984.
Cohen, William. At Freedom's Edge: Black Mobility and the Southern White Quest for Racial Control 1861-1915. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991.
Crooks, James B. Politics and Progress: The Rise of Urban Proeressivism in Baltimore. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968.
Cunz, Dieter, The Maryland Germans. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1948.
Daniel, Pete. The Shadow of Slavery: Peonage in the South. 1901-1969. Urbana: University o f Illinois Press, 1972; Mini Books ed., 1990.
Davis, David Brion. The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966.
Deupree, Robert The Wholesale Marketing of Fruits and Vegetables in Baltimore. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1939.
Diner, Hasia. fa the Almost Promised Land: American Jews and Blacks. 1915-1935. Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1977.
Dinnerstein, Leonard. The Leo Frank Case. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968.
Dinnerstein, Leonard, and Roger L. Nichols. Natives and Strangers: A Multicultural History ofAmericans. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Distinguished Men o f Baltimore. Baltimore: Baltimore American, 1914.
Dittmer, John. Black Georgia in the Progressive Era. 1900-1920. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977; Mini Books ed., 1980.
Dolan, Jay P. The Immigrant Church: New York's German and Irish Catholics. 1815- 1865. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983.
Douglas, Frederick. Life and Times of Frederick Douglas. With an Introduction by Rayford W. Logan. Reprinted from the Revised Edition of 1892. London: Collier- Macmillan Ltd., 1962.
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Du Bois, W. E. B. Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880. With an Introduction by David Levering Lewis. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1935; reprint, New York: Atheneum, 1992.
Dyer, Thomas G. Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980.
Ellis, John Tracy. The Life of James Cardinal Gibbons Archbishop of Baltimore 1834- 1921. 2 vols. Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1952.
Fields, Barbara J. Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland during the Nineteenth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.
Foerster, Robert F. The Italian Immigration o f Our Times. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1919; reprint, New York: Amo Press, 1969.
Foner, Eric. Nothin? But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983.
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Freeman, Ronald W. The Arabbers of Baltimore. Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1989.
Fredrickson, George M. The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro- American Character and Destiny. 1817-1914. New York: Harper and Row, 1971; Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1987.
Gillard, John T. The Catholic Church and the American Negro. Baltimore: St. Joseph's Society Press, 1929.
Glazer, Ira A., and P. William Filby, eds. Italians to America: Lists of Passengers Arriving at U.S. Ports. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1992.
Gottlieb, Peter. Making Their Own Wav: Southern Blacks' Migration to Pittsburgh. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987.
Grossman, James R. Land of Hone: Chicago. Black Southerners, and the Great Migration. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
Gutman, Herbert G. Work. Culture & Society in Industrializing America. New York: Vintage Books, 1977.
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Hansen, Marcus Lee. The Atlantic Migration 1607-1860. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940.
Harlan, Louis R., and Raymond W. Smocks, eds. The Booker T. Washington Paners. 14 vols. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972-89.
Henri, Florette. Black Migration: Movement North. 1900-1920. Garden Citv NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1975.
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Ignatiev, Noel. How the Irish Became White. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Johnson, Harvey. The White Man's Failure in Government Baltimore: Afro-American Co., 1900. Daniel Murray Pamphlet Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Jones, Jacqueline. Labor of Love. Labor of Sorrow: Black Women. Work and the Family from Slavery to the Present New York: Basic Books, 1985; New York: Vintage Books, 1986.
Jordan, Winthrop D. White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro. 1550- 1812. Baltimore: Pelican Books, 1969.
Kellogg, Charles F. A History of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 1909-1920. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967.
Kessner, Thomas. The Golden Door: Italian and Jewish Immigrant Mobility in New York Citv 1880-1915. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Kraut, Alan M. The Huddled Masses: The Immigrant in American Society. 1880-1920. Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1982.
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Lambert, John R. Arthur Pue Gorman. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1953.
Mink, Gwendolyn. Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development:
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Union. Party and State. 1875-1920. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Montgomery, David. The Fall of the House o f Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism. 1865-1925. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
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