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Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Alter MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/321-0600 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 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS 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 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLES 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