Реферат: Immigrant Communities A Look At 4

as factory and textile workers in New England, miners in

Illinois, and cigar makers in various parts of the country.

Since most men were without their families, they were able to

migrate and move around in order to find work. Like the Germans,

Italian women stayed at home, and they earned an income by doing

piecework from factories or mending clothing. They took care of

the children, who were often sent out to work at a very early

age.

The large Italian communities developed in areas such as

Chicago and New York. In Chicago, a well known Italian

neighborhood was located around Hull House, which helped

immigrant women adapt to their new lives. Italians in New York

lived in more spread out communities, most in Manhattan,

Brooklyn, and the Bronx. An interesting thing to note about

Italian immigrants is that they usually set up their homes very

geographically similar to those they had in their home country.

For example, the people that a family lived by in Italy were also

most often their neighbors in America. Although this was not

always true, in most cases people formed communities with the

same people they had known before they immigrated.

Italians were also much more family oriented than German or

Irish immigrants. Families and neighborhoods were very

close-knit, and everyone tried to help out everyone else as much

as possible. The majority of Italian immigrants were Catholic,

and they took their religion and beliefs very seriously. The

church was often the backbone of the neighborhood, and it brought

everyone together and got them involved. Men were sometimes

involved in local unions and politics, but it was not as

important to them as Irish or German men. Taverns were usually