I'm wondering if anyone knows of a good book to explain the reason so many Italians left Italy for the United States in the early 1900's? My own grandparents left Abruzzo and came to the U.S. in 1918 and 1920, but my dad never could give me a good answer as to why.
In lots of cases there was no food and poverty. Also the stories of the streets being paved with gold. When they got here they found the streets were not paved with gold, there were not even paved and they wanted the Italians to pave them. Lots of Italians went back. If you play at the genealogy game long enough you will see lots of that 40-50%.
There are plenty of good books on this subject if you look around.
Italysearcher wrote:Hunger is a powerful motivator. Money arriving from overseas to support family members left behind looks very good.
Agriculture has always been a prime industry in Italy. It did not have a famine and it's people were never starving as the Irish were. To this day, economic conditions could collapse but Italians would always have enough food on their tables.
Lack of work in Italy was always the prime motivator for Italians to move to America.