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The New-York Historical Society / The John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Published 1999. Hardcover, xiii, 177 pp.; 27 cm; illustrated with black-and-white and color photographs, paintings, documents and ephemera throughout; frontispiece of Attilio Piccirilli's 1908 sculpture The Friendless Immigrant; jacket design by Steven Kalalian; printed in Italy by Mondadori. No ISBN printed in the book.
In Very Good condition with a Very Good dust jacket. Black cloth boards with gray lettering on spine, mild bumping to corners and edges, mild edge and shelf wear with a hint of color loss along edges. Binding tight. Faint crease down the middle of the first few leaves through the forward; otherwise pages are clean and unmarked. Pictorial dust jacket (Ellis Island family photograph, New York Public Library, with Tony Soracci at the Statue of Liberty on rear panel) shows a few small nicks and short tears, light creasing along edges, mild shelf wear with light scuffing and soiling overall. Now in an archival quality (removable) Brodart cover. Catalog of the landmark exhibition co-sponsored by the New-York Historical Society and the Calandra Institute (Queens College/CUNY) and shown at the Society October 8, 1999 to February 20, 2000, the first major presentation of Italian American history at a leading New York cultural institution. Its success led directly to the chartering of the Italian American Museum in 2001. Cannistraro, Distinguished Professor of Italian American Studies at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center and author of Blackshirts in Little Italy, curated the exhibition and edited this volume. Fourteen essays by leading scholars trace the story from Verrazzano through the Great Migration to the Little Italies of the 1990s, with forewords by Betsy Gotbaum, Joseph V. Scelsa, and principal sponsor Paul D. Pope (grandson of Il Progresso publisher Generoso Pope). More than 100 plates drawn from the N-YHS, NYPL, Library of Congress, George Eastman House, the Daily News, and family collections; sources and full exhibition committee and sponsor lists at rear. Contents: Acknowledgments; Forwards (Betsy Gotbaum, Joseph V. Scelsa, Paul D. Pope); Preface (Philip V. Cannistraro); The Italians of New York: An Historical Overview (Cannistraro); Lorenzo Da Ponte (Judith Pearlman); Luigi Palma di Cesnola (Frank Alduino and David Coles); Peopling "Little Italy" (Donna R. Gabaccia); Italian East Harlem (Gerald Meyer); The Religious Life of Italians in New York (Peter D'Agostino); Italian Immigrant Radicalism in New York (Nunzio Pernicone); Italian/American Writers of New York (Fred Gardaphe); Italian American Women's Activism in New York (Jennifer Guglielmo); New York City and the Representation of Italian Americans in the Cinema (Giorgio Bertellini); Fiorello H. La Guardia (Thomas Kessner); Italian Americans and the 1940s (Gary R. Mormino and George E. Pozzetta); New York's Little Italies, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow? (Jerome Krase); Photo Sources; Exhibition Committees; Exhibition Sponsors.