EXAMINING PATTERNS OF ITALIAN IMMIGRATION TO ...

in a fire. The census of 1870 is the first year examined because before that time the presence
of Italians in the county is almost irrelevant. 18 The last year is 1930 because it is the last
census available to the public, and it is evident that global recession and Depression slowed
emigration from Europe.
Individuals who were born in Italy, individuals who were not born in Italy but with at
least one Italian parent or grandparent, individuals with Italian surnames, or individuals with
varying nationalities, married to one of the previous, are included in the Italian community.
Previous studies about Italian immigrants to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan stated
general patterns about their regions of provenience. According to the works of Professor
Rudolph Vecoli and Professor Russell Magnaghi, Italians coming from different regions of
Italy settled in different counties of the Upper Peninsula. Gogebic County Italians were
mainly from Piedmont, Abruzzo, Sicily and Tyrol 19 . Menominee County Italians mostly came
from the province of Venice. In Dickinson County there were people from Tyrol, Abruzzo,
and Lombardy. Iron County Italians mostly came from Umbria, Marches, Abruzzo, and Tyrol.
Houghton County Italians mostly came from the regions of Piedmont, Tuscany, and
Lombardy (see Figure III, p. 26). 20
In 1912 Attilio Castigliano, Italian consul in Duluth 21 , Minnesota, wrote in a report
published in the Bollettino dell’Emigrazione, the official publication of the Commissariato per
l’Emigrazione 22 , that
“The Italian colony of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is one of the oldest Italian colonies of
the central states of the North American Federation. In fact our workers, mainly piemontesi
and toscani, started to work, in big numbers, in the copper mines of Calumet, Michigan, since
the beginning of the mines themselves, that is about fifty years ago […] Most of the Italians in
the Copper Country came from Piemonte and more specifically from Canavese; numerous are
18
The census of 1860 enumerates four Italians: Joseph Gatan, Joseph Coppo, Vital Coppo, and Bart Quello.
19
Tyrol is not an administrative region of Italy, it is an area bordering Austria in which Italian and Austrian
culture mixes.
20
Magnaghi, M. Russell. “Italians in the Upper Peninsula”. In James M. Anderson and Iva A. Smith (eds),
Ethnic Groups in Michigan Vol. 2, The People of Michigan. Detroit: Ethnos Press, 1983, p. 173.
21
The Upper Peninsula of Michigan was under the jurisdiction of the Regia Agenzia Consolare (Royal Consular
Agency) of Duluth. The Lower Peninsula was under the jurisdiction of the Regia Agenzia Consolare of Detroit.
22
See Chapter I about Commissariato dell’Emigrazione and Bollettino dell’Emigrazione.
12