From the Kingdom of Naples to Ellis Island
The events that pushed families out of southern Italy and shaped their lives in America. Every entry links to its source.
U.S. government data (persons admitted by country of last residence) record 267,660 arrivals from Italy in 1880-1889, 603,761 in 1890-1899, 1,930,475 in 1900-1909 and 1,229,916 in 1910-1919, about 4.03 million in all for 1880-1919.
The Library of Congress estimates about 300,000 Italian arrivals in the 1880s, 600,000 in the 1890s and more than two million in the following decade. By 1920 more than 4 million Italians had come to the United States.
Before the 1890s most Italian emigrants came from northern Italy. After 1890 most came from the Mezzogiorno: Abruzzo, Molise, Campania, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria, Sicily and Sardinia.
In the peak years 1898-1914, about 750,000 Italians emigrated each year (to all destinations).
Across the whole period 1876-1988, Italian statistics count about 26.8 million departures (espatriati). Slightly more than half went to other European countries.
The main Italian ports of embarkation were Genoa, Naples and Palermo. The main U.S. ports of entry were New York, Boston, Philadelphia and New Orleans.
- 1806-1808
French rule in the Kingdom of Naples
Napoleon's brother Joseph Bonaparte was proclaimed King of Naples on March 30, 1806. He abolished the remnants of feudalism and reorganized the judicial, financial and educational systems. When Joseph became king of Spain in 1808, Joachim Murat succeeded him in Naples.
italybritannica.com - 1809
Civil registration begins in southern Italy
Napoleonic civil registration (stato civile) began on the southern mainland in 1809. Every comune kept registers of births, marriages and deaths. For most southern towns these are the earliest civil records available.
italyfamilysearch.org - 1816
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
After the Bourbon restoration, King Ferdinand united Naples and Sicily as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in December 1816.
italybritannica.com - 1820
Civil registration begins in Sicily
The Bourbons reintroduced Napoleonic-style civil registration in the Kingdom of Naples in 1816. Records from this period are called the Stato Civile della Restaurazione, or 'Borbonico' in the South. Sicily had no Napoleonic civil records and adopted the system in 1820, so Sicilian civil registers generally begin that year.
italyfamilysearch.org - 1855
Castle Garden opens in New York
Castle Garden (today's Castle Clinton National Monument) was the main immigrant receiving station for New York from 1855 to 1890. More than 8 million immigrants entered through it.
usnps.gov - 1860
Garibaldi and the Thousand
Garibaldi's volunteers sailed from near Genoa in May 1860, landed at Marsala on May 11 and took Palermo, then entered Naples on September 7. Plebiscites held in Sicily and Naples in October and November overwhelmingly backed annexation.
italybritannica.com - 1861
Kingdom of Italy proclaimed
A parliament meeting in Turin officially proclaimed the Kingdom of Italy on March 17, 1861, with Victor Emmanuel II as king. Rome and Venetia were still outside the new state.
italybritannica.com - 1861
First national census
Italy's first census was taken on the night of December 31, 1861 to January 1, 1862. It counted 22,182,377 residents, or about 26 million including areas not yet annexed. Later censuses came roughly every ten years, with none in 1891 or 1941 and an extra one in 1936.
italyistat.it - 1866
Stato Civile Italiano
A uniform national civil registration system began in 1866, covering central and northern Italy as well as the South (Veneto followed in 1871). Records became more standardized, and printed forms were common by about 1875.
italyfamilysearch.org - 1866
Venetia joins Italy
After the 1866 war between Prussia and Austria, Austria gave up Venetia under the Peace of Vienna (October 3, 1866), and it was transferred to Italy.
italybritannica.com - 1870-1871
Rome becomes the capital
Italian troops entered Rome through the Porta Pia breach on September 20, 1870. Rome became the capital after a plebiscite in October 1870, and the king took up residence there in 1871.
italybritannica.com - 1876-1915
The Great Emigration in numbers
Italian official (ISTAT) series count about 5.26 million emigrants in 1876-1900 and 8.77 million in 1901-1915. About 5.18 million of the 1901-1915 departures went to countries outside Europe.
emigrationdocenti.unina.it - 1884
Cholera in Naples
A cholera epidemic killed more than 5,000 people in Naples in 1884.
italybritannica.com - 1887
Crispi's tariff and the trade war with France
The protective tariff of 1887 taxed imported grain and drove up food prices. France retaliated, and markets for Italian wine, silk, cattle and olive oil collapsed. The trade war lasted until 1898.
italybritannica.com - 1888
Transatlantic emigration surges
More than 200,000 Italians left for the Americas in search of work in 1888 alone, ten times as many as a decade earlier. Argentina, Brazil and the United States were the main destinations.
emigrationbritannica.com - 1890-1891
Federal government takes over immigration
In 1890 Congress ordered the Navy's powder magazine removed from Ellis Island and directed $75,000 toward immigration facilities. The Immigration Act of 1891 created a federal Bureau of Immigration. Castle Garden's role as New York's receiving station ended in 1890.
usnps.gov - 1892
Ellis Island opens
The federal immigration station on Ellis Island opened on January 1, 1892. Annie Moore of Ireland was the first immigrant processed, and over 400,000 immigrants passed through by the end of that year.
usnps.gov - 1901
Italy's emigration law
Law no. 23 of January 31, 1901 created the Commissariato Generale dell'Emigrazione (General Emigration Commission), attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to oversee emigration and protect emigrants.
emigrationesteri.it - 1906
Basic Naturalization Act
From September 27, 1906, every naturalization court used the same federal forms: Declaration of Intention, Petition for Naturalization and Certificate of Naturalization. A federal Naturalization Service, within the new Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, oversaw the courts. Duplicate records from this point on are held by USCIS.
- 1906-1907
Passenger manifests add birthplace and home-country relative
Manifests arriving in New York added a personal description and place of birth in 1906. In 1907 they added the name and address of the immigrant's nearest relative in the home country, a key clue for finding an Italian town of origin.
- 1907
Peak year of U.S. immigration
In fiscal year 1907, 1,285,349 immigrants were admitted to the United States, the highest annual total of the mass-migration era. Ellis Island examined about 1.2 million people that year.
- 1907-1911
Dillingham Commission
Congress created the Immigration (Dillingham) Commission in 1907. Its 41-volume report of 1911, perhaps the most extensive investigation of immigration in U.S. history, laid the foundation for decades of restrictive immigration policy.
- 1908
Messina-Reggio earthquake
On December 28, 1908 a magnitude 7.5 earthquake and tsunami nearly leveled Messina and Reggio di Calabria and killed more than 80,000 people.
italybritannica.com - 1915
Italy enters World War I
Italy signed the secret Treaty of London in April 1915, which promised it Austrian territory, and entered the war on the Allied side in May 1915.
worldkids.britannica.com - 1917
Literacy test for immigrants
The Immigration Act of 1917 required immigrants to be able to read and write in their native language, and the Immigration Service began giving literacy tests.
- 1917-1918
WWI draft registration
U.S. draft registrations on June 5, 1917, June 5, 1918 and September 12, 1918 (ages 18-45) produced about 24 million cards. The cards record birth date and place, citizenship and occupation.
- 1917-1918
Caporetto and Vittorio Veneto
Italy's decisive offensive at Vittorio Veneto (October 24 to November 4, 1918), seen as revenge for the 1917 disaster at Caporetto, ended the war on the Italian front. The Austro-Hungarian armistice took effect on November 4, 1918.
worldbritannica.com - 1921
Emergency Quota Act
The first numerical limit on immigration capped new arrivals from each nationality at 3% of that group's foreign-born population in the 1910 census, about 350,000 visas a year in total.
- 1922
Fascism takes power
After the Fascist 'March on Rome' in October 1922, King Victor Emmanuel III refused to declare martial law and asked Mussolini to form a government on October 29.
italybritannica.com - 1924
Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed)
The act cut quotas to 2% of each nationality's population in the 1890 census, sharply limiting southern and eastern Europeans, and required immigrants to obtain visas from U.S. consulates abroad.
- 1924
Italy's quota: 3,845
President Coolidge's proclamation of June 30, 1924 set Italy's annual quota under the new law at 3,845. The figure included Rhodes, the Dodecanese and Castellorizo.
- 1940
Alien Registration Act
Every non-citizen aged 14 or older living in or entering the U.S. had to be registered and fingerprinted. More than 5.6 million AR-2 forms were completed between August 1, 1940 and March 31, 1944.
- 1940
Italy enters World War II
Mussolini declared war on Britain and France on June 10, 1940.
worldbritannica.com - 1941
Italians become 'enemy aliens'
Presidential Proclamation 2527 of December 8, 1941 classed Italian nationals who were not U.S. citizens as enemy aliens. More than 600,000 people faced registration, travel limits and confiscation of property such as radios.
- 1941
Italy declares war on the United States
After Italy declared war on the United States, diplomatic relations were severed and the U.S. Embassy in Rome closed on December 11, 1941. Relations were restored on October 16, 1944.
worldhistory.state.gov - 1942
The 'Old Man's Draft'
The Fourth Registration on April 27, 1942 enrolled men born between 1877 and February 16, 1897 (ages 45-64). It was a manpower inventory, not a draft for military service.
- 1942
Enemy alien status lifted for Italians
From February 24, 1942, nearly 10,000 Italian immigrants on the West Coast were forced out of restricted zones. On October 12, 1942 (Columbus Day), Attorney General Francis Biddle removed Italians from enemy alien status.
- 1946
Italy becomes a republic
In the referendum of June 2, 1946, 12,718,641 votes (54.27%) chose a republic over the monarchy. The republican constitution took effect on January 1, 1948.
italyquirinale.it - 1954
Ellis Island closes
The last detained immigrants left Ellis Island on November 12, 1954, and the ferry made its last run on November 29, 1954.
usnps.gov - 1965
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
President Johnson signed the act at the base of the Statue of Liberty on October 3, 1965. It abolished the national-origins quota system established in the 1920s.
More about the emigration
Steerage passengers often spent up to two weeks seasick in their bunks during rough Atlantic crossings. On arrival in New York, steerage passengers were ferried to Ellis Island for inspection, while first- and second-class passengers were inspected on board.
For immigrants in good health with their papers in order, Ellis Island inspection took about 3 to 5 hours. Only about 2% of arrivals were excluded, mainly for contagious disease or because they were judged likely to become a public charge or were illegal contract laborers.
Return migration was common. Between 30 and 50 percent of this generation of Italian immigrants returned to Italy within five years, where they were known as 'ritornati'.
Southern Italian immigrants often settled by village of origin. Sometimes the population of a single Italian village lived on the same New York block or even in the same tenement, reflecting campanilismo, loyalty to those who live within the sound of the village church bells.
Labor brokers called padroni, sometimes immigrants themselves, recruited Italian workers for large employers. Italian workers spread to docks, mines and quarries across the country, from San Francisco to Appalachia, New England and Indiana.
Chain migration shaped Italian communities. In Paterson, New Jersey, the Library of Congress traces the growth of a community from Montescaglioso (Basilicata) on 21st Avenue to this practice.
In 1920 New York City had 390,832 residents born in Italy: 47.2% lived in Manhattan, 35.4% in Brooklyn, 10.1% in the Bronx, 5.1% in Queens and 2.2% on Staten Island.
Around 1900 most immigrants, and more than half of New York City's population, lived in crowded tenement buildings.