Explorers Emigrants Citizens: A Visual History of the Italian American Experience

For this book, the authors have selected 500 images related to the rich history of Italian Americans from the Library of Congress's holdings of photographs, maps, posters, letters, films, and sound recordings. The book's narration is supported by never-before-seen images and offers a fresh and original perspective on the whole experience of Italians in America, from Columbus until today. It shows the accomplishments of well-remembered individuals such as Fiorello LaGuardia, Vince Lombardi, Martin Scorsese, but goes deeper to rediscover people like Giacomo Beltrami, who reached the sources of the Mississippi in 1823 and Joe Petrosino, the first Italian American police officer to lose his life fighting organised crime. Through photographs of Lewis Hine and others, we see how Italians lived in slums in Eastern cities, in fields and mines in rural America; finally, we see how Italians portrayed America through the works of artists like Carlo Gentile, who photographed south-western Native A

Linda Barrett Osborne is a fourth generation Italian American. A former senior writer and editor with the Library of Congress's Publishing Office, she is the author of several books on American history. Her latest book is Miles to Go for Freedom - Segregation and Civil Rights in the Jim Crow Years.

Paolo Battaglia is an Italian author of illustrated history books such as Un Italiano nella Cina dei Boxer (2000) a photographic account of the Boxer rebellion in China; Frammenti di Guerra (2005) the photographic history of World War II in northern Italy, and New York In & Out (2008) on a 1912 photographic journey to New York.

Antonio Canovi has written on Italian emigration to Northern Europe and to America in books such as Altri modenesi andPianure migranti (2009).

Mario Mignone, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor, is the founder and Director of the Centre for Italian Studies. He also founded the Association of Italian American Educators. Among his many publications are: Columbus: Meeting of Cultures (1993) and Italy Today: Facing the Challenges of the New Millennium. (2008)