Certainly not one of the most Italian cities in the United States, Milwaukee nevertheless has a definite Italian flavor which comes from the thousands of immigrants from Sicily and the length of the boot who arrived over the past 150 years.
The earliest Italians in Wisconsin were Catholic missionaries in the northwest territories in the 17th & 18th centuries; men like Giuseppe Cataldo, Gregorio Mengarini and Antonio Ravalli. One of them, Samuele Mazzuchelli built the state's first Catholic church in 1831 in Green Bay and went on to found more churches in the upper Midwest.
Although a Tuscan named Michele Biagi arrived in 1860 and became the city's first permanent Italian resident, the majority of Milwaukee's Italians would hail from Sicily and many of them from Porticello, a fishing village on the island's north coast, near Palermo. Others were from Bagheria and Santo Stefano di Camastra in the province of Messina.
These Italians really began to move into the Third Ward after the 1892 fire that decimated the neighborhood, leaving about 2,000 people without homes. Many of them, mostly Irish, left for Tory Hill and Merrill Park. Historian Mario Carini writes in his book "Milwaukee's Italians:The Early Years," that Agostino Catalano, who arrived in 1884, was the first Italian in the ward.
But there were other Italian clusters, too. In Walker's Point, around 2nd & National, a group of northern and central Italians built a small community. On 9th & State was a group of Italian-Austrians who found work in the nearby breweries.
In Bay View, many men from Piemonte and the Marches arrived to work in the rolling mills, bringing their families over to join them later. According to Carini there were some 1,000 such Italians in Bay View.
Although by 1905, the Third Ward Sicilians had a church of their own, the Blessed Virgin of Pompei on Jackson Street, dubbed the "little pink church," Bay View's Italians mostly attended the Irish-heavy Immaculate Conception, where they received less than a hearty welcome.
Protestant missionaries were quick to try and capitalize on these sorts of problems and mission churches opened in the Third Ward and Bay View, where a Seventh Day Adventist mission was located at Russell and Wentworth. By 1925, according to Carini, there were five such churches.
The most famous was the Third Ward church led by August Giuliani, who came from the Lazio region, north of Rome. Giuliani, a former Catholic priest, had become a Methodist evangelist and with his first wife Katherine Eyerick -- and later his second wife Maude Richter -- tried to lure Catholics with English classes and other benefits. He met with little success, although one of his faithful was John Anello, who would later play a major role in Milwaukee's Florentine Opera Company and Bel Canto Chorus.
Giuliani also played a part in the West Allis Italian community that sprang up as Sicilians left the Third Ward in hopes of landing jobs at West Allis' heavy industrial works. Giuliani bought 75 lots and dubbed his "neigborhood" Villa Marconi (after the great inventor, whose son Giuliani claimed to have baptized).
But what Giuliani is best known for is his role in what would be the worst loss of law enforcement life until September 11, 2001. In September 1917 Giuliani led "patriotic" -- but also evanglestic, of course -- marches in Bay View that stirred the ire of the neighborhood's Catholics as well as local anti-war sentiment. Trouble broke out at one march and two Italians were killed by police on the corner of Potter and Wentworth, outside what is now Mama DeMarini's.
Two months later, a cleaning woman discovered a suspicious package at Giuliani's Third Ward church and when the police didn't arrive, a young man from the congregation carried it to the Central Police Station on Wells and Broadway, where it exploded, killing 10 people, including one civilian woman.
In the wake of the bombing there were indiscriminate round-ups of Milwaukee Italians and anti-Italian and anti-immigrant sentiment ran high.
Within the Italian communities, mutual aid societies were formed, much like societies that existed in Italy to help defray the costs of life's darker moments. While many of the societies in Italy were politically based, the American socities were usually apolitical, although some were religious, like the Madonna del Lume Society.
In Milwaukee, 19 mutual aid societies were incorporated by 1928. The first was Galileo Galilei Society, founded in 1884. Some societies still exist today, including the Veneto Society and the Garibaldi Society, incorporated in 1908.
Members paid an initiation fee and then monthly dues of usually less than a dollar. They received benefits when they were unable to work due to illness or injury and the society paid a lump sum to help underwrite each member's funeral.
The societies also provided brotherhood and socializing events. Some exclusively male societies had correspondng women's societies, like the Garibaldi Society's Anita Garibaldi Society.
Throughout the 20th century, Milwaukee's Italians became more and more integrated and when "urban renewal" came to Milwaukee in the 1960s, the Third Ward was targeted. The community was ousted and their homes demolished to make room for a freeway and empty lots. Much of the community headed north to the Brady Street area, but not before The Caradaro Club, located on Erie & Broadway, reportedly introduced pizza to Milwaukee after World War II!
{INSERT_RELATED}In 1978, Festa Italiana debuted on the Summerfest grounds in the Third Ward and 12 years later, the Italian Community Center built a new building there and relocated its headquarters from the easy side, returning home.
From Father Groppi to the work of brilliant craftsmen and the dark days of the Milwaukee mob, there's plenty more to know about Milwaukee's Italian community. To learn more, read Mario A. Carini's "Milwaukee's Italians: The Early Years," available from the Italian Community Center, 631 E. Chicago St., Milwaukee, WI 53202.
The Milwaukee Public Library also has a few books available in its reference section: "Contadini and Pescatori in Milwaukee," by John A. Andreozzi, George LaPiana's 1915 book "The Italians in Milwaukee, Wisconsin: A General Survey" and a collection of documents assembled by MPL called "Milwaukee's Italian Heritage." UWM's Golda Meir Library also has transcripts of oral interviews conducted with Milwaukee Italians.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
