Italians fleeing from abortive revolts against Austria started coming as early as 1820. Immigration during the 40 years before the World War was made up predominantly of Italians and Greeks and the peoples of the Slavic countries of eastern Europe: Poles, Lithuanians and Letts, Roumanians, Russians, and Russian Jews. These filled the steerages of westbound ships and were filtered through Ellis Island.

 Many of these newcomers, especially the Italians, regarded coming to America as a temporary adventure from which they would return home with pockets full of money. Some did carry out that plan, but the vast majority became rooted in the new world. The flood of Italian immigration reached its crest in 1907, when 300,000 passed through the port of New York. They settled mainly along the water-level route from New York City to Buffalo.

Albany

During the last decades of the century Italians were attracted by labor opportunities. Several of the city's largest manufacturing plants were established in the seventies and eighties.

Buffalo

Buffalo's 80,000 Italians, predominantly of Sicilian extraction, are represented in almost every type of commercial endeavor and share with the Poles the heavy labor in steel mills and iron foundries. Italian singing societies have long played an important part in the city's cultural life.

New Rochelle

In the poorer sections of the city live 5,000 descendants of the Italian laborers imported in the eighties to lay railroad lines.

New York City (Manhattan)

The immigration waves of the 1880's and the 1890's brought in Jews and Italians. The lower East side stretches along the east of Chinatown, from Brooklyn Bridge to 14th street. With the Bowery, the East Side is a notorious slum district. Here are tens of thousands of Jews and Italians and thousands of other ethnic groups, such as Poles, Greeks, Russians, Spaniards, Lithuanians, and a scattering of Turks, Persians, and Chinese. A concentrated melting pot of the Nation's immigrants. Italian Harlem, bordering the East River opposite Ward's and Randall's Islands, has a population of 150,000 living in an area of one square mile, the most densely populated section of Manhattan. It is the largest colony of Italian-Americans in the country. Half the families had no income in 1937. During prohibition years it was the center of gang leaders. Social organizations, among them Harlem House, have exercised a reforming influence.

The southern end of Brooklyn is Italian. In Richmond, Staten Island, scattered along the north and northeast shores are ship-building yards, lumber mills, printing and publishing plants, and a large soap and oil plant. Italians are grouped in the industrial areas.

Niagara Falls

About one third of the city's population is of foreign stock, with Italians and Poles, who supply most of the labor in these factories, predominating.

Rochester

Rochester's 55,000 Italians, less compact as a racial group than those in other cities, work in many industries, including clothing and shoe manufacture.

Schnectady

The Italians are concentrated around the locomotive works at the northern end of Erie Boulevard. For several years Schnectady was an important railroad center, with short lines branching out to Saratoga, Utica and Troy. But as soon as most of these roads were combined with others westward to form the New York Central, Schenectady became just another stop on the New York-Buffalo run. It was during this early period of railroad development, in 1848, that the first locomotive factory, financed by local capital, was organized. Italian laborers were imported in the 1870's to build the West Shore Railroad.

Syracuse

In Syracuse the Italians dominate the city's north side and are employed in the steel mills, chemical plants, and clothing factories. The Italians have their own business section along North State and North Salina Streets.

Troy

Italians between 1860 and 1910, settled in the city supplying the labor for railroad construction and municipal improvements.

Utica

In Utica, where they occupy a distinct district, they are principally knitting mill workers. There are 13,000 Italians in this city. The Italian section in northeast Utica, a distinct air of the homeland prevails. Weddings are gala affairs; at funerals files of marchers tramp to the dirge of a muffled band; and Saints' days are celebrated with parades and fireworks. The textile industry, the backbone of Utica's economic structure, began with the opening of the woolen mills in 1847, and of the cotton mills in 1848. The manufacture of locomotive headlights was started in 1851, of steam gauges in 1861, of firearms in 1862, of knit goods in 1863. The manufacture of worsted and caps was started in 1886. A wave of Italian immigration, attracted by the varied industries, reached its crest in 1910.

Yonkers

Plays a double role as a residential suburb for New York City commuters and as an important manufacturing center. The foreign groups of the industrial city, representing 28 nationalities and employed mostly in the mills and factories, comprise 25 per cent of the population. The more recent Italian, Slav and Polish arrivals outnumber the earlier Irish, Scotch and German groups. These newcomers hold the balance of power in elections and take an absorbing interest in sports. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Yonkers enjoyed a national reputation for the products of its looms, spindles, and machine shops. New industries were added and attracted Italians as well as other nationalities.

Silver Creek (northern end of the Chautauqua grape belt.)

In the years of the early grape boom, grape culture was wholly in the hands of American farmers, but Italian immigrants were attracted to an industry familiar to them in the homeland. They flocked to the grape belt, bought and paid for their farms, and within a few years increased the output of wine. Grape harvesting, while it involves hard work, has about it a carnival spirit. Thousands of pickers would come in trailers and remain for the season; others come out daily from the near-by cities.

Herkimer

It is an industrial center and a shipping point for dairy products. The town is divided by the New York Central tracks into the north side and south side; most of the large Polish and Italian population, generally factory workers, live on the south side. A well-known member of the Italian community is Lou Ambers, ex-lightweight boxing champion, known to the sporting fraternity as the Herkimer Hurricane; after his victories Ambers is welcomed home with a parade, band, and fireworks.

Canastota

The village is one of the onion-growing centers of the State. The surrounding muckland region, a rich black soil four to five feet deep, is especially adapted to the intensive cultivation of onions, and also lettuce, celery, and cabbage. Much of the onion crop (in 1938 it amounted to more than a million and a quarter bushels), is produced by Italian sharecroppers, who work the land and share 50-50 with the owner. Most of them are Italian immigrants. A sharecropper family of five or six members can earn $1,000 in a good season.

Mount Vernon

It was developed as a refuge for industries and commuters escaping the high rents in New York City. The 115 industries of the city turn out clothing, chemicals, beverages, weather strips and screens, electrical equipment, dyes, machinery, and metal products. Many of the workers are of Italian origin.
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While attempting to keep alive its racial heritage, the Italians have contributed their share to our American culture. The Italians have been largely responsible for the addition of Columbus Day to our calendar of holidays and the delight of spaghetti to our tables. Italians bedeck city streets with flags and bunting to celebrate Saints' days.