Italian Community Organizations and The Patria e Lavoro Society of Beverly, MA

Of the ethnic groups that immigrated to Beverly at the turn of the century, the Italian-Americans were the largest in number.  This period saw the formation of several Italian community organizations.  A major purpose of organizations such as the Patria E Lavoro Society was to help aid arriving immigrants in their struggle to become Americans.  Who were the Italian Americans who founded these groups?

At the turn of the 20th-Century, Italian citizens came to the United States in droves.  These, typically, unskilled laborers came to their new home only to face prejudice and poverty.  One of the solutions for these characteristically social people was to set up community organizations, which would be established to help the plight of their fellow Italian immigrants.  Such organization can be found in communities all along the east coast, including Beverly Massachusetts.  The Patria e Lavoro Society (Work and Labor Society) of Beverly is one such society.  It was established in 1912 with the “desire to promote the moral, intellectual and material welfare of men of Italian origin and descent residing in Beverly…”[1]This society is much like many others across the country in that it enabled its members to help themselves.

In the late Nineteenth-Century there was a great wave of Italian citizens immigrating into the United States.  The first of these immigrants left from northern Italy for such reasons as: avoidance of military service, the pursuit of religious freedom, political asylum or economic opportunity. These people usually went no farther than central or western Europe. Although the living conditions in the Southern section of Italy, all areas south of Rome, were far worse those people didn’t begin to emigrate until far later.  This is because these people were typically poor, conservative and ignorant, not being capable of imagining a life elsewhere.  However, after the political unification of northern and southern Italy the northern exploitation of the south and the population pressure gave the southern no choice but to leave.  The obvious choice of residence was the United States because of low cost to travel there and because of the higher wages.[2]

The Italian immigrants to the United States typically settled in urban areas in cities of the Middle Atlantic States and New England.  Large groups also set roots in Chicago Illinois and a few areas in California.  The United States Census of 1910 classified eighty percent of all Italian immigrants as urban.[3]

Characteristically, immigrants from the same village settled in the same neighborhoods in the United States.  The Italian Immigrants socialized only within themselves and became self-contained.[4]   They organized themselves in this way for different reasons such as: safety against prejudice and violence, their preference for a close-knit community, a remembrance of their past lives in Italy, and for employment opportunity.

It was in these conditions that Italian community organization formed across the country, including Beverly Massachusetts.  Any given United States city usually had about 100 mutual aide societies each from a different province or village in Italy. However later these groups were based on ethnic background, not on native village.  They came into existence because the Italian people frowned upon charitable institutions.[5]  In Southern Italy the family would provide the individual with everything he might need.[6] But because the large family unit usually did not travel with the average immigrant, they set up mutual aide societies.

Thirty-Five states in the United States, in 1910, contained Italian American communities.  Each community contained dozens of Italian societies.  In the United States 1,116 registered societies existed; to name a few 453 in New York State, 113 in New Jersey, 147 in Pennsylvania, thirty-one in Illinois, thirty-five in Michigan, thirty-three in California and in Connecticut respectively, twenty-seven in Ohio, twenty in Texas, thirteen in Washington and seventy-two in Massachusetts, to name a few.[7]

Boston Massachusetts had quite a few societies among its population.  These organizations, such as The Association for Protecting Italian Workmen and the Italian Workmen’s Association, centered around the employment and industrial aspects of Italian Immigrant lives.  The latter group formed “for the purpose of ameliorating the condition of Italian workmen in the City of Boston and its vicinity and especially with the design of making an organized effort to correct the abuses under which these laborers are suffering through the padrone system…”[8]

The Padrone system mentioned is the governing of labor bosses who would greet Italian immigrants upon their arrival to the United States.  These individuals would help in the search for employment, collected their wages and acted as a higher authority during disputes, often in a corrupt system.[9]

The early societies, those established before 1900, recruited its members on the basis of the native town or province from which they emigrated in Italy.[10]  These early groups were small, financially unstable and short lived.   Organizations “sprang up” quickly only to go bankrupt in a short amount of time.  The names of these early societies were usually named for the Italian Village from whence its member emigrated or for the patron society of their village in Italy.[11] However, after a few decades, period following 1900, these small unites combined or merged.  The result was larger societies with membership based on Italian heritage or decent rather than any specific village or province.[12]

The area of Italy from which the original members emigrated has yet to be determined.  The members’ appearance in the 1910 Census, marriage certificates, voter registration, death certificates, and children’s birth certificates all name Italy as their place of birth but does not specify the exact location. It is also difficult to trace these members’ lives because most of them didn’t reside in Beverly at the time of their death. Only three names can be found in the Beverly Death Index, Angelo Consolazio, Casimaro Guarino, and Antonio Renzi.

It is suspected that the Society was not based on a particular area of Italy.  The Society states in its preamble it is open for men of “Italian origin and decent” nowhere does it mention in its preamble or meeting minutes a particular area of Italy.  Anthony Wittwicki, a present member of the Patria e Lavoro Society, recalls friendly bantering among the original members with regards to which village or province they derived.  These insults, based on the differentiating areas of Italy, is a clear sign that the Patria e Lavoro Society was founded not by a group of immigrants from the same village, but rather from the same neighborhood in Beverly.  In the 1910 United States Census all of the original members appear as living between 137 and 276 Rantoul Street with the exception of two members living on Park and Federal Streets, streets off of Rantoul.

It is likely that the majority of the Patria e Lavoro members came from Southern Italy.  Not only did most of them arrive in Beverly at the same time as most Southern Italians immigrated, but they are all blue collar workers as Southern Italians typically are.  Antonio Renzi, the first Vice-Recording Secretary was born in San Giovanni Italy.  This community, in southern Italy, is above what would be considered the “heel” of the country of Italy.

Mutual aide societies, such as the Patria e Lavoro, provided its members with benefits that otherwise would have been unavailable.  The organization also offered activities of a social nature for its members.[13]  One tenth of the Italian population belonged to such organizations in 1900, the percentage of the heads of households being far greater.  The societies protected members and their families who might have fallen victim to industrial accidents, sickness or death.  The goal of the Patria e Lavoro Society, as stated in its Preamble, was to improve the lives of its members in a moral and financial way.

The leadership of the Italian societies is a major characteristic.  Most societies formed and dissolved following the rise and fall of jealousies and the private interests of its presidents or high-ranking officers.[14]  The Patria e Lavoro Society didn’t fall victim to this trend as it has been in existence for the past eighty-eight years.

It is an Italian trait to be reluctant to take a leader-follower, or in this case an officer-member, role.  This is because it would detract from the individuality function of the group.  Thus only a highly charismatic and successful leader would be able to attract follower and retain his position.[15]  The Patria e Lavoro had such a leader in Gaetano Izzo.  By investigating the Beverly City Directory of 1912 one can see that Izzo had the highest skilled working class occupation, hairdresser.  He purchased a half page add, the biggest of any member advertising their small business, boasting the finest equipment in the City of Beverly.[16]  Enigmatic looking individual seems to have own technologically advanced machinery and his large add points to a thriving business.

Italian leaders, those who were successful in business, often joined business, trade and other community associations.  High-ranking member of the Patria e Lavoro Society were no exception to this trend.  Antonio Renzi, a founder and charter member, also belonged to the Beverly lodge of Elks and the Mason and Bricklayers Union.[17]  Angelo Consolazio and Casimero Guarino, both founding members, held membership in the Gabrielle D’Annunzio Lodge, Sons of Italy18 and the Italian Republican Club of Beverly, respectively.[18]  Others joined the chamber of commerce, the Kiwanis, or the Knights of Columbus.  Many Italian society leaders were appointed to serve on welfare boards because they had an interest in the well-being of less fortunate Italian Americans as seen in their involvement with Italian organizations.  Such individuals were expected to donate time and money, because of their higher socio-economic bracket, in the advancement of the common cause.  The majority of these men had little education but worked their way up the ladder with hard work, determination and shrewd common sense.[19]  Patria e Lavoro officials held similar occupational backgrounds as seen in the 1912 City Directory, they held jobs such as hairdresser, bricklayer, carpenter, shoe repairer, barbers, and grocer.

Today the Patria e Lavoro Society allows its members to keep in touch with their routes.  Although the society doesn’t need to provide its members with life insurance and sick benefits it does continue with a few activities.  Once a month on Sunday mornings the members gather at the Italian Community Center on Rantoul Street in Beverly.  There they are greeted with Italian cookies, Uncle Toms Whiskey, coffee and a fraternal hand. They continue to serve the City’s poor by sponsoring dinners and have had a scholarship for high school seniors.  The scholarship and dinners are available to all although to be an officer a member must have an Italian surname.  The Patria e Lavoro Society is still in existence and contributing to the citizens of Beverly because of the proud, intelligent and hardworking members from 1912 to the present day.