r as traders or as sailors. The other Italians who settled in the colonies were mostly artisans who possessed skills not found among the English settlers. In this respect, the Italians in the colonies played a role similar to that of their countrymen who had settled in England. This situation continued through the end of the Eighteenth Century, as the United States gained its independence from Great Britain (Schiavo, 1934, pp. 128-202).
Italian immigration to the United States accelerated in the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, as unrest in the Italian states followed the Napoleonic Wars. There are few reliable statistics as to how many Italians immigrated before the Civil War, although it has been suggested that as many as 80,000 may have arrived in the United States (Schiavos, 1934, pp. 203-10). The big explosion in Italian immigration occurred in the years following the Civil War, especially between 1890 and 1920. Almost four million Italians entered the United States as permanent residents during this last time period, until highly restrictive immigration laws were enacted during the early years of the 1920s (Nelli, 1970, p. 77).
Like most European immigrants during the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, most Italians in the United States settled in large urban areas, such as New York, Chicago, and Boston. As did other immigrant groups, the Italian immigrants settled in neighborhoods already occupied by previous Italian immigrants; thus, "Little Italys" developed in most large American cities. People who had lived together in certain Italian and Sicilian villages began to mingle with the ex-residents of other villages. As they came into contact with growing numbers of non-Italians, they developed an Italian identity within the American context. At the same time, intermarriage between the Italian immigrants (and their children) and other ethnic groups slowly increased. This last development slowly b...