Italians in Chicago Project Records

Abstract

Oral history transcripts from interviews with Italian Americans in Chicago; the project was based at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Biographical/Historical

The Italians in Chicago Project was a two-year, multi-faceted program undertaken by the Department of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle. The National Endowment for the Humanities provided the funding, for the purpose of documenting the Italian American experience in Chicago. The project included oral history interviews, a symposia series and an exhibition at the Chicago Public Library Cultural Center.

Scope and Contents

For the oral history component of the project, 114 Italian Americans of various generations were interviewed. These taped interviews were then transcribed and assembled into booklets. This collection is comprised of copies of these transcripts.

Arrangement

Each transcript is bound separately. The interviews are identified by the subject's name, neighborhood and alpha/numeric code. The transcripts have been arranged alphabetically. Only a few are missing numbers 8, 10, 22, 67 and 70.

Twelve photographs are also included. These are copy prints of images presumably held at the University of Illinois at Chicago (see Related Material note below) and used in an exhibit at the Cultural Center co-sponsored by CPL in 1981. These photos were added to the collection in 2018.

Subjects

• Italian Americans — Illinois — Chicago
• Italians — Illinois — Chicago — History
• Chicago Metropolitan Area (Ill.) — Social conditions — 20th century

Related Material

Other repositories for these transcripts are the Chicago Historical Society, the Italian Cultural Center and the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota. The archival collection, which resulted from this project (photos, documents and artifacts), is housed in the Manuscript Department at the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle Library.

Collection Inventory