PhD thesis defence by Gilberto Mazzoli
This dissertation explores Italian migration to the United States at the turn of the twentieth century through the lens of environmental history and puts gardening at the centre of its analysis. First, gardening here is considered as a resilient practice of adjustment to new urban environments which helped migrants to overcome the shock of migration while providing them with food and in some cases, an entry point into the US economy. Secondly, gardening was recognised as a tool used by both US and Italian governments and authorities to manage migratory flows through the creation of agricultural settlements populated by urban migrants.
The first part of the dissertation analyses the practice of urban gardening made by Italians who emigrated to the United States. Gardening, for them, was as a resilient practice of adjustment to their new urban environments. At the turn of the twentieth century US cities underwent a series of modernization and sanitation changes, which obliterated the presence of rural elements, such as agriculture and animals. The dissertation explores how, for immigrant communities, including Italians, this tension continued well into the twentieth century. Furthermore, it unveils how this process of obliteration of urban agriculture during the decades of modernization was often contested and strictly connected with the politics of urban food provisioning.
The second part of the dissertation explores how institutions of both the US and Italy observed, perceived, and attempted to manage migratory flows. It shows how US Institutions dealt with the practices of Italian migrants on North American urban soil and how social reformers and urban planners dealt with Italian agricultural background and migrants’ knowledges and practices in urban contexts. Furthermore, the dissertation introduces the term agricultural diplomacy. This term describes the complex interactions that occurred between a variety of actors, from diplomats to politicians to agronomists and landowners, of both the US and Italy, on the management of Italian immigrants with the common aim to establishing agricultural colonies with Italian migrants in the US South. There, gardening emerges as the environment of Italianness which enclosed a different meaning for the different actors involved in this relationship. Addressing this aspect uncovers up until now unexplored avenues of the global history of Italy and its expansionist ambitions.