Vincent DiGirolamo | CUNY - Baruch College (original) (raw)

Journal Articles by Vincent DiGirolamo

This essay focuses on the role of migrant women in the strike and suggests that their actions sp... more This essay focuses on the role of migrant women in the strike and suggests that their actions sparked the conflict more than the agitation of the IWW.

Book Chapters by Vincent DiGirolamo

Also in Kathy Merlock Jackson, ed., Rituals and Patterns in Children’s Lives (The Popular Press / University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), 156-88.

Encyclopedia Essays by Vincent DiGirolamo

Web Work and Documentary Films by Vincent DiGirolamo

Aired nationally on PBS, 1984. Distributed by Center for Asian American Media

This film closely examines the tension between the established Italian fishing community and the ... more This film closely examines the tension between the established Italian fishing community and the recently arrived Vietnamese fishermen in California’s Monterey Bay peninsula. MONTEREY’S BOAT PEOPLE documents a specific facet of anti-Asian sentiment and the conflicts faced by an industry that is also fighting for survival.

Paper Presented at the Pacific Coast Branch Meeting of the American Historical Association, Sta... more Paper Presented at the Pacific Coast Branch Meeting of the American Historical Association, Stanford University, Aug. 6, 2006.

This essay focuses on the role of migrant women in the strike and suggests that their actions sp... more This essay focuses on the role of migrant women in the strike and suggests that their actions sparked the conflict more than the agitation of the IWW.

Also in Kathy Merlock Jackson, ed., Rituals and Patterns in Children’s Lives (The Popular Press / University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), 156-88.

Aired nationally on PBS, 1984. Distributed by Center for Asian American Media

This film closely examines the tension between the established Italian fishing community and the ... more This film closely examines the tension between the established Italian fishing community and the recently arrived Vietnamese fishermen in California’s Monterey Bay peninsula. MONTEREY’S BOAT PEOPLE documents a specific facet of anti-Asian sentiment and the conflicts faced by an industry that is also fighting for survival.

Paper Presented at the Pacific Coast Branch Meeting of the American Historical Association, Sta... more Paper Presented at the Pacific Coast Branch Meeting of the American Historical Association, Stanford University, Aug. 6, 2006.

A profile of civil libertarian Richard Criley (1911-2000).

A visit with Vietnamese refugees in the People's Republic of China

An interview with historian Herbert Gutman

An essay commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the vigilante action against members of the IW... more An essay commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the vigilante action against members of the IWW — Industrial Workers of the World — in Washington state. Based on original affidavits.

Labor History, 1993

... Vincent DiGirolamo is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Princeton Univ. ... She said: &quot... more ... Vincent DiGirolamo is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Princeton Univ. ... She said: "No, sir, a lady by the name of Mrs. Springstead." Another migrant, Valores Barrera, admitted that she and a "Porto Rican lady" were among those who cursed Ralph Durst Sunday morning as he left ...

American Jewish History, 2010

M. Wise and the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith.” Wilhelm’s essay argues that Wise’s hostility ... more M. Wise and the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith.” Wilhelm’s essay argues that Wise’s hostility toward B’nai B’rith arose out of competing interpretations of Jewish identity for nineteenth century American Jews. While Wise emphasized religion and the centrality of the synagogue, B’nai B’rith offered a Jewish civil identity revolving around ethnicity and the social and charitable activities of its lodges. The only essay which directly focuses on an American Jewish denomination other than Reform is Jeffrey S. Gurock’s “Rethinking the History of Nonobservance as an American Orthodox Jewish Lifestyle.” In his preface, Lance J. Sussman claims that while not entirely comprehensive, the essays in the book “represent the full breadth of scholarship in the field of American Jewish history today” (xvi). This is far from the case. No essay probes the role of Jews in the American economy, either as workers, entrepreneurs, or consumers; the importance of economic and social mobility, which arguably has been the central theme of American Jewish history for the past century; or the place of Jews in politics, including Jewish voting patterns, the lobbying efforts of Jews, and the growing prominence of Jews in local, state, and national politics. Also, no contributor attempts put the story of America’s Jews into perspective by comparing their history with that of other American ethnic groups or with that of Jews in other countries. Finally a couple of the essays, including Alfred Gottschalk’s “‘The Spirit of Jewish History:’ From Nachman Krochmal to Ahad Ha’am,” have little if anything to do with the history of America’s Jews. Despite these caveats, this is a valuable book, and it would have pleased Jacob Marcus. Edward S. Shapiro

American Jewish History, 2010

M. Wise and the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith.” Wilhelm’s essay argues that Wise’s hostility ... more M. Wise and the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith.” Wilhelm’s essay argues that Wise’s hostility toward B’nai B’rith arose out of competing interpretations of Jewish identity for nineteenth century American Jews. While Wise emphasized religion and the centrality of the synagogue, B’nai B’rith offered a Jewish civil identity revolving around ethnicity and the social and charitable activities of its lodges. The only essay which directly focuses on an American Jewish denomination other than Reform is Jeffrey S. Gurock’s “Rethinking the History of Nonobservance as an American Orthodox Jewish Lifestyle.” In his preface, Lance J. Sussman claims that while not entirely comprehensive, the essays in the book “represent the full breadth of scholarship in the field of American Jewish history today” (xvi). This is far from the case. No essay probes the role of Jews in the American economy, either as workers, entrepreneurs, or consumers; the importance of economic and social mobility, which arguably has been the central theme of American Jewish history for the past century; or the place of Jews in politics, including Jewish voting patterns, the lobbying efforts of Jews, and the growing prominence of Jews in local, state, and national politics. Also, no contributor attempts put the story of America’s Jews into perspective by comparing their history with that of other American ethnic groups or with that of Jews in other countries. Finally a couple of the essays, including Alfred Gottschalk’s “‘The Spirit of Jewish History:’ From Nachman Krochmal to Ahad Ha’am,” have little if anything to do with the history of America’s Jews. Despite these caveats, this is a valuable book, and it would have pleased Jacob Marcus. Edward S. Shapiro

Crying the News, 2019

Newsboys proliferated after the Civil War as the newspaper industry flourished but then reemerged... more Newsboys proliferated after the Civil War as the newspaper industry flourished but then reemerged as a social problem during the depression years of 1873 to 1877. Writers and artists such as Horatio Alger and J. G. Brown portrayed them as symbols of the uplifting potential of industrial capitalism, while white southerners turned them into emblems of Republican misrule. The New York press celebrated real Bowery newsboys such as Steve Brodie. But authors of sensational urban guidebooks cast these youths as enfants terribles whose discontents threatened the social order. Swept up in the burgeoning labor movement, newsboys mounted noisy strikes in Cincinnati, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Nashville, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, and Baltimore. Catholic and Protestant philanthropists responded by founding homes for newsboys or advocating that they be licensed and supervised. Contrary to their mythic counterparts, real newsboys exposed and challenged the economic inequities of Gilded Age America.

Page 1. Italian of the World Labor Migration and the Formation of Multiethnic States Edited by Do... more Page 1. Italian of the World Labor Migration and the Formation of Multiethnic States Edited by Donna R. Gabaccia and m Page 2. Page 3. Page 4. ... The xenophobia they encountered in the "land of opportunity" Page 5. Italian Workers of the World This On© FP4G-09U-S7U3 Page 6 ...

Crying the News

With their distinctive dress, speech, and style, newsboys formed one the most conspicuous youth s... more With their distinctive dress, speech, and style, newsboys formed one the most conspicuous youth subcultures in early America. Predominately Irish, they also earned reputations as brawlers, gamblers, and consummate theatergoers. The era’s most prominent artists, writers, and performers transformed them into symbols of Young America itself and drew them into campaigns to promote temperance, nativism, westward expansion, and war with Mexico. More than any other personification of the age, newsboys represented the liberating potential of a democratic society driven by a wide-open market economy. Yet they also epitomized the bamboozlement of mass politics and the sham of self-interest masquerading as concern for the greater good. Their shrill cries and saucy ways alternately annoyed and amused their elders, but these incorrigible habits also helped them to survive the hardships of street life.

Crying the News

No newsboys were more militant than those on the urban frontier. Though primarily self-employed, ... more No newsboys were more militant than those on the urban frontier. Though primarily self-employed, most identified with the interests of labor over capital, as reflected by the many unions and protests they organized between the 1880s and early 1900s. Newsboys mounted strikes and boycotts in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. They distributed union circulars and marched in Labor Day parades. Boys also distributed newspapers in the Hawaiian Islands and Yukon gold fields. Western newsboys represented all races and ethnicities, including Native Americans. They encountered work hazards unknown to their eastern counterparts, such as mountain lions, prairie fires, and gunfighters. Like the newspaper they sold, these children were catalysts of social change. As rugged individualists who relied on cooperation more than competition, they exemplified the contradictory values of their communities.