- unitid
-
{"value"=>"2844", "type"=>"local_mss"}
{"value"=>"MssCol 2844", "type"=>"local_call"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1887-1935", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1887/1935"}
{"value"=>"1905-1925", "type"=>"bulk", "normal"=>"1905/1925"}
- date_inclusive_start
-
1887
- date_inclusive_end
-
1935
- keydate
-
1887
- date_start
-
1887
- date_end
-
1935
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"Gino Speranza papers"}
- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"30 linear feet (58 boxes, 44 v.)"}], "supress_display"=>true}
- repository
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"corpname\">The New York Public Library. Manuscripts and Archives Division.</span> <div class=\"address\"> <span class=\"addressline\">Stephen A. Schwarzman Building</span> <span class=\"addressline\">Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788</span></div>"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"Papers document Speranza's career as an attorney involved with the problems and working conditions of Italians in the United States and his subsequent work as a journalist and author whose writings included works on immigration, Italo-American relations and World War I."}
- langmaterial
-
{"value"=>"Portions of the correspondence, legal files and organizational papers are in Italian"}
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"<p>Gino Speranza papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library</p>"}
- origination
-
{"value"=>"Speranza, Gino, 1872-1927", "type"=>"persname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>Gino Speranza, attorney, journalist and author, was born in Connecticut on April 23, 1872. He was the son of Carlo L. Speranza and Adele Capetti. Speranza spent his early childhood in Verona, Italy. After returning to the United States in 1881 he attended school in New York City and in 1892, graduated from the College of the City of New York. He received his law degree from New York University Law School and was admitted to the Bar in 1895. In 1897 Speranza became legal counselor to the Italian Consulate General in New York. Speranza's interest in immigrants and immigration became the focus of much of his writing and his efforts on behalf of immigrants included the founding of the Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants and his work for the Investigation Bureau for Italian Immigrants which was established in 1906 by the Italian government to protect the rights of Italian immigrants.</p> <p>Having given up his legal practice in 1912, Speranza embarked upon a journalistic/literary career and in 1915 he went to Italy as a feature correspondent for the New York Evening Post and the Outlook. After the War Speranza became Attaché on Political Intelligence at the United States Embassy in Rome and in 1919 he returned to the United States.</p> <p>Speranza's writings in the 1920s focused on his theories regarding the basic and unique Anglo- Saxon, Protestant nature of the American character and the effects of recent immigration on American culture and politics. His book Race or Nation, published in 1925 was his major study on these themes. What Speranza perceived as the disintegration of American society led him to ever more extreme positions in his efforts to stop the flow of immigration and to restrict voting rights of foreigners already in this country.</p> <p>Speranza was married to Florence Colgate (1873-1951) in 1909. He died in 1927.</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>The papers of Gino Speranza span the years 1887 to 1935 and include correspondence, writings, legal papers, research materials, financial papers, diaries, scrapbooks and printed matter. Also included are papers relating to several organizations with which Speranza was involved and a small series of Florence Colgate Speranza's papers. The largest group of organizational papers are those relating to The Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants. There are smaller files devoted to the Scuola d'Industrie Italiane and the Westchester County Committee for Belgian Relief.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p class='list-head'>The Gino Speranza papers are arranged in eleven series:</p>\n<ul class='arrangement series-descriptions'>\n<li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/2844#c1187846'>I. General Correspondence</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1887-1933</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Series reflects Speranza's life-long personal and professional interest in immigration issues and especially his involvement with the Italian community in the United States. Speranza's work with the Investigation Bureau for Italian Immigrants, the National Italian Labor Exchange, the Labor Information Office for Italians, The Prison Association of New York, the Richmond Hill House and the Committee on Crime and Immigration of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology are all documented to varying degrees in this section. There is some overlap between the General Correspondence and the correspondence in other series.</p> <p>As counsel to the Consul General of Italy, Speranza investigated claims of the families of Italian citizens who died in the United States. Many of these were laborers killed in job-related accidents and Speranza worked to procure some compensation, or at least, back wages for the families of these men. The Legal Files, which are arranged alphabetically, contain additional information on some of these cases. This correspondence documents the often harsh conditions of immigrant laborers in the early years of the century. A May 25, 1906 report by Speranza describing the conditions of workers for the Carolina Company is of particular interest. The Carolina Company brought many Italian immigrants to North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia to clear land for the South & Western Railway Company. Among Speranza's correspondents in his work for the Consul were Raybaudi Massiglia and Adolfo Rossi.</p> <p>In 1915 Speranza went to Italy as a feature correspondent for The New York Evening Post and the Outlook and in July of 1918 he was appointed assistant in the American Embassy in Rome. Most of the letters from this period are copies (the originals may be at Stanford with Speranza's diary from the war years). His correspondents while in Italy included Thomas Nelson Page and Norval Richardson of the American Embassy in Rome and B. Harvey Carroll, of the American Embassy in Venice. Speranza also corresponded with Ernest Hamlin Abbot and Lawrence F. Abbot of the Outlook.</p> <p>The correspondence for the later years of the series includes letters regarding publications of Speranza's work. Speranza continued to publish in the Outlook and also in the Atlantic Monthly and the Yale Review. Speranza corresponded extensively with French Strother regarding a series of articles he published in World's Work. The articles, published in 1923, reflect Speranza's increasingly restrictionist views and his theories on the nature and influences of \"foreign stock\" on American society. Other correspondents on these matters include Talcott Miner Banks, Robert M. Yerkes and John Jay Chapman.</p> <p>A small number of personal /family letters are included in the general correspondences, most notably, letters from Speranza's father, Carlo.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/2844#c1187858'>II. Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1901-1923</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Contains material relating to includes the Society's constitution, correspondence, reports and printed matter. Correspondents include Eliot Norton, who served as president of the Society and William B. Howland who served as its treasurer. These papers also include a 1903 report by Speranza on conditions in labor camps in West Virginia.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/2844#c1187861'>III. Scuola d'Industrie Italiane</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1905-1927</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Include by-laws, minutes, correspondence, financial papers, printed matter and two photographs. The school sought to teach and promote traditional Italian needlecrafts and to make the practice of these crafts a viable economic venture. Florence Colgate Speranza was active in the schools programs both before and after her marriage and she served for a time as the President of the Executive Board. Volume 17 is also made up of material related to the Scuola.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/2844#c1187864'>IV. Legal Papers</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1895-1927</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Make up the largest series in the collection. The files represent both Speranza's private cases and cases undertaken in his capacity as counsel to the Italian Consulate. The latter often involved investigating the cases of Italian citizens injured or killed while working in the United States.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/2844#c1188061'>V. Westchester County Committee for Belgian Relief</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1914-1915</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Papers include correspondence and clippings. Gino Speranza served as secretary.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/2844#c1188062'>VI. Writings</a></div>\n</li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/2844#c1188202'>VII. Diaries</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1904-1927</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>For the most part record Speranza's European travel including trips to Italy, Holland, Mexico, Czechoslovakia and England. Several trips within the United States are also documented. See Index 6 for a list of individual volumes.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/2844#c1188219'>VIII. Financial Papers</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>circa 1897-1927</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Include account books, personal accounts and check books.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/2844#c1188225'>IX. Printed Matter/Subject Files</a></div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Contain material on education, immigration, Latin America, religion, the Ku Klux Klan and other topics. A file of published articles by Speranza is also included.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/2844#c1188247'>X. Papers of Florence Colgate Speranza</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1898-1935</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Papers include correspondence, a diary, a commonplace book and printed matter. Her correspondence as a trustee of Barnard College (1899-1912) is of particular interest.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/2844#c1188254'>Miscellaneous</a></div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>Include scrapbooks and other notebooks compiled by Gino and Florence Speranza.</p></div></li></ul>\n", "type"=>"arrangement"}
- arrangement
-
{"value"=>"<p>Ten series: I. General Correspondence, 1887-1933; II. Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants, 1901-1923; III. Scuola d'Industrie Italiane, 1905-1927; IV. Legal Papers, 1895-1927; V. Westchester Committee for Belgian Relief, 1914-1915; VI. Writings; VII. Diaries, 1904-1927; VIII. Financial Papers, ca. 1897-1927; IX. Printed Matter/Subject Files; X. Florence Colgate Speranza Papers, 1898-1935</p>", "supress_display"=>true}
- processinfo
-
{"type"=>"processing", "value"=>"<p>Francesca Pitaro, June 1989</p>"}
- note
-
{"value"=>"Correspondence for the years 1915-1919, while Speranza was in Italy, consists mainly of transcripts"}
- extent_statement
-
30 linear feet (58 boxes, 44 v.)
- date_bulk_start
-
1905
- date_bulk_end
-
1925