Italians in Barre: The early years
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This historic photo shows Novelli & Corti Works, established by Samuel ("Sandro") Novelli and Elia Corti in 1901. It became one of Barre's most notable sculpting studios, staffed by some of the highly skilled Italian artisans who flocked to Barre for jobs and a new life. Submitted Photo |
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By PAUL WOOD - Published: March 2, 2009
This is the latest in a monthly column on Vermont's granite industry provided by the Vermont Granite Museum of Barre.
Conditions in Italy during the 1880s and 1890s were uncertain – Italy had become unified only a decade earlier in 1870 after a series of regional wars. The population growth of Italy had outstripped economic opportunities and Italian stone workers could earn much more in America. Emigration was actually encouraged in the press and by the Italian government.
Most came to America for economic reasons – to find work at fair wages – and also Vermont's hills and lakes reminded the northern Italians of their ancestral home.
The first Italian stone workers in Vermont came in the 1880s and worked at the Vermont Marble Company in Rutland. These were skilled marble carvers from Carrara. Italians came to Barre mostly in the period from 1890 to 1910, mainly through the ports of Genoa and LeHavre. Entering through Ellis Island with their artwork, a valise and a steamer trunk, some had to spend days or weeks working out various immigration problems before embarking by train to Barre.
By the turn of the century there were several thousand Italians in Barre. By 1910, about 14 percent of Barre's population was Italian, and Barre had become the home of Vermont's largest Italian population.
Italian granite worker immigrants were usually single or, if married, initially came alone and sent for their family later when they could afford it. They typically lived in boardinghouses or rented rooms in private homes. Granite workers would save every penny and as soon as possible paid cash to purchase a house for their family.
Many settled in North Barre, a neighborhood of narrow streets and alleys. Here Italian culture reigned supreme and one could find 5-year-old Italian girls wearing gold earrings in their pierced ears. The Italian community had its own social clubs, such as the Italian Pleasure Club that held picnics at Berlin Pond, where bocce was played followed by a meal of polenta (boiled cornmeal) and stewed chicken.
Italians tended to board at "Italian" boardinghouses, which became like Italian community social clubs. The boardinghouse keepers "mothered" the young single granite worker boarders – making their lunches, washing their clothes, and making sure they took their safety equipment, such as safety goggles, to work with them.
Many widowed boardinghouse keepers illegally sold homemade wine and grappa (a distilled wine) to boarders and neighbors to support their families, and some were arrested and fined or even jailed for these small-scale liquor sales.
Most immigrants came from the granite area around Viggiu and Bisuschio (near the Swiss border) and from the marble area around Carrara (northern Tuscany). They were already well-trained sculptors, carvers and stone cutters – often starting as young boys and for sculptors continuing for as many as 10 years.
These immigrants included some of Barre's outstanding pre-World War II carvers and sculptors: Carlo Abate, Joseph Calcagni, John Comi, Elia Corti, William Corti, Enrico Mori, Samuel Novelli, Augusto Sanguinetti, and Geno Tosi.
Other immigrants were northern Italian businessmen or landowners who came to open businesses in Barre. Some immigrants from southern Italy first worked for U.S. railroads and then migrated to Barre and established a variety of businesses.
Novelli & Corti was established by Samuel ("Sandro") Novelli and Elia Corti in 1901 and also included John ("Crosta") Comi and William ("Bigin") Corti. Novelli & Corti became Barre's premier sculpture and carving studio of the early 1900s. An outstanding example of the skill of Barre's carvers is the pedestal of the Robert Burns monument with bas-relief panels depicting scenes from Burns' poems and carved by Elia Corti.
As the granite industry of Barre grew and prospered in the 1890s, after the construction of the quarry "Sky Route" railroad, some of Rutland's Italian marble workers moved to Barre and commenced to carve granite. The transition from carving marble to carving granite was not a great problem for most carvers and many enjoyed carving the finely grained, uniform, and hard but not brittle Barre granite.
Later, Italian stone workers came to Barre from Quincy and Westerly, Mass., coastal Maine and other New England granite centers as these areas declined and some began to come directly from Italy as the word of economic opportunity in Barre spread through letters and visits home. In the 1920s and 1930s, more Italians came to Barre from Hardwick (the other major Vermont granite center) as the building granite business declined, as well as from the lesser centers of Northfield, South Ryegate, and Waterbury.
Even though many Italians immigrated with the idea of retuning to Italy after saving money for a few years, most Italian granite workers decided to make Barre and America their new permanent home and sent for their wives, children and other relatives. Wives often arrived with a steamer trunk filled with linens and wool mattresses received as wedding dowries. Some granite workers wrote home looking for a wife who later came to Barre to wed, knowing her future husband only through letters.
However, some did return to Italy after retirement – in many cases an early retirement forced by the "American disease" silicosis. This disease was unknown in the Italian granite industry since the climate was milder and stone workers labored in sheds with open sides which allowed most of the dust to escape.
Italian workers were disproportionately affected by silicosis since as stonecutters and carvers worked close to the dust produced by pneumatic tools. Louis Brusa, a Barre stonecutter, died in 1937 at age 50 from silicosis. His monument is one of the most unusual (and disturbing) in Hope Cemetery. Brusa is shown exhausted and slumped backward with his wife Mary comforting him. His chest is merged into the granite base – symbolic of his lungs filled with granite dust. In 1920, the average life expectancy of Barre granite workers was 16 years less than the national average for men.
Silicosis-induced tuberculosis killed large numbers of Barre's skilled granite workers. Some granite workers, on their deathbed, made their wives promise that their sons would never enter the granite industry. After World War II, many returning sons, seeing a wider world of opportunities, decided to go into other careers such as medicine, law, education, and politics. All this led to an acute shortage of skilled granite workers. To fill this void, a small number of master sculptors and carvers were lured from Italy by wages as much as five times what they were earning.
These artists led a renaissance of stone art in Barre and trained a whole new generation of Barre sculptors and carvers. Some of Barre's outstanding post-World War II carvers and sculptors include Angelo Ambrosini, Angelo Bardelli, Giuliano Cecchinelli, Alcide Fantoni, Flavio Furloni, Frank Gaylord, Ernesto Malnati, Orazio Marselli, Gino Sassi, and Lambruno Scrzanini.
Coming next month, Part II: Whereas many Scots purchased and developed granite quarries, the Italians tended to establish sheds for the finishing and carving of granite.
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