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Collection Data
- Description
- 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.
- Names
- Speranza, Gino Charles, 1872-1927 (Creator)
- Banks, Talcott Miner (Correspondent)
- Carroll, B.H. (Benjah Harvey), 1874-1922 (Correspondent)
- Chapman, John Jay, 1862-1933 (Correspondent)
- Howland, William B (Correspondent)
- Massiglia, Raybaudi (Correspondent)
- Page, Thomas Nelson, 1853-1922 (Correspondent)
- Richardson, Norval, 1877-1940 (Correspondent)
- Rossi, Adolfo, 1857- (Correspondent)
- Speranza, Carlo L (Correspondent)
- Speranza, Florence Colgate, 1873-1951 (Contributor)
- Speranza, Gino, 1872-1927 (Contributor)
- Yerkes, Robert M. (Robert Mearns), 1876-1956 (Correspondent)
- Investigation Bureau for Italian Immigrants (Contributor)
- National Italian Labor Exchange (Contributor)
- Scuola d'Industrie Italiane (Contributor)
- Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants (Contributor)
- Dates / Origin
- Date Created: 1887 - 1935
- Library locations
- Manuscripts and Archives Division
- Shelf locator: MssCol 2844
- Topics
- Americanization
- Diplomatic and consular service, Italian -- United States
- Emigration and immigration
- Emigration and immigration law -- United States
- Foreign workers, Italian -- United States
- Immigrants -- United States
- Italian Americans -- New York (State)
- Italians -- Ethnic identity
- Italians -- United States
- Labor -- United States
- Labor camps -- North Carolina
- Labor camps -- Virginia
- Labor movement -- United States
- Nativism
- Social work with immigrants -- New York (N.Y.)
- Working class -- United States
- World War, 1914-1918 -- Italy
- Italy -- History -- 1914-1922
- Journalists
- Lawyers
- Genres
- Correspondence
- Records (Documents)
- Photographs
- Diaries
- Scrapbooks
- Notes
- Biographical/historical: 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.
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.
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.
Speranza was married to Florence Colgate (1873-1951) in 1909. He died in 1927.
- Content: 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.
- Content: Correspondence for the years 1915-1919, while Speranza was in Italy, consists mainly of transcripts
- Physical Description
- Extent: 30 linear feet (58 boxes, 44 v.)
- Type of Resource
- Text
- Still image
- Identifiers
- NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b11343709
- MSS Unit ID: 2844
- Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 98e89140-f9c7-0138-01da-0242ac110002
