Selected movie clips
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Act I - A New Beginning Profiles Italian immigrants who settled in Chicago after 1850, their early successes in business and subsequent struggle for acceptance within labor unions and the mass exodus of Southern Italians, through the 1893 Columbia Exposition. |
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Act II - The Rise of a Community The formation of Chicago’s principal Italian settlements including a look at Black Hand crime, the anti-immigrant backlash, Prohibition, World War One, and the execution of radicals Nicola Sacco and Bartolemeo Vanzetti in 1927. |
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Act III - Italian or American The Great Depression and its impact on Italian communities followed by Italo Balbo’s celebrated flight to Chicago during the 1933 Century of Progress, religious feasts, World War Two and the Our Lady of Angels Fire on ChicagoÕs Northwest side. |
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Act IV - Ethnic Survival This final segment looks at how urban renewal decimated key Italian neighborhoods in Chicago, Italian American leaders in the post-war era and in the media, and how Italian Americans have maintained strong ties to their ancestral homeland. |