IFWMP Immigration History - Italian Fallen Workers Memorial

Early in the 1800s, there were very few Italians who graced the shores of North America although there were some: a pocket of at least 100 people from Moltrasio, (Lombardy) was known to exist in North America, working primarily as innkeepers. There were also some artisans, intellectuals, and music teachers. The early influx of Italians (in the area now called Canada) centred around Montreal, as it was a much more attractive and established metropolis during the 19th century, as compared to York (Toronto). Most of the early Italian immigrants, few as they were, could be found in Montreal, Halifax and Vancouver. Some scant evidence of merchant shops owned by Italian immigrants is found in the early 1830s, when Francesco Rossi opened an ice cream parlour in Toronto near Bay and King Street, and Filippo di Grassi took a land grant on the Don River in Toronto. However, between 1830 and the 1880s, immigration between Italy (which was not even Italy yet) and Canada, which was not yet Canada, was barely evident.

By the 1880s, steamship travel within Italy had been completed, giving rural people in the centre of the peninsula the ability to make it to the shores of Italy, whereby they could board a ship, then the only method of international travel. Numbers of emigrants out of Italy would slowly increase then eventually explode, as the work prospects for building up this new country became known in rural Italy.

Early Italian settlements in Toronto, Niagara Falls, Kakabeka Falls, Cobalt, and Haliburton attracted many new immigrants, and paved the way for Canada to become one of the meccas for rural Italians over the entire next century — the time during which most of the emigration out of Italy occurred. Since the time when people could travel across the ocean, Italians have been wanting to take the transatlantic crossing in the hopes of finding new and hopeful worlds, where the miseria and the povertà of the feudal system of mezzadria, or the seemingly fruit less endeavours of the dry agro towns in the south living under latifondi, might be escapable.

Some of the earliest recorded Italians in Halifax were street merchants in the balloon business. Source: Globe and Mail, 1 May 1876. Some shops were also owned by early Italian immigrants. But between 1830 and the 1880s, immigration between Italy (which was not even Italy yet) and Canada, which was not yet Canada, was barely a trickle. By the 1880s, steamship travel as well as intercontinental rail way building was to impact the transoceanic travel. Numbers would slowly increase then explode, as the work prospects for building up this new country became known in rural Italy. Early Italian settlements in Toronto, Niagara Falls, Kakabeka Falls, Cobalt, and Haliburton attracted many new immigrants, and paved the way for Canada to become one of the meccas for rural Italians over the entire next century — the time during which most of the emigration out of Italy occurred. Since people could travel the distances required to travel across the ocean, Italians have been wanting to go west across the Atlantic to new and hopeful worlds, where the miseria and the povertà of the feudal system of mezzadria, or the seemingly fruit less endeavours of the dry agro towns in the south living under latifondi, might be escapable.

THE STRONG PULL OF THE CANADIAN LABOUR MARKET SHERBROOKE, QUEBEC AND DISTRICT, THE LABOUR GAZETTE, 1904.

Labour generally was well employed during July, and in some departments the demand was in excess of the supply. This was the case in the agricultural and mining industries, where in some cases the scarcity of labour caused much inconvenience. Reports received from the mining centres at Black Lake and Thetford Mines go to show that the companies are greatly in need of more help. The King Bros asbestos mill at Thetford, which was started running night and day, had to close the night work on account of the scarcity of help. Representatives of various mining institutions went into Montreal and brought out large numbers of Italians, but they could not get enough. In this connection Mr. Graconio Maruca, an influential Italian in this section, and who has had many applications from employers for men to work at the Caperson mines, also at Cookshire and on the Quebec Central Railway, sent repeated messages to Montreal for a supply of labour, but was unable to secure sufficient to meet the demand. Several of the lumbermen brought out gangs of Italians from Montreal, and the employers report that they are doing good work. The farmers also have engaged Italians where they could get them, as other help was so scarce. Farmers are paying $1.50 a day and board for men, and are glad to get them at that figure

After the turn of the century, Italian immigration to Canada exploded in numbers and continued to grow exponentially right up until the beginning of the First World War in 1914. At that time, immigration to Canada from Italy dropped completely off (and so too, did the growing numbers of fallen workers of our community. Between the turn of the last century and the beginning of the First World War, Canada experienced a great surge of nation-building: cities were spring up, the railway was connecting this vast nation, mining was exploding and factories and other places of employment were being built to develop our nation's great natural resources. Great numbers of Italian men, following the path of chain migration were to come to Canada in the hopes of attaining a better future for their family. Many did, but many were killed working in the dangerous fields of mining, railway building, and rough construction.

Even after the turn of the century, nothing much had happened to improve the lives of the peasant classes in Italy. No new Italian mining pockets were discovered, no new railways were being built and no new industries were developing. The peasant taxes on donkeys, salt and wheat grinding were still in place, and little had happened to change the feudal system of mezzadria or improve the slums of Naples or the poor quadrants of Sicily and Calabria, still encumbered by the ancient system of latifondi. The brutal policies of the Italian government continued, and worse, the South was to be hit with a series of natural disasters, which were to profoundly affect the people in those regions. Since the political and economic conditions of most of the poor areas of Italy did not change with the turn of the century, the need to emigrate still existed. Push factors continued to impact the people in the Southern areas of Campagna, Sicilia, Molise, Calabria, and Abruzzo, as well as in the Northern regions of Friuli, Piedmonte and Veneto, where the long tentacles of mezza dria still had their hooks on the peasant classes. Under this back drop, emigration from Italy not only continued, but it broadened. ▲ Promotional posters created by the Government of Canada on behalf of the Canadian National Railway and in an effort to develop the West, were targeted to white Northern Europeans for settlement in Canada. The period between 1900 and 1913 produced an immigration influx for all of Canada overall: “The number of immigrants had swelled over four and a half times in a mere seven years, from 31,900 in 1898 to 146,266 in 1905. As the Italian-Canadian immigration numbers continued to rise right up until 1913, so too, did the numbers of Italian Fallen Workers.

In addition to the surge in business, mining and development that Canada experienced in the pre-WWI period, there were other factors that would influence Italian immigration to Canada. The series of Exclusion Acts targeting Chinese people by the Canadian government had an inverse effect on immigration from Italy, which quenched the still high hard labour requirements. Beginning in 1885, the Canadian government set out a Head Tax for working men from China and from Italy in the amount of $25. This was increased over time to be $50 for Chinese immigrants, but the head tax for Italians remained at $25. The head tax for the Chinese was increased again in 1900 to $100 but remained at $25 for Italians. By 1903, this anti-Chinese discriminatory policy was broadened even more, when the Head Tax was again increased to $500, but remained at $25 for Italians. It is estimated that $18 million was collected by the government from the Chinese immigrants, but there is no doubt that this would have drastically curtailed the number of emigres from China. Another amendment to the Chinese Immigration Act in 1908 drastically limited the exemptions to the Head Tax Rule, blocking even more Chinese people from entering Canada.

In contrast to government legislation against the Chinese immigrants, national companies like the CPR and the CNR were actively encouraging the immigration of Italians, by paying transport costs, and by arranging employment through a network of Italian men who would become Canada’s first Italian “sub contractors.” These two policies viewed together would obviously result in a drastic decrease of Chinese immigration on the one hand, and the increase of immigration from other countries such as Italy on the other hand. Clearly, the throwaway human work force had to come from somewhere, and unfortunately, these dates also coincide with an increase in workplace tragedies for Italians.

During his time, the esteemed historian Robert F. Harney, in his efforts to uncover the importance of Italian immigration prior to the first Great War, estimates that “Toronto had about four hundred residents from the Italian peninsula in 1891. That number doubled in a decade, and by 1911, the census showed 2,200 men and 800 women of Italian descent in Toronto.” By the time the Great War came around in 1914, immigration had slowed right down for all immigrants into Canada. This is also noticed in the Memorial Wall figures, as drastically reduced numbers of deaths occurred between 1914 and 1918 and dropped drastically after 1913. According to an article in the Globe and Mail, overall immigration to Canada “fell to 144,789 last year,” which was 1914. It goes on to say that in the past fifteen years, from 1900 to 1915, “there have been 118,958 Italian immigrants,” who came to Canada. This was noted to be the highest number of all non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants during the same period. It was also a period of great numbers of deaths in the Italian workingmen community.

After the Great War, emigration from Southern European countries, including but not specifically Italy, was becoming standard fare in Canada and in America. In 1923, for example, Order-in Council 183 was issued, which defined the list of countries that were “preferred” for immigration status into Canada, as well as the countries that were “non-preferred.” A fine line was created, because on one hand, the government and big industry still wanted Italians to build the super projects, including the power-generating plants of Ontario (Niagara Falls, Chaudière Falls, and Eugenia Falls), where Italians were obviously needed to do the backbreaking work the “preferred” class and the resident Canadians did not want to do. This was also the time of great nation building through railways, and as luck would have it, the boom time for the mining industry. To match the Americans’ super structure of the Erie Canal, here in Canada, the government was promoting the building of the fourth and final Welland Canal which occurred between 1913 and 1932 and had a disproportionate number of Italian workers. In 1924, “a shipload of Italians arrived in Halifax on the steamer S.S. Dante Alighieri, so they were still coming to Canada.”92 If one considers the statistics of Italian immigrant deaths just on this superstructure of Canadian engineering, it is easy to conclude that immigrants were still arriving for work in Canada.

During the mid–1920s, the program for farm hands did attract some Italians, but apparently, many used the program to find a way into Canada, with no intention of working on farms: “Only thirty of the four hundred Italian immigrants detained here because they were believed to have falsely represented themselves as farmers, were released by the Immigration Department.” Eventually, in 1927, Prime Minister Mackenzie King ratified an agreement between Immigration Canada and the Italian government relating to the “maritime transport of these emigrants and their admission to and employment in Canada.” The Windsor-Detroit tunnel construction mega-project began in 1928 and opened in November of 1930. It was said to have been built by many of the hard rock tunnellers who come from the northeast regions of Italy. It took 26 months to finish and the labourers made it happen a year ahead of schedule. As many in newer generations do not know, the work of Italian labouring forefathers focussed on Canada’s call for these types of mega-projects, like the large hydro electric projects, the Windsor Tunnel, the mining of gold and silver, the Peterborough Lift Locks, the Welland Canal and the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel all hired Italians. Yet another mega-project of the government supported railway companies was to come in 1923–1924. Because of this project, there was surreptitious agreements between the CPR and the other agencies regarding the carrying of Italian immigrant passengers, according to the Bollettino dell’Emigrazione. The Bollettino is a much more detailed document and deserves further study, especially with respect to Italian-Canadian immigration. It describes several boats of immigrants in 1924 and 1930 destined for Canada and for farming. Use of the immigrant labour force in this field would have been in line with earlier regulations relating to immigration only for Italians if in the agricultural or domestic services fields. Immigration Canada statistics also co-relate the immigrants headed for the farming regions of Canada, with 945 people in the farming population advising through Census data that they are Italian immigrants.

The Roaring Twenties was a time of grandeur, yet it provided the impetus for yet another influx of persons from the Central and Southern European countries, the 'undesirable countries,' including Italy. There was still the dichotomous position on Italian immigrants: on one hand, the government discouraged Italian immigration, but on the other hand, the government employed strategies to ensure the sojourners still advanced over the ocean to join the new swelling ranks of railway navvies, road building labourers, and super structure project workers. Single bachelors between the ages of twenty and thirty were still the norm. With no immediate family around, but still tied by the connections of kinship and village camaraderie, they boarded together in a place often controlled by the wife of another immigrant, whose duty it was to bring in 61 some money to the household by letting out parts of her home for room and board. Others lived in tents or in camps as they did while building the railway, which often required temporary accommodation, so that workers could leave quickly after a mile of track was laid. Once they had moved far enough up the railway line, and laid enough to make the walk too far, they would relo cate to a place up the line, closer to the new section of line. In this way, they advanced forward. To bolster the railroad and nation-building lines, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, who dominated Canada’s most important political chair during the 1920s, made an agreement with both the Canadian National Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway to directly recruit “agricultural immigrants” and transport them to destinations in the West, which in theory would be settled and farmed, a slightly embellished version of Laurier’s previous “Last Best West” advertising campaign. There is no possible way that Mackenzie King could not have known that the railway companies would use this broadening of the immigration rules through this piece of legislation to entice work ers to come to work for the railway instead of settling the land, as intended in the agreement. It seems nonsensical to make an agreement for independent railway companies to be included in immigration recruiting, but that’s what they did, even calling the document The Railway Agreement. This agreement clearly shows the extent to which the demand for cheap labour controlled the f low of immigration into Canada from Italy. Yet again, in 1923, the Canadian government drastically reduced the influx of Chinese-Canadians when they enacted The Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, known today as just another Chinese Exclusion Act. There were likely some repercussions for other groups, who were not specifically excluded, though still considered undesirable by the Canadian government. The sudden drop of Chinese workers caused negative pressure in the supply of “cheap immigrant labour,” which caused positive pressure for an influx of “cheap immigrant labour” from other sourcing coun tries, including Italy. During this same year, the infamous “pre ferred races” policies also came into effect, with Southern Europe not being included at all. Despite the non-preferred status of Italian immigrants after the 1923 proclamation, when cheap immigrant labour was needed, somehow the non-preferred status was reversed with the Railway Agreement of 1925, which allowed for a new influx of non-pre ferred immigrants between 1925 and 1929, during which much railway work was completed. The recruiting of immigrants from “non-preferred” countries like Italy had a direct impact on the immigration numbers from these countries. According to Collections Canada, “more than 185,000 Central Europeans entered Canada under The Agreement (1925–1929),” and many of these were Italians. Although this agreement sparked a huge debate not only in the media, but also in the legislature, mass immigration of people under this piece of legislation not only con tinued but was encouraged.

After the Second World War (1939-1945), Italians were still considered not to be desirable to the Canadian establishment. Still wounded by the effects of the Second World War, Italians were effectively blocked from entering Canada until 1948, when the Enemy Alien Act was finally lifted. It took a few years after the Second World War for the general Canadian public and the immigration department to absolve Italian immigrants of their perceived alien identity and the suspicion that shadowed them. The hysteria of the time had run rampant, and this left Italians, among other groups like the Japanese-Canadians and no doubt the German-Canadians as well, in unjustifiable detention, which lead of course to severe undue hardship. Many of the immigration policies followed an anti-fascist post-war discrimination regime, and for a time, immigration remained stagnant. Some level of post-war shock existed in Italy itself, and recuperation from this shock would take time. There were some re-building projects around Italy stemming from the physical devastation of the war, so the jobs these projects might have had somewhat of a curbing effect on emigration. Between the end of the war in 1945 and 1947, Italians were still legally considered “enemy aliens,” and they continued to be asso ciated with the fascist regime until approximately 1947, when in small stages, things began to change. Much has been documented about the unfair Chinese head tax, the Ukrainian internment of the First World War, the Japanese Internment of the Second World War, the restrictions placed on Jewish refugees, but recog nition for the plight of Italians who were required to register with the RCMP and interned is just in its infancy, not to mention the saga of the fallen workers. Recognition, understanding, and com passion of the plight of Italian immigrants needs also to develop. In May of 1946, the Canadian government declared through an Order in Council that current citizens could sponsor direct relatives and orphaned secondary relatives. Remarkably, in 1946, the Canadian Citizenship Act was adopted in the legislature as law, declaring that Canadian citizenship was distinct from being a citizen of the British commonwealth. In January 1947, Italians were specifically removed from being enemy aliens, and the began the greatest Italian immigration period to Canada. Between 1947 and 1950, the tide began to change. Knowledge and recognition for enterprising pre-First World War Italian immigrants, who greatly enhanced the Dominion of Canada and contributed to its success became known. Fears of the “enemy aliens” were fading. Hysteria was replaced with reason. The realization that many Italian-Canadians fought for Canada during the war, and that there was no uprising on the unfair incarcerations may have helped to soften public opinion. Most Italians in Canada demonstrated allegiance to Canada as opposed to the home of their birth throughout the War, and so by 1949, Toronto Spadina MP David Croll urged the government publicly to re-encourage Italian immigration. He suggested that they expand the category of relatives for the Italians to include cousins and other relatives: “Italy was an unexplored source of valuable immigrants. Only 250 had come from there since the war. The Italian immigrants would be valuable assets to Canada. More should be permitted to come to this country.”

With the vantage point of history and hindsight, we would have to say Mr. Croll was right. Hundreds of thousands of Italian families owe MP David Croll a thank you for helping to encourage the government to expand the category so that they qualified to stake a place and better their future in Canada. It didn’t take long to encourage the waiting Italians. Tired by the devastation of post-war Italy and centuries of poverty, Italians began again in earnest to come to Canada to seek out a better future for their families. “By the end of 1949, Canada received 7,742 Italians.” As is clear from this post-war statistic, and other statistics from this period that are even more dramatic, from the post-war period going forward all the way through to the 1980s, there would be a complete shift in thought about Italian immigration, and a consequential increase in the Italian footprint in Canada.

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ITALIAN FALLEN WORKERS MEMORIAL PROJECT

THE STORY OF ITALIAN CANADIAN LABOUR HISTORY

THE HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN CANADIAN IMMIGRATION HISTORY
One Hundred Years of Italian Immigration History to Canada

ITALIAN IMMIGRATION TO CANADA BEFORE 1900

ITALIAN IMMIGRATION TO CANADA BETWEEN 1900 AND 1913

ITALIAN IMMIGRATION TO CANADA BETWEEN 1918 and 1939

italian settlements in canada (not ontario) between 1880–1980

italian settlements in ontario between 1880–1980

ITALIAN IMMIGRATION TO CANADA BETWEEN 1948 AND 1980

The Italian Fallen Workers Memorial Wall as it was in 2016. Today, it is completely filled with names of thousands of Italian Fallen Workers. More names will be added to the online database in this website.

The Italian Fallen Workers Memorial fence and the Italian Fallen Workers Memorial Wall can be found on the Villa Charities campus in Toronto, Ontario (Canada), between Columbus Centre and Villa Colombo. It has been consecrated as sacred ground for our fallen.

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The Story of Italian Canadian Labour History

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