Encountering the Color Line in the Everyday: Italians in Interwar Chicago

THOMAS A. GUGLIELMO


IN THE LATE SUMMER OF 1942, it seemed a new day was dawning on Chicago's Near North Side. Long known as "Little Hell" and as one of the city's most dangerous and dilapidated slums, the neighborhood now boasted the Frances Cabrini Homes, a sparkling new housing project of handsome two- and three-story brick buildings, with bright apartments and modern amenities. On August 29, local priest Father Luigi Giambastiani, whose idea it was to name the project after Mother Cabrini (the Italian-born founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart and the first American to be canonized), well captured the hopefulness of the community in his invocation at the project's dedication ceremonies. "With the help of thy grace," proclaimed Giambastiani, "we salute today these humble homes as the token of rebirth of the neighbor-hood … as the beginning of a national awakening towards the cherished goal of a new life, new ideals, new order of things, new society where, we hope and pray, that true justice, security of life, and universal love will reign forever supreme and unchallenged."