Mason Smith
Research Mentor: Giorgio Bertellini
Mentor Department: Film Television, and Media, LSA
Author(s): Giorgio Bertellini, Mason Smith
Session: Session 6 (3:00 PM – 3:50 PM)
Presentation Type: Poster 34
Abstract
Following the dramatic news of 1917 Soviet Revolution, the US institutions of government, law and order swiftly began their attack on European immigrants’ radical groups, accused of plotting to bring the revolution on US soil and corrupt the American way of life. Beginning with the “Palmer raids†(1919-1920), the US Department of Justice ordered the country-wide arrest of thousands of supposed anarchists and communists, mostly of Italian, and Jewish origins. In this climate, two Italian anarchists from Massachusetts, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were charged with murder (1920), sentenced (1921), and ultimately executed (1927). Their trial became a cause célèbre for a national and international public opinion that loudly protested the legal authorities’ display of racist bigotry and ideological bias. What was the reaction to the S&V case in 1920s Michigan, a state that, due to a notably growing class of industrial worker, had welcomed a significant number of foreign workers, including Italians? This study analyzes the case’s coverage in the mainstream Michigan press (i.e., Detroit Free Press and Detroit News) vis-à-vis that of both local Italian-language periodicals (La Voce del Popolo and La Tribuna degli Italiani) and the radical Italian press published in the Northeast. While the English-speaking press expectedly showcased a hostile attitude to the fate of the two Italian prisoners, it was the pro-Fascist La Tribuna that expressed dismay at their treatment and not the Catholic and anti-Fascist La Voce. Even more surprising was the general apathy of the Italian population which in the 1920s, after improving its employment status and living standards, abandoned its old, downtown neighborhood for the suburbs. The research also looks at the coverage of the S&V case in 1977, on the 50-year anniversary of their execution in a climate that did not have the Red Scare to contend with.
