Little Italy New Orleans

I went to NOLA several times in the 1970’s, but never new the rich history of Italian, specifically Sicilians in the French Quarter.  This is the third Little Italy highlighted in our series.

Little Italy New Orleans, or more accurately “Little Palermo” was the first major population center for Sicilians in America.  

Economics in Louisiana and Sicily combined to bring about what became known as the Great Migration of thousands of Sicilians. The end of the Civil War allowed the freed men the choice to stay or to go, many chose to leave for higher paying jobs, which in turn led to a perceived scarcity of labor resources for the planters. Northern Italy enjoyed the fruits of modern industrialization, while southern Italy and Sicily suffered destitute conditions under the system of absentee landowners. The peasant was still essentially the serf in the system. Emigration not only offered peasants a chance to move beyond subsistence living, it also offered them a chance to pursue their own dreams of proprietorship as farmers or other business owners. On March 17, 1866, the Louisiana Bureau of Immigration was formed and planters began to look to Sicily as a possible solution to their labor needs. Steamship companies advertisements were very effective in recruiting potential workers. . Three steamships per month were running between New Orleans and Sicily by September 1881 at a cost of only forty dollars per person.^[6]

In 1890 the ethnic Irish chief of police, David Hennessy was assassinated.^[7] Suspicion fell on Italians, whose growing numbers in the city made other whites nervous.^[8] The March 14, 1891 New Orleans lynchings were the largest ever mass lynchings in Louisiana history.^[8] The use of the term “mafia” by local media in relation to the murder is the first-known usage of the word in print.

“Little Palermo” was established by recent immigrants in the lower French Quarter. So many Italians settled here that some suggested the area should be renamed as “The Sicilian Quarter” in the early 20th century. As time passed and they became established, many Italian-Americans moved out of New Orleans and to the suburbs.^[4]

Historically many corner stores in New Orleans were owned by Italians. Progresso Foods originated as a New Orleans Italian-American business.^[4] The business established by the Vaccaro brothers later became Standard Fruit.^[5]

After they first arrived, Italian immigrants generally took low-wage laboring jobs, which they could accomplish without being able to speak English.^[5] They worked on docks, in macaroni factories, and in nearby sugar plantations. Some went to the French Market to sell fruit.^[4] Italian workers became a significant presence in the French Market.^[5]

Wikipedia