Astigiani, Fubinesi and other Monferrini
in New York

Like Italians from all over the boot, Monferrini, upon arriving in America, were quick to set up mutual aid societies to help pay for life's tragedies (sickness, inability to work, death), religious organizations and social clubs. The Fubinese Society was founded in the 1920s and had hundreds of members who hailed from Fubine. The society was so successful that for years it had its own building in midtown Manhattan, in the heart of the West Side (aka Hell's Kitchen) Piemontese community. The society still exists holds an annual dinner each autumn. Sadly, the building was sold many years ago.

Emigrants from Asti also kept alive traditions and every year the Astigiani would celebrate the feast of Asti's patron saint San Secondo with a dinner. Click here to see read the text (in Italian; translations will come) of 1920s newspaper articles about the events. Thanks to Giancarlo Libert for the articles.

There was also a Casorzese society, one for emigrants from Castell'Alfero and La Monferrina, which met and held society affairs at Mazzini Hall, across the river in New Jersey.

The story of the Piemontese flag...

The official flag of the region, adopted on the 24th November 1995, is red bordered white (thin) and blue with a white cross charged on top with a blue lambel. Sometimes there is a blue border, sometimes not.

Read all about the different flags used over the centuries and about how this one came to look like it does. Click here.

Here's what Encyclopedia.com says about the Monferrato...

Montferrat montfrat, -r¨t , Ital. Monferrato, historic region of Piedmont, NW Italy, south of the Po River, now mostly in Alessandria prov. It is largely hilly, and wine, fruit, and cereals are produced. In the late 10th cent. Montferrat was created a marquisate held by the Aleramo family, and its rulers played an important role in the Crusades. In 1310 it passed to the Paleologo family. Casale became the capital of the marquisate in 1435. With the extinction of the Paleologo line, Emperor Charles V gave (1536) Montferrat to the Gonzaga family of Mantua, despite the claims of the house of Savoy. After Francesco Gonzaga's death in 1612, Savoy renewed its claims on Montferrat and invaded (1613) the region. Spain and France intervened. The Treaty of Cherasco (1631) assigned parts of Montferrat to the house of Savoy, and the rest (including Casale) followed the fortunes of the duchy of Mantua and passed to the Nevers (French) branch of the Gonzaga family. All of Montferrat was recognized by the Peace of Utrecht (1713) as belonging to the house of Savoy.

Follow the leaders...

Click here to see who ruled the Monferrato from Aleramo in 967 through the House of Savoy under which Italy was united circa 1860-'70 and which ruled the country until the republic won out after World War II.

How Aleramo obtained the Marquisate of the Monferrato...

In 1330, a friar named Jacopo da Acqui recorded the story, later taken up by others, of the Emperor Otto I, who in order to thank Aleramo for services rendered, proclaimed, "All the lands that lie between Piedmont and the sea that you can cover riding for three days will be yours and on them you will found your marquisate." There is some argument as to the validity of this story, but you must admit, it's a nice one. By the way, Aleramo had by that time also fallen in love with Otto's daughter and run away with her against her father's wishes, so Otto must also have been a forgiving ruler (or one with an ulterior motive). Aleramo is buried in the nave of the abbey at Grazzano Badoglio.

On emigration, from Piemontesi Nel Mondo...

More than two million Piedmontese people emigrated from 1870 to 1970, the year when their exodus definitively stopped. Those who are of Piedmontese origin are four million, which means that more than six million Piedmontese live throughout the world today.

PIEDMONTESE EMIGRATION FROM 1876 TO 1900 (FIRST PHASE)
The year 1876 does not really mark the beginning of emigration, rather the official recording of the phenomenon. While Italian emigration was sharply increasing those years, the Piedmontese one was not following suit, it was in fact fluctuating; the phenomenon then grew considerably during the eighties and the nineties. As far as the favourite destinations during the first 25 years are concerned, France was placed at the top of a hypothetical list, followed by Argentina, Brazil and the U.S.A. Piedmontese emigrants who moved to the biggest cities of Argentina applied themselves to any kinds of job: they worked mainly as farmers, farmhands, craftsmen and, to a smaller extent, as professionals, teachers, artists and dealers. The migratory movement to Brazil began soon after the abolition of serfage. Just like in Argentina, Piedmontese emigrants who moved to Brazil were almost all farmers or farmhands, but there was also a considerably growing number of priests coming from a Turin-based Salesian Mother House. Some people even moved to Australia. Piedmontese emigrants had to cross as many as three oceans to reach this country: the Atlantic, the Indian and the Pacific Ocean. The first golddiggers from northern Novara boarded mainly at Hamburg in the first half of the nineteenth century, but someone also boarded the ship at the English ports of Liverpool and Plymouth. The second migratory movement from Piedmont to Australia, which took hundreds and hundreds of emigrants to the sugarcane plantations of Queensland tropical lands, used a different route: they crossed the Red Sea owing to the Suez Canal, which had been opened in 1869, and they stopped over at the Isle of Columbus, that is present-day Sri Lanka. A lot of Piedmontese had to cross for thousands of miles to find a permanent job and have a serious affair. Before 1891, which experts define as a crucial year for Queensland demographic development, Piedmontese emigrants came especially from the province of Turin and Cuneo and moved above all to the biggest cities of Southern Wales, Victoria and, to a smaller extent, to Western Australia.

PIEDMONTESE EMIGRATION FROM 1901 TO 1913 (SECOND PHASE)
As it is widely known, a great number of Italian emigrants came from the region of Piedmont. At the beginning of the twentieth century 10,000 (more than 25%) people out of 39,000 who moved to France were Piedmontese. In 1905 the proportion reached 31.03%, as 19,000 out of 58,000 were Piedmontese; In the pre-war period the ratio reached the peak when the Piedmontese were 41.66% out of 36,000 Italians recorded abroad. Cuneo was the Italian most represented town with 62.2% of emigrants. Furthermore, more and more women took part in the migratory movements, which was a sign of both a greater number of family units and the beginning of women independent emigration. In the first years of the twentieth century Piedmontese emigration was quite unsteady, even though influenced by a rising trend. As many as 752,531 people emigrated between 1901 and 1913: 59% of them moved towards Europe, whereas 41% of them moved to overseas countries. As far as Europe is concerned, France absorbed most Piedmotese emigrants, followed by Switzerland, Germany and Austria. Among the overseas countries the record was held by Argentina, followed by Brazil and the U.S.A. Claudio Pizzelli, President of the Federation of Piedmontese people in Brazil as well as consular correspondent of the town of Osasco, told, " In the first years of the twentieth century, a textile factory of Biella was moved to the suburbs of San Paolo. It was called "Italbrasil" and helped the development of a burgeoning textile industry. As the factory was established in a hill area and the climate was suitable, many workers started making Piedmontese wines in their free time. Wine gradually became a very important resource and today that area is still known as the 'land of wine' , in spite of the reduced interest of new generations". A great number of Piedmontese were absorbed by Australia as well. In the areas of sugarcane plantations their number reached such a high percentage to even represent the greatest Italian ethnic group. That was the time of migratory movements from Alessandria and Asti: hundreds of people left their villages on hills, which were all vineyards, to move to towns with names they often did not even know. The jobs that emigrants did in this period were not really different from the ones of the previous period; a slightly higher number of qualified workers, however, added to farmers and the other workforce due to the growing popularity of the U.S.A as favourite destination.

PIEDMONTESE EMIGRATION FROM 1914 TO 1918 (THIRD PHASE
The outbreak of the First World War and consequent financial difficulties were two of the major checks to the migratory movement. The state of departures from Piedmont, however, was not really different from the one of the past. Even though it was slightly decreasing, the migratory movement towards the rest of Europe was still rather thick owing to the possibility to easily reach the two nearest outlets which stayed open all war long, that are France and Switzerland. The new important aspect of the migratory movement of the years of the First World War was that more than 60% of emigrants were women, whereas in the past, according to the tradition, about 70-80% of them were men. In the post-war period a lot Piedmontese left their country not due to a need, but just for their spirit of adventure. Australia particularly embodied the attracting promising exotic dream of eternal youth, and the support of some relatives who had already settled in the different States of the Australian Confederation encouraged emigrants to leave their belongings and their families.

PIEDMONTESE EMIGRATION FROM 1919 TO THE '70s
Soon after the end of the war, a crisis of transports by sea came to hinder the wish to emigrate. This was only a transitory problem, but was followed by the outbreak of the Depression which struck all the countries where Italian emigrants had some chances to find a job; nevertheless emigration did not stop. It is possible that the four historical phases of emigration were followed by a "fifth phase", which went on till the Second World War. The years between 1930 and 1942 were marked by a violent policy against emigration and a consequent low percentage of emigrants, who moved mainly across Europe. The end of the Second World War then opened a "sixth phase", which went on, though with changing fortunes, till 1970. The emigration of this period was quite different from the great exodus of the twenties and thirties: people were generally invited by relatives or friends who had settled abroad. Sometimes some people were even forced to expatriate for political reasons: those who were compromised due to Fascism or played a wrong role during the war of liberation are good examples. The fifties and the sixties were the time of rational expatriation, which involved people with a good education, such as technicians and restaurateurs holding a professional diploma. Owing to this new kind of emigration Piedmont cuisine became famous throughout the world. In America Italians distinguished themselves by working with their feet and their hands to build great cities. The stories of Italian people who moved to overseas countries can outline a positive consequence of emigration, that is the strong capability of emigrants to survive, though dearly, in far foreign countries and keep being attached to their origins. Those people who managed to go far, however, started by working someone else's land, building railroads and picking coffee in sunny huge fazendas; anyway, they never forgot their native land.