Physical description: Mary Badovinac (at right), Mary Ann Spinuzzi Altamore and Frank Evans about 1960 (possibly at JFK fundraiser)--see PCCLI6233
This photograph is a digital scan of an original photograph lent for copying during the Italians of Colorado project. The original photograph is not owned by History Colorado. The digital scan was donated with permissions (see permissions in Registrar's file) and accessioned into the History Colorado collection.
Project description:
In 2002, the Colorado Historical Society (now known as History Colorado) founded the Colorado Italian American Preservation Association (CIAPA). A volunteer organization, CIAPA’s mission is to work collaboratively with the Society and other organizations to develop, support and coordinate projects that preserve, promote and celebrate Italian American culture and heritage. Since 2002, CIAPA has carried out its mission by meeting with people from the Colorado Italian American community, recording their stories and creating an archive of research materials that includes oral histories, photographs, moving images, sound recordings and artifacts. To date, CIAPA has helped the Society acquire over 200 oral histories, 600 artifacts and nearly 6,000 photographs. Since 2002, CIAPA has developed over 4,000 research files, all of which document the history, culture and traditions of Italian American families in Colorado.
Notes:
See MSS.02595 Robert A. Badovinac file for additional information and images.
The following description of Pueblo’s Italian Enclave was taken from Industrial Utopia: The History and Architecture of South Pueblo http://www.historitecture.com/pdf/south_pueblo_context.pdf 12.21.21
“With the arrival of the Denver & Rio Grande's tracks to Pueblo in 1872 and the construction of the steel works within a decade, Pueblo became a regional industrial hub. Southern Italians, with a majority of Sicilians, who had been working near New Orleans harvesting sugar cane and New York and Philadelphia constructing railroads, received word of the new industrial work opportunities in Pueblo. Italian workers also moved into the coal field regions surrounding Cañon City and Trinidad to the extent that the populations of small towns such as Rockvale, Brookside, Ludlow, and Berwind became almost entirely Italian. In Pueblo, the first largely Italian neighborhood developed on Goat Hill near the present-day intersection of East First Street and Interstate 25. These early Italians took advantage of the neighborhoods’ proximity to the smelter just to the southeast of the hill. The Italian population later migrated within the city limits southward to Bessemer to be closer to the steel mill.”