The 1940 U.S. Census for Alexandria, Virginia lists two men with the surname of Giuseppe living within a short distance. After further research, the men are likely either brothers or cousins. James Giuseppe is listed as a forty-three year old Italian immigrant working as a carpenter with an American wife and six children, ages four months to seventeen years old, all born in Virginia. He had three years of education while his wife received seven years. His children over the age of five were all educated starting around age seven. He earned $1,800 a year and owned a house on East Raymond Street. It is likely James immigrated sometime in the 1920s because his oldest child was seventeen years old at the time of the 1940 census and had been born in Virginia.[1]
James Guiseppe’s family in the 1940 US Census for Alexandria VA
In the same census, down the street was another Giuseppe family that had parents from Italy. Both John and Mary Giuseppe were originally from Italy and immigrated to the United States where all four of their children were born. John was a car repairman and made $1,200 a year. Mary did not have an education and took care of the household.[2] John and Mary’s oldest child was also 17 and born in Virginia; it is possible that James and John immigrated together.[3] Their children all had been educated starting around age seven or eight. Their oldest child had reached his second year of high school.[4] Both men would have been in their twenties when they immigrated, as John and James were forty-nine and forty-three, respectively, at the time of the 1940 U.S. Census.[5]
The city directory with some of John’s children
The Giuseppes were part of approximately 9 million Italians living outside of Italy by the 1920s.[6] By the 1930s, they were part of 3.5 million Italians in America, many of whom were trying to escape from Mussolini and Fascism.[7] Despite this, there were many Italians in America who saw Mussolini’s Italy as a homeland to be proud of.[8] It is unclear whether either Giuseppe family supported or opposed Mussolini and Fascism. Previous diasporas had a lot of Italians leave Italy, work elsewhere for a while and then return to Italy, but that stopped by the time the Giuseppes came to America. They, like many other Italians around the same time, likely intended on staying in America for good.
[1] 1940 U.S. Census (Population Schedule), Alexandria, Virginia, E Raymond Street, sheet no. 10A, James Guiseppe, line 7-14, digital image, accessed October 11, 2016, http://www.ancestry.com/
[2] 1940 U.S. Census (Population Schedule), Alexandria, Virginia, E Raymond Street, sheet no. 10A, James Guiseppe, line 7-14, digital image, accessed October 11, 2016, http://www.ancestry.com/
[3] 1945 U.S. City Directories, Alexandria, Virginia, page 184, Dorothy Giuseppe, line 17, digital image, accessed October 11, 2016, http://www.ancestry.com/
[4] 1945 U.S. City Directories, Alexandria, Virginia, page 184, Dorothy Giuseppe, line 14-17, digital image, accessed October 20, 2016, http://www.ancestry.com/
[5] 1940 U.S. Census (Population Schedule), Alexandria, Virginia, E Raymond Street, sheet no. 10A, James Guiseppe, line 7-14, digital image, accessed October 11, 2016, http://www.ancestry.com/
[6] Donna R. Gabaccia, Italy’s Many Diasporas (London: Routledge, 2003), 141.
[7] Gabaccia, 146.
[8] Gabaccia, 147.
