About the Author:
Stefano Luconi (PhD in American Studies, 1995) teaches History of North America at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Florence and specializes in Italian Americans' political experience in the interwar years. Besides a number of journal articles and book chapters, he is author of four books that include From Paesani to White Ethics: The Italian Experience in Philadelphia (2001).

Italian Americans made a significant contribution to Franklin D. Roosevelt's election to the White House in 1932 and to the victory of the Democratic Party in the four subsequent presidential contests. This volume offers a case study of their electoral behavior. Through a quantitative analysis of the Italian-American vote between 1916 and 1948, this study demonstrates that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the creation of a Democratic majority in the "Little Italy" of Providence foreran both Alfred Smith's 1928 candidacy for the presidency and the Depression of the 1930s. It also shows that Italian Americans' Democratic allegiance survived World War II and underwent a revitalization in the postwar years. Political recognition and patronage were so central to Italian Americans' party choice that their support for the Democratic Party reached a climax when a member of the community, John Pastore, ran for governor on the Democratic ticket in the mid 1940s.

The FDU Press has particular strengths in literary studies, world history and politics, biography, film, ethnic studies, sociology, the Civil War, art, religion, local history, and urban studies.