Italians in America

Amerigo Ruggiero was born on July 31, 1878 in the southern Italian town of Grottole, located in the province of Matera. At an early age, he moved with his family to the nearby town of Grassano. He received degrees in Medicine and Surgery and in Veterinary Science at the University of Naples Federico II. During his student years in Naples, he became an activist in the Italian Socialist Party. His political militancy led to his arrest in Rome and imprisonment in Naples. In 1907, he immigrated to New York, where he joined his brother, a licensed pharmacist, and where he collaborated with various newspapers and magazines. Following the outbreak of World War I, he first-sided with the anti-interventionists but then decided to return to Italy and participate as a volunteer in the Alpini corps as a veterinary lieutenant. After practicing medicine for two years near Rome, he returned to the United States in 1922 to focus on journalism. He served as a foreign correspondent in the United States for the Turin newspaper La Stampa from 1929 into the 1940s, writing on such topics as economics, sports, American politics and society, and the conditions of the Italian immigrants. It was in this latter role that he gained fame as Italy's leading correspondent from New York. In addition to the volume Italiani in America, Ruggiero published L'America al bivio (1934) with Giulio Einaudi Editore, whose cover was designed by Carlo Levi. Ruggiero died in Grassano on December 4, 1959.