When discussing Italian migration to the United States, the narrative often focuses on large northern cities. The American South, by contrast, remains a marginal space in both public memory and scholarship. Yet Tennessee provides a revealing example of how Italian migrants negotiated identity, belonging, and citizenship in a region shaped by rigid social hierarchies.
This episode of the Ottocentismi podcast explores the early Italian communities in Memphis, Knoxville, and Nashville from the late nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century. In Memphis, Italian migrants, many from Liguria, Tuscany, and Lombardy, were active in agriculture and commerce, and they produced several Italian-language newspapers. In Knoxville, a smaller group of families made quieter but still identifiable contributions to the urban landscape.
Nashville exemplifies the most structured and observable case, particularly through the life of Primo Bartolini. Born in Fanano, in the province of Modena, educated in Bologna, and later settled in Nashville, Bartolini taught modern languages at local institutions, including Fisk University. He held a liminal position: Italian in a society that saw him as “almost white,” foreign yet culturally influential, deeply connected to Italy while actively participating in American civic life.
The podcast also explores Bartolini’s role during the First World War, his poetic pursuits, his contribution to Nashville’s cultural scene through music and language institutions, and how his memory has been maintained within the city’s commemorative landscape. His story highlights both the opportunities and contradictions of integration, including moments of cultural mediation and episodes influenced by the racial and colonial assumptions of the era.
These histories are examined in Essere italiani sotto la Mason–Dixon Line. Le prime comunità del Tennessee e l’eredità di Primo Bartolini (“Being Italian below the Mason–Dixon Line: the first communities of Tennessee and the legacy of Primo Bartolini”). The episode encourages listeners to rethink Italian American history from a southern point of view and to consider migration as a diverse, locally rooted experience.
Use this link to take a listen: https://ottocentismiilpodcast.podbean.com/e/essere-italiani-sotto-la-mason-dixon-line-le-prime-comunita-del-tennessee-e-l-eredita-di-primo-bartolini/
