Save Our Italian Newspapers!

Denver has a rich Italian heritage that survives even today where we see it in the North Denver neighborhood that was once the center of the Italian colonia, Little Italy. We see it in the area's restaurants like Patsy's Italian Restaurant, in places like Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, and in social clubs such as the Potenza Lodge. Where we have lost the heritage, however, is with the Italian newspapers that once kept the Italian immigrant community informed in their own language. These papers carried local news as well as news from the Italian homeland. Some included literary writings along with editorials.

Dr. Rebecca Hunt, North Denver historian and history faculty at the University of Colorado Denver, is attempting to locate and collect copies of these old Italian newspapers before they are gone forever. Her plan is to get them digitized and archived online for use in researching and understanding the Italian heritage of Denver.

You can assist this project by searching your attic, basement, or garage, going through old trunks and other out-of-the-way places for copies of these Italian newspapers and sharing them through our project. If you want to keep your copies of the old newspapers, they will be scanned and then returned to you.

Below are some of the papers Dr. Hunt is hoping to find. They have been mentioned in such works as Giovanni Perilli's Colorado and the Italians in Colorado (Il Colorado e gl’Italiani nel Colorado) and Alisa Zahller's Italy in Colorado.†

La Stella (Angelo Noce, 1885-1889)
Il Risveglio (existed in 1922)
La Capitale (existed in 1922)
La Frusta (existed in 1922)
La Nazione (Father Mariano Lepore, 1890s)
Il Roma (Peter Albi, 1880s-1890s)
The Trumpet (English language)
Il Corriere di Trinidad (Giuseppe Garibaldi Maio, c.1904-1933 and then 1933-1953 as The Morning Light)
Il Unione (1897>)

If you know of any other newspapers serving the Italian American community in the early days that we might have overlooked, please let us know about them as well.

You may contact the project through Dr. Rebecca Hunt at rhunt2@earthlink.net or through Bernie Seward at bernie.seward@gmail.com or 303-503-6346.

 

† See the Resources page.