Spring gave Wooster Square residents fresh perspective

The advance of warmer weather brought people out of the confines of their apartments — a welcome relief from the winter sequestration in sometimes crowded spaces of Wooster Square.

Children and adults would begin to frequent Waterside Park, the major recreational destination in the shadow of the Sargent factory behemoth, even if just to enjoy the fresh sea air.

School recess periods began to transition to the outdoor playgrounds that offered, for many children, an introduction to American games and sports. The school gyms were usually open several nights during the week, and boys, in particular, were eager to learn the science of basketball.

The backyard clotheslines, pulley-driven and usually attached to a recycled telephone pole, would be hung with curtains, light blankets and bedspreads in preparation for the spring cleaning that heralded the seasonal change. Sometimes, the starched curtains were pinned to a wooden stretcher designed to keep them taut so they dried in shape. Windows were washed with a brick of Bon Ami, and everything was freshened up, including the front and back stairs.

The first spring vegetables began to appear in the markets, and the evening meal would become lighter and fresher. Perhaps the most anticipated of all would be the artichokes from California, an iconic staple of the Italian kitchen. These were prized both for their flavor and challenging cooking requirements, but mostly, they were just trimmed, steamed and flavored with garlic, parsley and olive oil. The California farmers found an appreciative market in places such as Wooster Square, where the artichoke was appreciated and favored.

The immigrants, accustomed to the Italian practice of shopping daily for the freshest products, continued to build their meal choices on the availability of local produce. In our store on Chapel Street, we would begin to offer the fresh produce outside the market as a convenience to shoppers, especially the women who worked in the dress and shirt shops in the neighborhood.

At Columbus School on Green Street, quiet efforts at assimilation were taking place. Girls were enrolled in home economics classes, and boys in industrial arts classes, where they had opportunities to learn the basic use of tools and home management skills. Girls learned how to use a modern stove and were introduced to some cooking techniques that might not be the same as those used in their homes.

The schools were also charged with building a sense of patriotism among the children born here. The goal was to transform them from Italians to Italian Americans.

These were subtle transitions for young people into a different style of addressing the ordinary challenges of life. The immigrants bought their old-world ways here with them, based on the lives they knew; the children were offered glimpses of different approaches to living based on the new ways. The challenge was to co-mingle the old with the new.

But by 1920, the Lega Civica Italo-Americana was organized, which served to unite all of the Italian American groups in the city. According to Antonio Cannelli, in his “Colonia Italiana di New Haven,” among other goals, the group hoped to: “Spread the teaching of the Italian language among our compatriots, and especially among their children, by organizing and subsidizing special schools for this purpose and in collaboration with other organizations.” There was a recognition that it would be their responsibility to preserve their language and customs.

The men, in their scant free time, would sometimes gather in clubs and societies to discuss, outside the home, the issues of the day. The recently reunified Italy from individual kingdoms into a single unified country was always of high interest. Even though they were now residents of a new country with a history of interconnectedness and personal freedom, they were drawn to the dramatic goings on in their former home where those issues were emerging.

The growing popularity of Dante as an important literary and political influencer, motivated the Dante Alighieri Society to be among the first such groups to be organized. And the new school built on Chestnut Street in 1937 was named in his honor.

The clubs also provided mutual aid and support for those in need, especially those without a financial net to see them through difficult times. These support systems generally allowed those in need to avoid having to turn to the municipality for assistance, which was considered a last resort and reinforced the notion of living in a caring community where people took care of each other.

By the decade of the twenties, Wooster Square was 90 percent Italian, and early on, the neighborhood was known by those outside the community as Little Naples. In 1919, the Italian government established a consulate in New Haven’s Wooster Square to offer assistance to the newly arrived Italians.

This camaraderie and sense of community also served to counteract the negativity and prejudice that so many faced in the workplace, which prevented them from taking full advantage of the promise of the new country. “Italians need not apply” was not an uncommon admonition in the early days of the migration.

The need for the residents to walk to work was responsible for the dense housing pattern that eventually came to characterize the neighborhood. Sargent, New Haven Clock, and Candee Rubber, among the largest employers, created the thickly populated areas within close proximity to their establishments.

Even when local entrepreneurs began to build new housing stock, usually sixfamily brick buildings, they were narrow and didn’t offer a lot of space for large families.

But the village aspect of living there, the strong sense of community, counterbalanced the hardships of living in sometimes crowded conditions. As is true with all immigrant groups, the Italians came to realize that even in a place like America, everything needs to be earned; nothing is given.