Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Discrimination Against And Adaptation Of Italians In The Coal Counties Of Oklahoma, David G. Loconto

Great Plains Quarterly

In the late 1800s and early 1900s coal reigned supreme in what is now southeastern Oklahoma. As was the case in the northeastern United States, Italians and other immigrants from southern and eastern Europe were brought in as a form of inexpensive labor to work the mines. Italians had different customs, a different language, a unique appearance, and a lack of training in mining compared with the American, English, Irish, and Scottish miners that preceded them. These differences were the foundation of an atmosphere in which immigrant groups would settle in communities. The results were struggles between southern and eastern …