America is a melting pot. It is a place where folks of all creeds, religions, ethnicities and backgrounds can come and make a better life for themselves and their families.

I really like the term “Melting Pot,” especially for our area, because most of the ethnic groups came here to work in our steel industry where the process of making steel involved melting raw ingredients together to form a finished product.

Looking at the different folks who worked in our plants and factories many were immigrants or first-generation Americans who still had strong ties to their original homelands.

At the turn of the 20th century, millions of immigrants came to the new world from the old. In the old world, immigrants needed to travel to the nearest seaport to board the ships for their long journey to America. The ports that supplied the vast number of immigrants to the United States between the years 1900-1920 were Hamburg, Germany; Liverpool, England; Bremen, Germany; and in Italy, Naples.

In 1907 alone, the Italian port processed more than 240,000 immigrants on their way to a new life in the United States. The reasons for immigration were many. Most folks were escaping poverty, military obligations or simply to increase their opportunities for a better life.

Upon arriving in the states, the immigrants either stayed in cities like New York or Philadelphia looking for work, or if they were lucky, they would already have a destination in mind. Such was the case for many of the immigrants to our area.

Weirton and Steubenville were certainly a destination for those looking for jobs. And as immigrants arrived, many sent letters back home to the old world telling of the opportunities here.

Such was the case for my grandfather Joseph Delli Carpini’s family. He was one of five children in his immediate family, two of whom were born here in the states and the others in Gallo Matese, in the region of Campania, Italy. Like many immigrants, my great grandfather was what was known as a bird of passage, traveling to the United States to work and collect funds to send back to his wife and children in Italy. Finally in 1922 he had saved enough to bring his family to the United States.

He was here already and my great-grandmother, Antoinetta Canzano Delli Carpini originally from Teano, Italy, along with her small children made the perilous journey by boat alone to meet him. As far as I know she never returned to Italy. But because the mills of Weirton provided good jobs, many residents from Gallo Matese ended up here. That, I am sure was a comfort to her and many from that region to have familiar names and faces in a strange land. The town of Reggio Calabria in Southern Italy provided many immigrants to our area as well.

When the immigrants arrived in our cities, they naturally chose to form communities based on their ethnicities. In Steubenville the Italian area of town was the South End consisting of South Fifth, Sixth and Seventh streets, south of Adams Street. The community centered on the churches. St. Anthony, located on South Seventh Street, was founded in 1906, and the church building was completed and dedicated on April 3, 1910.

According to a Herald-Star article of the time, the cornerstone was laid with the inscription, “Ecclesia Sancti, Antonii, Fundata, A.D. 1910.” The church was built to support and to minister to the many Italian-American families in that neighborhood. It was here in this neighborhood that Dino Crocetti, Dean Martin, was born in 1917 at 319 S. Sixth St. The Italian neighborhood thrived with Italian-owned stores and businesses in the first half of the 20th century, but as time went by, the old Italian neighborhood declined as children and grandchildren of these Italian immigrants moved to the West End of Steubenville. In 2008, St. Anthony’s closed after nearly 100 years as an active parish.

The Italian neighborhood in Weirton was located in the North End around Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Street in addition to Avenue A. This was the area where the first homes and businesses were erected in the area that would be the new community of Weirton.

Looking at the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps from 1915 of this area, one can see that the homes were exactly alike, typical of any company town. From the maps, one can see where the early residents lived and worked in the neighborhood. There were many barbers, two bakeries, several pool rooms, tailors and drug stores. A moving picture house was located at the corner of Main Street and Avenue B. Between Avenue B and C on the mill side of Main Street, in 1923 there were nine “bunk houses” presumably for mill workers with a large shared latrine in the rear of the buildings. This was on a street listed as “Greek.” I also have seen it listed as Chios Street. Many immigrants lived in this area.

For the Italian-Americans in this neighborhood of Weirton, the center of life was family and community. The Garibaldi Hall on Avenue A was a focal point as well as the Catholic church. Just down from the Garibaldi Hall, past the intersection of Avenue A and Fourth Street, was an Italian Catholic Church located at 198 Avenue A. The church showed up on the map in 1915, 1919 and 1923, but no other information could be found on the parish. St. Paul’s Parish was formed in 1911 and Sacred Heart of Mary in 1915 to accommodate the Catholics of Polish decent, all in the North End of Weirton as well. Perhaps the Italian Parish joined with one of these. In any case, their community was strong.

As time went on, the Italian community prospered, and those who lived in the old neighborhood sought new homes out of the crowded area near the mill. Today, little remains of the North end of Weirton, let alone its once-thriving Italian neighborhood.

Between 1880 and 1924, more than 4 million Italian immigrants came to the United States, and although they originally stayed in close-knit communities, they persevered and assimilated into American life.

Coming full circle, in 2007 I visited Italy, and while visiting Naples, I took a trip to the Island of Capri. We left from the port, and I thought of my great-grandmother Antonetta and my great aunts and uncles who left Italy from this very same port in 1922. As mainland Italy faded behind them, consisting of their past joys and struggles in addition to everything they ever knew, they only had but one choice to look to the future.

I wish I could have asked them what they thought when they saw the Statue of Liberty in New York City. She welcomed them saying “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”