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Photographer: Mike Wintermantel
Taken: August 13, 2014
Caption: A Devisive Time, A Divided Place
Additional Description: panel 1
This park marks the site of Italian Hall, the meeting place for the Societa Mutua Beneficenza Italiana-the Italian Mutual Benefit Society
Ethnic societies and halls were important in immigrant communities like Calumet. They offered men and women the opportunity to meet others from their homeland, speak their native language, and maintain cultural traditions while adjusting to an unfamiliar country and new customs. In addition to being a gathering place for Calumet's Italian community, the Italian Hall hosted meetings of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) during a copper miners' strike in 1913-1914. On Christmas Eve, 1913, it was the location of a party for striking workers and their families.
Submitted: August 16, 2014, by Mike Wintermantel of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Database Locator Identification Number: p282848
File Size: 2.635 Megabytes

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