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HISTORY

[LEFT] Banana shipments arriving at New Orleans’ docks [RIGHT] Italian butchers in the historic French Market

Many budding Italian entrepreneurs had stalls at the French Market where business was almost all wholesale. Chisesi Brothers, now famous for their hams, started in the French Market selling live chickens from a basket.

The Italian French Market Like farming, produce vending was a common livelihood for Italian immigrants who settled around the Gulf Coast. In 1923, having saved enough money working at the family truck farm in Marrero, J.P. Rouse and his wife, the former Leola Pitre, moved toThibodaux where he opened City Produce Company. He bought fruits and vegetables from big farms in Chackbay and Chocktaw and trucked them to the public markets including the French Market. Many budding Italian entrepreneurs had stalls at the French Market where business was almost all wholesale. Chisesi Brothers, now famous for their hams, started in the French Market selling live chickens from a basket. Other immigrants peddled food from horse drawn carriages and later trucks. Each salesman traveled the same route each day so people knew when and where to look for him. The Dole Fruit Company traces its roots back to the early French Quarter fruit carts. The Vaccaro brothers, who peddled fruit, joined another immigrant family, the D’Antonis of Baton Rouge, to form Standard Fruit & Steamship Company. They dominated the banana business and helped make New Orleans the world’s largest fruit importer in the early 19 th century. Dole acquired 55% interest in the Standard Fruit &Steamship Company in 1964.It later acquired 100%. Giuseppe Uddo, the founder of Progresso Foods, also started as a peddler, selling olives, cheeses and tomato paste in New Orleans,

nearly one third of Independence’s residents have Italian heritage. There was other work to be had besides farming. Businesses placed ads in the New Orleans L’ltalo Americano seeking southern Italian immigrant labor for the South’s coal and steel industries, railroads and plantations. A burgeoning seafood industry along the Gulf Coast drew immigrants east to cities like Biloxi where oyster and shrimp canning factories and raw oyster dealerships operated. A live fish market flourished between Main and Reynoir Street. Vestiges of the area’s seafood businesses remain in Biloxi today. Desporte and Sons Seafood Market & Deli on Division Street is the oldest family run seafood market on the Gulf Coast. But for most immigrants agriculture was the main attraction. One entrepreneur who capitalized on that was Alessandro Mastro- Valerio, who in 1988 established an agricultural colony on the Eastern Shore of Baldwin County, Alabama. Mastro-Valerio bought land in the area now known as Belfort. After subdividing it he went in search for would-be landowners, running ads in northern newspapers to lure immigrants who came mainly from central and northern Italy via Ellis Island. Mastro-Valerio’s plan was a success. His agricultural roots run deep in Baldwin County at farms like A.A. Corte and Sons in Daphne. Francesco “Frank” Manci also helped create Lower Alabama’s agriculture industry. Manci opened the area’s first

first from a horse-drawn carriage — his horse was named Sal — later from a truck. Eventually Uddo purchased a small warehouse on Decatur Street. After World War I, Uddo bought a tomato paste factory owned by the Vaccaro brothers in Riverdale, California. Business expanded from there.

cotton gin in 1900. In 1901, its first sawmill. Manci shipped the first potatoes out of Baldwin County. Other Italian immigrants built processing facilities in Loxley on the rail line to make shipping produce north and northeast more feasible.

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