Climates of Migration : Science, Race, and Agricultural Diplomacy between Italy and the United States, 1895–1916

Abstract

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Italian and US governments sought to create agricultural development projects as a way to direct new Italian migrants toward allegedly underpopulated areas of North America and relocate urban migrants to so-called rural colonies. In order to tailor migrants and national interests, diplomats, politicians, agrarian experts, and social reformers developed anew basis for international collaboration labeled agricultural diplomacy. Scientific studies emerged to prove the potential of the southern US states as colonies. This paper focuses on exploring this transnational entanglement of science, race, economy, and politics with Italian migrants in the United States and their ecologies.These agricultural colonies turned out to be spaces of experimentation for both scientific and political purposes: Italian agronomists tested crops and collected data on climates, while Italian diplomats viewed such spaces as useful for experiment-ing with their ideas of informal expansionism. At the same time, US-American actors–USDA scientists, Southern landowners, and governmental officials also looked at these agricultural colonies as experimental spaces: testing new forms of agricultural production that could improve urban food provisioning while changing the racial geography of both the city and the countryside. By highlighting the contribution of the Italian Agricultural Colonial Institute of Florence and its agronomists in the transnational relationship labeled agricultural diplomacy, this paper emphasizes its role in the scientization of colonial practice.