A MELUS Interview: Jerre Mangione

Abstract

Jerre Mangione was born in Rochester, New York, in 1909, the eldest son of recent Sicilian immigrants. His childhood was intensely Italian at home, where his parents permitted only Sicilian to be spoken and dozens of relatives made up their own social world; but the inner-city neighborhood where he grew up was populated by Jews and Poles as well as Italians, and at school most of his friends were Jews. Mangione worked his way through Syracuse University, receiving his B.A. degree in 1931, and then went to work in New York City as an editor and book reviewer. In 1936 he visited Italy. From 193 7-1940 he served as coordinating editor for the Federal Writers' Project in Washington, D. C., remaining in various kinds of government service until 1948. He then entered the advertising and public relations field, until in 1961 he was appointed to the English Department of the University of Pennsylvania. He is now Professor Emeritus of American Literature at that school, which awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Letters in 1980. Jerre Mangione is the author of ten books: Mount Allegro (1943), The Ship and the Flame (1948), Reunion in Sicily (1950), Night Search (1965), Life Sentences for Everybody (1966), A Passion for Sicilians: The World Around Danilo Dolci (1968), America Is Also Italian (1969), The Dream and the Deal: The Federal Writers' Project 1935-1943(1972), Mussolini's March on Rome (1975), and An Ethnic at Large (1978). This interview took place on June 19, 1983 at Mr. Mangione's home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.