Welcome to the project site for the Lega Toscana di Protezione. This research was conducted by four student researchers and one faculty researcher from the Department of French and Italian and in consultation with individuals from various academic disciplines and specialties, both on Pitt's main and satellite campuses.
This research project is a multi-dimensional look into the members who comprised the Lega Toscana di Protezione, a Pittsburgh-based beneficial group that was exclusive to Tuscan immigrants living in the Pittsburgh area. Using archived documents from the Senator John Heinz History Center's Detre Library & Archives as a repository of primary sources, the researchers combed through the Tuscan League's minute logs, application materials from the Tuscan Women's Auxiliary, and digitized newspaper entries on individual League members to construct a composite portrait of what this group was, who ascribed to it, and how they interacted with each other and with the greater area around them.
The majority of primary source materials regarding la Lega Toscana, its sister organization, the Women's Auxiliary, and its members were graciously provided by the Heinz History Center for academic use. The archived Lega Toscana di Protezione minutes are available for free, in-house study at the Detre Library and Archives in Pittsburgh, PA.
The primary objective of this webpage is to both inform users of the interpersonal mechanisms that drove this organization, as well as to provide a free, open-source, online location to study, or to simply browse, the minute manuscripts, transcriptions of those manuscripts, or our translation of the volume.
Read more about our researchers, our questions, and our approaches in our
About us
section above.