GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI IN NEW YORK: A Historiographical Sketch, 1850-1882.

This paper examines different accounts of Giuseppe Garibaldi's life and involvement in the Risorgimento, with a specific emphasis on the role of New York City in helping to shape Garibaldi's memory and legacy. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries historians studied Garibaldi's career in ways that showed a changing political and social context. Initial studies, primarily formed by Italian nationalists, depicted Garibaldi as a heroic figure of unification. Later scholarship, however, in the mid-twentieth century contested the ideal Garibaldi image. In New York, Garibaldi's legacy was not just tied to his part in the Risorgimento but also to the larger Italian American experience. Local Italian academics and members of the "welcoming committee" capitalized on his arrival and political exile in 1850. Competing interest groups claimed Garibaldi--all to advance specific institutional projects. New York became a place where Garibaldi's image was constructed through partisans and activism. Commemorative performance and cultural representation connected the themes of patriotism, nationalism, freedom, and democracy. This article states how these diverse historical viewpoints merged within the city's collective memory of Garibaldi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]