Growth in immigration increased after Detroit became a part of the United States and the Erie Canal had been constructed.
The concentrations of the population lived in Eastern Market and east of the area presently known as Greektown.
Some Italians stayed in Detroit temporarily before traveling onwards to mines in northern Michigan.
Armando Delicato, author of Italians in Detroit, wrote that "Unlike many other American cities, no region of Italy was totally dominant in this area".
[3] Steve Babson, author of Working Detroit: The Making of a Union Town, wrote that "Many northern Italians, coming from an urban and industrialized society, had little in common with local Sicilians, who came from the rural and clannish south.
In 2005 Delicato wrote that "Unlike some other national groups, like the Poles, who still look to Hamtramck, or the Mexicans, who have Mexicantown, Italian Detroiters no longer have a geographical center".
The report Ethnic groups in Detroit stated that Voce had an "independent point of view" and that it was "said to be the only Italian paper carrying on a campaign against the underworld.
In addition to Italian courses, the Dante Alighieri Society maintains La Biblioteca Italiana, a substantial Italian-language collection held at Oakland Community College in Royal Oak for members and the community at-large and a DVD lending library for members.
www.dantemichigan.org The Italian American Cultural Society (IACS)'s offices are located in Clinton Township.
[13] The IACS building is located on Romeo Plank Road, north of 19 Mile,[13] on the northern edge of the township.
[8] According to Babson, during the 1920s men "were the unquestioned authority and usually the sole breadwinner among adult members"of Italian families, especially those from Sicily, and that wives of first generation immigrants were only able to socialize in the house, marketplace, and church.
[8] According to Ethnic Communities of Greater Detroit, 1970, Italians were "in terms of their occupation, their education, and their income", the "least successful" immigrant group along with the Poles.