Rosa

About this book

"This is the life story of Rosa Cavalleri, an Italian woman who came to the United States in 1884, one of the peak years in the nineteenth-century wave of immigration. A vivid, richly detailed account, the narrative traces Rosa's life in an Italian peasant village and later in Chicago. Marie Hall Ets, a social worker and friend of Rosa's at the Chicago Commons settlement house during the years following World War I, meticulously wrote down her lively stories to create this book."--BOOK JACKET. "Rosa was born in a silk-making village in Lombardy, a major source of north Italian emigration. She first set foot in the United States at the Castle Garden immigrant depot on the tip of Manhattan. Her life in this country was hard, and Ets chronicles it in eloquent detail - Rosa endures a marriage at sixteen to an abusive older man, an unwilling migration to a Missouri mining town, the unassisted birth of a child, and manages to escape from a husband who tried to force her into prostitution. Rosa's exuberant personality, remarkable spirit, and ability as a storyteller distinguish this book unique contribution to the annals of U.S. immigration."--BOOK JACKET.

Themes & subjects

About the author

Marie Hall Ets

16 December 1895 – 17 January 1984

Marie Hall Ets (December 16, 1895 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – January 17, 1984 in Inverness, Florida) was an American writer and illustrator who is best known for children's picture books. She attended Lawrence College, and in 1918, Ets journeyed to Chicago where she became a social worker at the Chicago Commons, a settlement house on the northwest side of the city. There she met Ines Cassettari, an immigrant from Italy who worked at the settlement. Ets transcribed Cassettari's autobiography, and the book was later published as Rosa: The Life of an Italian Immigrant. In 1960 Ets won the annual Caldecott Medal for her illustrations of Nine Days to Christmas, whose text she wrote with Aurora …