October 11, 2011 ~ We were surprised to find out that there is no Wikipedia entry for Giovanni Ermengildo Schiavo.  In the pantheon of Italian Americans who have contributed the most to Italian American studies, he must stand near the top. On this Italian American Heritage Month, we must remember Giovanni Schiavo. As Peter Sammartino, founder of Fairleigh Dickinson University, said of him, he "was the most important writer of Italian contributions to the creation of America." Perhaps this has been an oversight by our friends in the Italian American academic community.  We hope to remedy this oversight. Graduating from John Hopkins University in 1919, Schiavo became a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University, but for financial reasons never completed his program.  As Professor Frank Cavaioli wtore in 2000, Schiavo was  the "pioneer" of Italian American Studies. "Though he was not part of the academic world his dedicated labor produced over thirty volumes of documentation on the subject . . . Committing himself to this intellectual endeavor in those early years must have been a lonely experience for Schiavo. Lacking an academic base, there were no graduate students to assist in gathering data, no colleagues to evaluate or critique his work, and no professional organization to promote his work."  Read Frank Cavaioli's article

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