All in the Familia

Javier Grossutti

Grossutti is an Italian scholar whose own roots are in Fruili. He is now a researcher in Economic and Social History at Italy’s University of Padua in the Department of Historical and Geographic Sciences and the Ancient World. He has published prolifically on the history of Italian immigration to the US, particularly of terrazzo workers, and won numerous grants to conduct his studies, including a year at the Italian Academy at Columbia University. In 2012, he spent a week prospecting the archives of the National Terrazzo & Mosaic Association (NTMA) in Fredericksburg, Texas, to add to his already considerable knowledge of the subject.

Grossutti’s interest in the Italian immigrants who brought their mosaic and terrazzo skills to the US began in the late 1990s. He discovered that the terrazzo industry is like none other in the history of immigration. Due to their highly specialized trade, mosaic and terrazzo workers were regarded as the “aristocracy” of the early-20th century immigrant labor force, which was otherwise mainly employed as unskilled laborers, he explained. These skills were valued by the greater community—not only by the Italian community.

Also distinguishing the mosaic and terrazzo industry for Grossutti was a tendency to establish industry organizations (unions and trade associations such as the NTMA) and the “entrepreneurial calling” of these craftsmen and their families as they passed down skills and knowledge through generations. He observed the creativity and innovation of these enterprises.

In 2000, Grossutti curated the Museum of Emigration, set up in the village of Cavasso Nuovo, in Friuli. Many natives of Cavasso Nuovo, Sequals, and a few other villages, the historical origin of the mosaic and terrazzo workers, came to the US, bringing their families and friends and forming a strong thread within the three million Italians who came to the US in the early 1900s. Terrazzo craftsmen established firms throughout Europe as well as in the US. Among the NTMA members today are fifth-generation companies and numerous names listed among its founders.

This exclusive group spread the terrazzo trade throughout the US while keeping it all in the family. The trade has meanwhile gone extinct in Italy, according to Grossutti.

“These families have been embellishing American architecture for over a century in many of the country’s most important buildings,” he said. “They’ve contributed to the history of the building of this enormous country.”