Los Angeles's Little Italy

Los Angeles's Little Italy presents a history of the city's vibrant Italian enclave during the 100-year period following the arrival of the city's first Italian pioneer in 1827. While Los Angeles possesses the nation's fifth-largest Italian population today, little is known about its Italian history, which has been examined by only a handful of historians over the past 50 years. Much of historic Little Italy has been erased from the map or is masked by subsequent ethnic settlements. However, the community's memory lives on. From pioneer agriculturalists and winemakers to philanthropists and eccentric personalities, Italian Americans left a lasting impression on the city's social, economic, and cultural fabric and contributed to Los Angeles's development as one of the world's greatest metropolises.

Mariann Gatto is the curator of history and education at El Pueblo Historical Monument, and has chronicled Los Angeles's Italian community for more than a decade. She is also the author of My City, My History: A Guide to Discovering Your History and the History of El Pueblo de Los Angeles. This new volume contains hundreds of never before published photographs from the archive of the Historic Italian Hall Foundation as well as rare photographs from local historical repositories.