"More Than Ever, We Feel Proud to Be Italians": World War I and the New Haven Colonia, 1917–1918

CHRISTOPHER M. STERBA


ON THE EVE of America's entry into the First World War in March 1917, a young man from New Haven was arrested on charges of espionage. The police of Bristol, Connecticut linked Leopoldo Cobianchi to several pieces of incriminating evidence. In the boarding-house where he was staying, detectives discovered a map of Bristol marked with a drawing of a cannon. Finding calculations of the gun's firing range, they suspected Cobianchi to be one of a pair of men seen prowling about the city's factory district. Also among his possessions were maps of Mexico and a button bearing the cryptic message "One of 1,000." Police were most interested in an essay defending the German policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. To the United States marshall called in to investigate, it looked as though the rising fears of sabotage were now a dangerous reality.