Arturo Giovannitti was an Italian American writer, preacher, and labor organizer who rose suddenly to fame in connection with the Lawrence Textile Strike in Massachusetts in 1912. Beginning with the strike, he enjoyed about fifteen years of prominence as a writer of poetry, journalism, and plays. Part sermon, part battle cry, Giovannitti's poetry made him the first Italian American poet to be widely read in English, and his dramatic oratorical performances at labor meetings kept his schedule full of speaking engagements through the 1930s. His career was remarkable in that it tracked perfectly the progress of political radicalism before and after the Palmer Raids and the World War I-era Red Scare; paradoxically, his ethnic identity caused both his propulsion into the awareness of the mainstream public and his disappearance from it.

Arturo Massimo Giovannitti was born 7 January 1884 in Ripabottoni, Italy, to Adelaide (née Levante) and Domenici Giovannitti...