ABSTRACT
From Italy’s perspective, could anything bring an end to the trauma of mass emigration? Only economic development in Italy itself could eventually remove the insatiable demands and incentives for Italians to move across the oceans for labor at triple the wages in their homeland, when such labor could be found at all. For Italy, the short-term and long-term consequences of mass emigration seemed dire. Even fervent advocates of emigration believed that the best possible outcome would be for Italy to develop economically to the point where migration would be a choice, not a necessity.
