Talk to Focus on Italian Immigration
As part of the Roads to Appalachia through Italy Study Abroad class, several speakers
will visit campus to present lectures on Italian culture and customs.
Victor A. Basile will present his research findings on "Appalachian Italians" their
Struggle and Achievements" from 7:30 to 8:45 p.m. Thursday, March 22, in Room 114
of the Education Building. All lectures will be free and open to the campus community.
For more information, call the West Virginia Folklife Center at (304) 367-4403.
Basile is a 1959 graduate of Fairmont State and a former Italian-American Man of
the Year of the West Virginia Italian Heritage Festival. A part-time job at the Library
of Congress in Washington, D.C., while attending Georgetown University led him to
become a librarian. Following short academic appointments at the University of Maryland
and Indiana University, he became the Director of Library Services at Wyeth Pharmaceutical
Laboratories in Philadelphia. In 1970, he was awarded a Gustavius Pfeiffer Fellowship
to set up a pharmaceutical research library at Isituto "Mario Negri" in Milan, Italy.
He took advantage of the opportunity to live and work in Italy and traveled throughout
Europe. His West Virginia family joined him on a trip to Calabria, Italy, and to the
former Yugoslavia to visit their transatlantic relatives. After two years in Europe,
Basile returned to the U.S. and joined the faculty of the University of Medicine and
Dentistry of New Jersey. In 2001, he completed a 30-year tenure at the university
and was awarded the honorary title of University Librarian Emeritus.
In his retirement, Basile continues to pursue his love of books and his fascination
with his Italian-American heritage and culture. In New York City where he resides,
he is an active member of the Grolier Club, a book collectors club. He is also a member
and the curator of the American Italian Historical Association, which promotes and
conserves the Italian-American publications of historians, writers and social scientists.
His current area of research is the 1890-1925 immigration of Italians into West Virginia.
