Abstract
In an unscientific poll among colleagues and graduate students, some of whom were enrolled in a PhD seminar entitled “Problematics of Italian/American Culture,” I asked what were the first words that come to mind at the sound of “Frank Sinatra” Their responses included: Italian, music, mob, singer, actor, blue eyes, Kennedy, “My Way,” Mia Farrow, Ava Gardner, and so on.
“With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs”
—The Federalist
“It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me. Lady Day is unquestionably the most important influence on American popular singing in the last twenty years”
—Frank Sinatra, Ebony (1958)
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Notes
Gerald Meyer’s acute essay, “Frank Sinatra: The Popular Front and an American Icon,” Science & Society 66, no. 3 (2002): 311–35;
Jon Weiner, “When Old Blue Eyes Was ‘Red’: The Poignant Story of Frank Sinatra’s Politics,” New Republic (March 31, 1986), 21–23.
Frank Sinatra, “What’s This about Races?” in Leonard Mustazza, ed., Frank Sinatra and Popular Cullture: Essays on an American Icon (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998), 25.
Pete Hamill, Why Sinatra Matters (New York: Little, Brown, 1998),
Gil Fagiani, “The Italian Identity of Frank Sinatra,” Voices in Italian Americana 10:2 (1999), 19–32.
Nancy Kovaleff Baker, “Abel Meeropol (a.k.a. Lewis Allan): Political Commentator and Social Conscience,” American Music 20 (2002), 25–79.
Karen McNally, When Frankie Went to Hollywood: Frank Sinatra and American Male Identity (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008).
Peter Kihss, “Sinatra to Head Antibias Group,” New York Times, May 4, 1967, 1, 27.
Charles Grutzner, “Sinatra Assailed as Ethnic Leader,” New York Times, May 12, 1967, 65;
Charles Grutzner, “B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League Threatens Suit over a Similar Name,” New York Times (May 18, 1967), 36,
Paul Hofmann, “Italians and Jews Go to Court,” New York Times (June 4, 1967), 74.
Paul Hofmann, “2 Italian Groups to Study Merger,” New York Times, February 18, 1968, 55;
Paul Hofmann, “Italo-Americans Hold Rally Here,” New York Times, October 20, 1967, 57.
Kihss, “Sinatra,” New York Times, May 4, 1967, 27.
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© 2010 William J. Connell and Fred Gardaphé
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Tamburri, A.J. (2010). Frank Sinatra and Notions of Tolerance. In: Connell, W.J., Gardaphé, F. (eds) Anti-Italianism. Italian and Italian American Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230115323_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230115323_6
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