L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2025 www.italoamericano.org 12 L'Italo-Americano HERITAGE HISTORY IDENTITY TRADITIONS S icily once sat at the center of a global supply chain most t r a v e l e r s n e v e r t h i n k a b o u t . Throughout the nineteenth century, the island's interior fed the world's appetite for sulfur, an element that pow- ered new chemical industries and everyday products, from fertilizers and matches to soap and glass. By some estimates, Sicily covered the lion's share of global demand in the 1890s, a sign of how deeply the zol- fare, as locals call the mines, shaped the island's economy and society in those times. Today, that story is perhaps most significant because of t h e p e o p l e w h o m a d e t h e industry run, and the social changes their hard work, and often suffering, helped set in motion. To understand why sulfur mattered so much, you need to think about industry before oil and plastics: sulfuric acid was the workhorse chemical of the age, and Sicily had accessible deposits concen- trated in a central belt across today's provinces of Enna, Caltanissetta, and Agrigento. The ore left the interior by cart and narrow-gauge rail, then by ship from ports like Licata and Porto Empedocle, reaching factories across Europe. That dominance even triggered a diplomatic s t a n d o f f i n 1 8 4 0 , w h e n a Bourbon-era attempt to grant a F r e n c h m o n o p o l y m e t British resistance, proof that Sicilian sulfur had strategic weight far beyond the island. Extraction methods were basic and punishing, well into the late 1800s. After miners cut the rock, smelting often happened in open-air heaps and stone structures called calcarelle and calcaroni, where part of the ore was burnt to melt the rest. The liquid sulfur was then let flow out to solidify into slabs. It worked, but it was smoky, wasteful, and dangerous, with sulfur dioxide fumes spread- ing over the hills. Later fur- naces improved yields, but they never matched the effi- c i e n c y o f t h e n e w F r a s c h process adopted in the United States, which lowered costs so sharply that Sicilian mines b e g a n t o l o s e g r o u n d o n world markets. Inside the mines, the work- force included men with picks and blasting tools and, notori- ously, boys known as carusi. Many started as pre-teens, hauling loads on their backs through cramped galleries and up steep passages, often for long hours and low pay. Accounts from the period describe debt-style advances that tied families to padroni and foremen and left children with few ways out. The physi- cal toll – injuries, respiratory illnesses, stunted growth – was severe, and accidents were common. These condi- tions drew criticism at home and abroad and became a ral- lying point for early labor activism on the island. One date still stands as a shorthand for the dangers underground: November 12, 1881. A gas explosion at the Gessolungo mine near Cal- tanissetta killed 65 miners, including many boys. The event shook central Sicily and remains part of local memo- ry; visitors today can find the small cemetery known as the Cimitero dei Carusi, dedi- cated to the youngest victims. While the industry continued for decades afterward, the tragedy became a symbol of the risks workers faced every day and of the gap between the value of the mineral and the price paid by those who extracted it. As pressure built, miners joined peasants and other workers in a wave of organi- zation known as the Fasci Siciliani (1893–94: no con- nection with 20th-century F a s c i s m ) . M e e t i n g s a n d strikes spread across the inte- rior, including a large miners' c o n g r e s s a t G r o t t e i n t h e Agrigento province, where p a r t i c i p a n t s d e m a n d e d a m i n i m u m w a g e , s h o r t e r hours, and a legal minimum age (fourteen) for mine work. T h e s t a t e r e p r e s s e d t h e movement, but some reforms followed, and the protests marked a turning point in how Sicilian labor made its case in public. However, it was econom- ics, not only activism, that ultimately reshaped the sec- tor: competition from pyrite and, above all, the Frasch method in the US pushed p r i c e s d o w n a n d r e d u c e d demands for Sicilian sulfur. M a n y s i t e s l i m p e d o n through the mid-twentieth century, helped by wartime demand, but closures multi- plied after the 1950s, with a number of once-busy com- plexes falling silent in the 1970s and 1980s. What they left behind is a distinctive landscape of shafts, furnace ruins, rail spurs, workshops, and worker housing, frag- ments that tell a broad story about energy, technology, and labor in the Mediter- ranean. Today, several places pre- serve that heritage and make it accessible. The Floristel- la-Grottacalda Mining P a r k , j u s t o u t s i d e E n n a , brings together two historic m i n e s o v e r r o u g h l y 4 0 0 hectares: paths thread among c a l c a r o n i , g a l l e r i e s , a n d h e a d f r a m e s , w h i l e o n a p l a t e a u s t a n d s P a l a z z o Pennisi, the mine owner's residence, its presence a stark reminder of the era's social distance. The park was estab- lished by regional law in 1991 a n d i s c o n s i d e r e d o n e o f southern Italy's most signifi- cant industrial archaeology sites. It's a practical stop for travelers crossing central Sicily and a direct link to the world described above. A short drive to the south- west, the Trabia Tallarita S u l f u r M i n e M u s e u m near Riesi sits on the gyp- sum-sulfur plateau. At its peak in the 1920s, this mine e m p l o y e d t h o u s a n d s a n d operated like a small compa- ny town with services for workers and families. The museum offers exhibits on geology, tools, daily life, and the broader trade routes that moved Sicilian sulfur abroad. For readers planning routes between Piazza Armerina and the coast, it's an easy a d d - o n t h a t f i l l s i n t h e human details behind the statistics. Cozzo Disi, one of the great mines of the Agrigento area, closed in the late 1980s a n d l a t e r r e o p e n e d a s a museum site; research pro- jects and conservation work have documented its large u n d e r g r o u n d s p a c e s a n d mineral formations. Access can vary based on mainte- nance status (always check current information), but even when closed, the site's s t o r y h e l p s c o m p l e t e t h e regional picture. If Sicily's sulfur past has a lesson, it is to look beyond the glow of the crystals in museum cases: the mines powered new industries and brought money into the inte- rior, but they also exposed deep inequalities and set off debates about labor, child- hood, health, and the role of the state, all debates that belong to the wider history of modern Italy. When walking the grounds at Floristella- G r o t t a c a l d a o r p a g i n g through photographs at the Trabia Tallarita museum, you see both sides: the scale of the achievement and the cost. That double image is what makes the story worth telling, and why these places deserve a spot on any serious itiner- ary through the island's cen- ter. FRANCESCA BEZZONE Young workers, the "carusi," were often bound to their padroni by debt-style advances paid to their families (Photo: Realy Easy Star/Alamy Stock Photo) The Carusi of Sicily: inside the island's sulfur mining past

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