Giovanni Pullè: pioneer and founding father of Italian ethnicity

Abstract

Giovanni Pullè (1854-1920) was an Italian migrant in Australia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who attempted to unite a fragmented, geographically dispersed, and diverse Italian migrant population during a crucial phase in Australia's history. Becoming an independent merchant, and later a member of the Italian business élite, he founded both L'Italo-Australiano (1905-1909) and the Oceania (1913-1915) which remain testimony to the collective presence of Australia's early Italian migrant 'communities'. The concepts of 'Italian' identity and community are not without their problematic dimensions. However, Pullè's newspapers illustrate an important episode in Italo-Australian history and their analysis describes how Pullè and others constructed a cohesive communal identity. Their efforts have received only passing acknowledgment in Italo-Australian scholarship. Exploration of the particular ventures that Pullè undertook enables us to acknowledge him not only as a pioneer of italianità [Italianness], but also as a founding father of Italian ethnicity.