9 - Return and retirement

Summary

Land ownership was the goal of most returnees. But it was not universal. Returnees to some regions, like Basilicata and Sardinia, for instance, showed very little interest in land. In both regions land was considered a poor investment. The prefetto of Matera, for instance, reported that although land prices were escalating in other regions, they were declining in his province. Other returnees, aware that many of those who had preceded them had failed as independent farmers, sought alternative ways of investing. But in the agrarian south, alternatives to farming, even in related food processing, were limited. Moreover, few returnees had the entrepreneurial abilities and the courage to break the traditional opposition to economic innovation. Finally a number of returnees, and they were many, did not seek land or alternative ways of investing. They simply deposited their savings with local post offices or other savings institutions and planned to live the rest of their lives on the savings they had accumulated and the modest interest they generated. Some were even willing to take part-time jobs to supplement American savings with occasional income at home.

This chapter discusses returnees who did not invest in land. It will show that the returnees who became disenchanted with land investments were more than a few, especially in some regions, and after 1900. In addition this chapter will point out that opportunities for alternative ways of investing were few, by discussing in some detail the economy of a typical southern province, that of Cosenza in Calabria.