Italy–United States relations
Italy and the United States enjoy warm and friendly relations. The United States has had diplomatic representation in the nation of Italy and its predecessor nation, the Kingdom of Italy, since 1840. However, in 1891 the Italian government severed diplomatic relations and briefly contemplated war against the US as a response to the unresolved case of the lynching of eleven Italians in New Orleans, Louisiana, and there was a break in relations from 1941 to 1943, while Italy and the United States were at war.
US President Biden and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the oval office on July 27, 2023
Joe Biden and Mario Draghi at the 2021 G20 Rome Summit.
Clare Boothe Luce, U.S. Ambassador to Italy, with husband Henry Luce (1954)
Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti with President Richard Nixon in 1973
1891 New Orleans lynchings
The 1891 New Orleans lynchings were the murders of 11 Italian Americans and Italian immigrants in New Orleans by a mob of whites for their alleged role in the murder of police chief David Hennessy after some of them had been acquitted at trial. It was the largest single mass lynching in American history. Most of the lynching victims accused in the murder had been rounded up and charged due to their Italian race.
Rioters breaking into parish prison, as illustrated in History of the United States (1912, Scribner)
Artist's conception of Hennessy's murder. "Scene of the Assassination", The Mascot, New Orleans, 1890.
William S. Parkerson inciting the mob. Harper's Weekly, March 28, 1891.
Rioters outside Parish Prison
