Diane  C. Vecchio is Professor of History at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina.

A native of central New York, Vecchio earned a Ph.D. in Modern U. S. History and a M.A. in Modern European History from the Maxwell School, Syracuse University. She earned her B.A. cum laude from the State University of New York.

Dr. Vecchio’s teaching interests and scholarly works focus on immigration and women’s history.  She is particularly interested in immigrants and the economy as well as immigrant women’s work experiences.  A recent book published by the University of Illinois Press, Merchants, Midwives, and Laboring Women:  Italian Migrants in Urban America (2006)challenges long-held patriarchal assumptions about Italian women’s work in the United States.  She is currently researching Jewish peddlers and merchants in upstate South Carolina and western North Carolina following the Civil War.

Professor Vecchio’s oral histories with immigrants and the children of immigrants in central New York as well as Milwaukee, Wisconsin, have been preserved in a collection of bound and transcribed interviews housed in the Cortland, New York Public Library and the Golda Meir Library, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and the Milwaukee County Historical Society (made possible by grants from the New York State Council on the Arts and the Wisconsin Arts Council).

Vecchio is a member of the Editorial Board of the Italian American Review, a member of the Executive Board of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society and a past officer of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society.  She has been actively involved with the College Board and served as Chief Faculty Consultant for the Advanced Placement Exam in United States History, and a Member of the AP US History Test Development Committee.

Areas of Specialization:

Immigration & Women's History

Courses Offered:

U.S. Since 1877

History of European Women

History of American Immigration

American Immigrant Women: Family, Life and Labor

American Social and Cultural History

Senior Seminar in Immigration and Ethnicity

Recent Publications

Merchants, Midwives, and Laboring Women. Immigrant Italians in Urban America, University of Illinois Press, 2006

"Family Narratives in the History of Italian Migration", Immigration, Incorporation, Assimilation, and the Limits of Transnationalism, Elliott Barkan, ed., Transaction Pub., 2007

"Ties of Affection: Family Narratives in the History of Italian Migration", Journal of American Ethnic History, Winter/Spring, 2006, vol. 25

"Saving the Souls of Immigrants in the South: Southern Baptists and Missionary Work Among Italians," Italian American Politics: Local, Global/Cultural Personal, Jerome Krase (ed). New York: American Italian Historical Association

"Immigrant and Ethnic History in the United States Survey," The History Teacher, Volume 37, #4, August 2004

"Gender and Transnational Ties: An Italian Family Saga of Emigration Across the Twentieth Century," Selected essays published by the American Italian Historical Association, Italian Immigrants Go West, The Impact of Locale on Ethnicity, Worrall, Albright and Di Fabio, eds. Chicago, AIHA, 2003, 207-214

"Gender, Domestic Values and Italian Working Women in Milwaukee: The Immigrant Generation," Women, Gender, and Transnational Lives, Donna Gabaccia and Franca Iacovetta, (eds).  University of Toronto Press December 2002.

"Migration from the Mountains: Building a Local Labor Force," Textile Town: An Encyclopedia of Spartanburg County Cotton Mill Culture, Hub City Writers Project, Spartanburg, S.C.; 2002