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Vouyage to America
Aria Viotto came to America from Italy in 1856. She immigrated because there was no future for her in Italy. She wanted to come to America and start a life for herself, by growing and selling crops.The vouyage was rough and long, but she was relieved to have finally arrived. -
Found Work
After a long, tiring two days at Ellis Island, Aria finds work at a candy shop in New York. She makes $0.92 a day, it isn't much but it helped her get by. -
Things Stolen
Aria has been working very hard at the candy shop in New York for two years. Her brothers and cousins have recently moved to America and she overheard them talkimg about a land race nearby. They told her about and act called The Homestead Act, which allowed people to race for land. She decided to go with them, since the money she was making in the city wasn't that much, and she had always dreamed about owning her own land. But, in the process of moving, most of her things were stolen. -
The Move
After selling all valuable possetions for money to move west it still wasn't enough so to earn enough money to buy a horse and other supplies for her move she went back to work. She worked for a year at the candy shop and finally made enough money to join her cousins in the west. -
The West
Aria arrived in the West on February 20th, 1859. She was relieved to see that the land was flat and large. People had seperate space and it was all individually owned. On her cousins' plot of land there were long rows of grapes and other fruit growing. -
Crops
Things in the West were going great. Aria and her cousins had started selling grapes and other crops to neighbors and other people who passed through. Unfortunatly, there was a drought in August of 1860 and most of their crops died. For about five months they had to live off the dried food and little money they had made.
