The Italian-American Collection was compiled as part of the "Italians in Chicago" project by the Department of History at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle. The project was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and largely conducted during 1979 and 1980. This two-year public program included a symposia series, oral history interviews, and a collection of donations. This digital collection includes both in-depth interviews and donated materials.
Donations included photographs, sound recordings, video recordings, books, booklets and pamphlets, citizenship papers, church documents, as well as various other family memorabilia. Some donations show life in Italy, many more deal with the immigration process, and others show dominant themes in Italian American lives here in the United States. The project culminated in a six-week exhibition entitled "Italians in Chicago: Collection from Three Generations, 1880-1965" at the Chicago Public Library Cultural Center in 1980.