The major details and facts of Sunny Side come from Mary Grace Quackenbos, Report on Sunnyside Plantation, Arkansas, Department of Justice Straight Numerical Files, Record Group 60, 100937, September 28, 1907. Other sources include Arkansas Historical Quarterly, vol. 50, no. 1, spring, 1991; Shadows over Sunnyside, edited by Jeannie M. Whayne, Fayetteville: Univ. of Arkansas Press, 1993, especially the excellent chapter by Randolph H. Boehm, “Mary Grace Quackenbos and the Federal Campaign Against Peonage,” which provides the definitive historical analysis of Grace’s presence at Sunny Side. For background: James G. Hollandsworth, Portrait of a Scientific Racist: Alfred Holt Stone of Mississippi, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2008, 152–59. For an index of the U.S. Department of Justice peonage files, see The Peonage Files of the U.S. Department of Justice, 1901–1945, edited by Pete Daniel, Bethesda, MD: University Publications of America, 1989. A remarkable source is Elizabeth Olivi Borgognoni, Italians of Sunnyside 1895–1995, Lake Village, AK: Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church, 1995, a self-published history of Sunny Side from the Italian Americans still living in the area. There is a companion cookbook that is also well worth the cost. Both are available at ourladyofthelake.us. I have chosen to spell it Sunny Side only because that is how Grace spelled it in her report and correspondence to Washington, D.C. The more usual spelling is Sunnyside.
“ranges, or hunts” (p. 108): “Justice in South,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 31, 1907, 2. The dialogue for this entire exchange is from this article. Another version brings Pettek to Greenville for trial, but most accounts place the shotgun proceedings in Sunny Side. Grace had just received a treasury warrant that may have been how she paid for his release. She made $272.81 a month; Hannah Frank, her assistant, made $54.45, mostly for expenses.
“prosperity of the country” (p. 110): Lee L. Langley, “Italians in the Cotton Fields,” Southern Farm Magazine, May, 1904.
in the proper amounts (p. 111): James C. Cobb, The Most Southern Place on Earth, New York: Oxford UP, 1992, 135.
red water (p. 113): John M. Barry, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997; “Increased Brain Iron,” NeuroImage, March 2011, vol. 55, 32–78.
“conditions the best” (p. 116): Quackenbos, Report on Sunnyside Plantation, Arkansas, Department of Justice Straight Numerical Files, Record Group 60, 100937, September 28, 1907.
these black words into the sea (p. 116): Dell’orto gave his travelers a paper to prepare them. It read: Where is your Final destination? Ans/ Sunny Side, Ark.
Have you a ticket to the final destination? Yes or No By whom was the fare paid? Ans/ Luigi Riginelli Are you in possession of money?
You have to tell the amount and in order not to have trouble you have to have in your pocket at least fifty liras.
Grace discovered that the tickets themselves were purchased through Peter McDonnell, who worked at Ellis Island.
“but I will” (p. 117): John M. Barry, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997, 112.
for all of those things (p. 118): Mary Grace Quackenbos, Report on Sunnyside Plantation, Arkansas, Department of Justice Straight Numerical Files, Record Group 60, 100937, September 28, 1907.
“wrong at Sunny Side” (p. 119): Ibid.
“a complete bankruptcy” (p. 120): Ibid.
“spent in driving Negroes” (p. 120): Ibid. The general manager set aside 140 acres as a wage crop to be harvested, if needed, by black farmers whose wages would be paid by the Italians. This extra layer of peonage was particularly disturbing. According to Grace, “the negro has money and the Italian has no friends.” She concludes, “In some ways the negro planter makes terms more advantageous … yet the debt sytem is the same and seems even more of an indignity when forced upon the Italian by a negro.”
“should be investigated” (p. 121): Ibid.
“directly at stake!” (p. 122): “Make Rivers Navigable,” Boston Evening Transcript, October 5, 1907, 4. Roosevelt’s words were met with cheers, even though his own Army Corps of Engineers was trying to—and would—kill the legislation to carry out his plan.
“ungentlemanly behavior” (p. 122): John M. Barry, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997, 115.
“Crittenden arrested for peonage” (p. 124): Mary Grace Quackenbos, Report on Sunnyside Plantation, Arkansas, Department of Justice Straight Numerical Files, Record Group 60, 100937, September 28, 1907; Randolph H. Boehm, “Mary Grace Quackenbos and the Federal Campaign Against Peonage,” Shadows over Sunnyside, edited by Jeannie M. Whayne, Fayetteville: U of Arkansas P, 1993, 61; “Mrs. Quackenbos Charges Peonage,” Daily Arkansas Gazette, October 31, 1907, 6.
“Slaves on Farm” (p. 124): “Millionaire Has Slaves on Farm,” Oregon Daily Journal, Oct. 27, 1907, 1.
“a professional woman” (p. 124): “Who Is She?” Greenville Times, September 29, 1907.
special assistant appointment (p. 124): “A Woman Is Bonaparte’s Aid,” Daily Review, November 14, 1907, 1; “Women Lawyer Fights,” Washington Times, September 10, 1907, 9.
louder and higher (p. 125): “Mrs. Quackenbos Is Facing Charges,” Trenton Evening Times, November 16, 1907, 1.
the president insisted (p. 125): “Bonaparte Can Not Oust Woman Aid,” Daily Review, November 21, 1907, 1.
disproved and dismissed (p. 125): “Mrs. Quackenbos Is Vindicated,” Niagara Falls Gazette, November 20, 1907, 9.
“has been verified” (p. 125): Percy, as well as Roosevelt, knew that such a substantial request “might require an investigation from the Department of Commerce and Labor.”
“law in New York City” (p. 126): Letter, Teddy Roosevelt to Albert Bushnell Hart, January 13, 1908, Albert Bushnell Hart Papers, Harvard University Archives.
“beneath the bushel” (p. 126): “So Runs the World Away,” Wichita Eagle, November 23, 1907.
House committee on labor (p. 127): “Congress to Hold,” Indianapolis Star, February 7, 1908, 5.
“no experience” (p. 127): “Percy Makes a Reply,” Gulfport Daily Herald, October 14, 1909, 7. Percy responded to Grace’s article in like terms. “I saw the article,” he said. “It is shallow, sensational, and written to sell.”
“dear Manhattan Isle” (p. 127): “Lays Bonaparte in Congress,” New York Evening Telegram, March 2, 1908, 2.
“tailor to a mine” (p. 127): “Statement of Mrs. Mary Grace Quackenbos,” Hearings Before Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, 61st Congress, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, March 29, 1910.