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As is typical with all immigrant communities in New Orleans, population growth results in the formation of benevolent societies. The St Bartholomew Society formed in 1879 and though it was not the first Italian society in New Orleans, it does appear to be the first society dedicated solely to a sub-group of the Italian community, that being immigrants from Ustica. Though the society no longer has any documented history of those early years, the local newspapers did record revealing details of their feast day celebration every year. And from the records in this period, we can determine where they lived and worked, their influence within the Italian immigrant community and their large size relative to the overall Italian immigrant community.