The collection consists of manuscript materials, sound recordings, graphic materials (including color slides, black-and-white negatives, and photographic prints), and moving images collected during a field research project documenting Italian American occupational, cultural, and religious traditions in several locations in the western United States. Fieldwork was conducted in Gilroy, California; San Pedro, California; Pueblo, Colorado; Carbon County, Utah; Walla Walla, Washington; and several mining and ranching communities in Nevada by staff of the American Folklife Center. The project was part of the Quincentenary Celebration of Christopher Columbus sponsored by the Library of Congress in 1992. It produced a traveling exhibition and book of essays, both titled, "Old Ties, New Attachments : Italian-American Folklife in the West."