Tirocchi associates interviewed for this project repeatedly stated that the shop was like a family: in Emily Valcarenghi Martinelli's words, "Even better than family because we never argued." Given that the majority were short-term workers, however, it was probably a very hierarchical family with the career workers at top. By the time Mary Riccitelli married Panfilo Basilico, he recalled that she had attained the position of head sewer. Primrose Tirocchi remembered that one of the Del Matto sisters performed as the model. Other career workers very likely had their own distinct roles. Martinelli noted that relationships among the workers were so close that even though they were not blood kin, "We were all related when we lived there. And we didn't have to be related because we were one family. We always stuck together. We stuck up for one another like nobody's business." Anna del Matto was godmother to Martinelli's children. According to Italian custom, this made Anna and Emily kin. The notions of family held by the Tirocchi workers were sharply at variance with those held by the customers. Family for the clients referred to blood kin, the connections embodied in such lineage organizations as the Daughters of the American Revolution that were so popular among them. For the workers, family went beyond blood and incorporated relationships based on godparenting, neighborhood, and working together.

The connections within the shop were reinforced in the outside world. Mary Riccitelli Basilico's husband Panfilo told interviewers that his wife obtained her job when "somebody took her in there - that's the only way you got in." Grace Venagro brought her downstairs neighbor, Mary Rosa Traverso, into the Tirocchi shop. Neighborhood contacts probably contributed widely to staffing the shop. All of the employees whose addresses could be ascertained resided on the West Side of Providence, in sharp contrast to the customers, who nearly all lived on the East Side. The largest and most concentrated group of worker residences (nine) was located in Federal Hill, then the center of Italian settlement in Providence, and a similar number were scattered more widely in the Silver Lake and Olneyville areas.

Tirocchi employees even vacationed together. When the shop closed down during the summer, the workers were expected to clean the house; then Anna Tirocchi went to her retreat in Narragansett, to which the workers were invited for a week [fig. 52]. Employer-sponsored leisure became increasingly popular during the period between the World Wars, and both factories and department stores organized such excursions. In the case of large companies, this practice was designed to promote workers' loyalty to the firm and to make them feel like part of a contrived, industrial "family," as well as to encourage efficiency. In the case of the Tirocchi shop, it grew more organically out of the close relationships among workers and employers.(34)

The "family" had a strong head. As Martinelli remembered, "We listened to Mrs. Tirocchi [meaning Anna, although it was Laura who was married]. She had the whole say, and we would listen to her." Anna's artistry translated into perfectionism in her management of the workshop. Mary Riccitelli's husband, Panfilo Basilico, recalled his wife telling him that "Madame [Anna] - she was very strict. The rules were very strict. You had to be - to do everything perfect. You couldn't do anything...even on the outside, anything wrong. You had to be a perfect person and you got to be exact in your work." When Basilico began to court Riccitelli, Anna summoned him to the shop, and only after interrogating him did she give Mary her approval to go out with him. By all accounts, the workers admired Anna enormously for her skills, her manner, and her intelligence. Mary Rosa Traverso, who never rose beyond the lowest rank of the shop hierarchy, reminisced that it was "wonderful to work for her. It really was." Emily Valcarenghi Martinelli described the way in which she taught and corrected the seamstresses: "She used to get you in a nice way. She never scolded anybody. No, she never scolded." Disputes among the employees were, she remembered, always settled by Anna. Basilico spoke admiringly of Anna, praising "her intelligence and her drive," and Martinelli referred to her as "the brains" and "an artist in her way."