Biography
Joseph Sgovio was a district organizer of the Trade Union Unity League and a member of the Unemployed Councils delegation involved in the North Tonawanda, New York struggle for unemployed relief. The Daily Worker of December 30, 1931, pages 1 and 3, names Joseph Sgovio among workers arrested after the December 28 protest at the Common Council chamber. The report says police and hired men severely beat him and that he was taken to a hospital. The workers demanded cash relief and aid for children and opposed a new ordinance restricting leaflets, meetings and parades. The report says the defendants were initially held on open/disorderly-conduct accusations and that the charges were changed to felony and inciting to riot, with bail then denied. No conviction, sentence, eventual release or exact period in custody is established.
The November 10, 1932 Daily Worker, page 3, prints his name Joseph Scovio and places him with Anton Kusich in Ellis Island detention threatened with deportation to Italy. The distinctive statement that Scovio had originally been arrested as a member of a North Tonawanda unemployed-relief delegation connects him to Joseph Sgovio. The report says Irving Schwab of International Labor Defense served habeas corpus writs, describes him as an American citizen, and says he had a wife and three children. Citizenship is the newspaper's claim; the writ is not evidence of actual release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n269-NY-nov-10-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
