Becoming American:
Immigration and Assimilation in Late 19th Century America

Tuesday, August 16, 2011 | 10:00–11:30 a.m. (EST)

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Leader

Josef Barton

Professor emeritus of History
and of Spanish and Portuguese
Northwestern University

About the Seminar

The history of immigration thrusts several questions forward. First, where does migration begin? As its geographical settings changed, so did migration. In the case of this seminar, the places of origin will be eastern and southern Europe. Second, when does migration arise? Even though migrations copied from one another, immigrants developed movements that responded to the challenges of specific times. Our session’s focus is the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Third, what did immigration change? This last question will run through our seminar.

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Assigned Readings

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Note Part 1: What cultural changes were traced to immigration?

1. A manifesto to preserve Anglo-America: The Old World in the New: The Significance of Past and Present Immigration to the American People, by Edward A. Ross
2. A plea for pluralism: “Democracy versus the Melting Pot,” by Horace A. Kallen, The Nation

Note Part 2: How and why did immigration make possible the transformation of the United States from a rural republic to an industrial nation?

3. Immigrants reshape mining: Anthracite Coal Communities, by Peter Roberts
4. Immigrants make a new labor force: Our Slavic Fellow Citizens, by Emily Greene Balch
5. Immigrant women in clothing manufacture: Women in Industry: A Study in American Economic History, Edith Abbott
6. Immigrants make a steel industry: The Steel Strike of 1919, Interchurch World Movement

Note Part 3: How did immigrants create stable lives in the midst of this economic transformation?

7. Unemployment in the early twentieth century: Poverty, by Robert Hunter
8. Immigrant households in a steel city: Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town, by Margaret F. Byington
9. Immigrants in dangerous working conditions: Work-accidents and the Law, by Crystal Eastman
10. Immigrant children at work and school: Truancy and Non-attendance in the Chicago Schools, by Edith Abbott and Sophonisba P. Breckinridge
11. The drive to acquire property: New Homes for Old, by Sophonisba P. Breckinridge

Note Part 4: How, in the midst of such uncertainty, did immigrants create a distinctive urban culture?

12. Religious diversity in the immigrant city: “The Bohemian People in Chicago,” Hull House Maps and Papers, by Josefa Humpal Zeman
13. What did immigrants read?: Anthracite Coal Communities, by Peter Roberts
14. A massive immigrant press: The Immigrant Press and Its Control, by Robert Park
15. Immigrant theater and city life: The Spirit of the Ghetto: Studies of the Jewish Quarter in New York, by Hutchins Hapgood
16. Learning English, preserving native languages: The New Immigration, by Peter Roberts

Note Part 5: How did immigrants transform American politics?

17. Images from Chicago, Illinois, c.1910