# The Movement to Americanize the Immigrant

Edward George Hartmann

Columbia University Press, New York 1948

Page 7

During the two-year period, 1915-1916, which preceded the entrance of
America into the first World War, the nation was subjected to one of
those social movements or crusades, which have periodically sprung up
and colored the social history of the United States. The new movement,
very aptly characterized as the *Americanization Crusade*, gained
momentum as German-American relations went from bad to worse and beyond,
remained vary active during the War years and the immediate post-war
era, and then died a gradual death as the nation found itself again in
the blessings of 'normalcy'.

An educative movement, the Americanization effort stressed the
desirability of the rapid assimilation of the millions of immigrants who
had come to America during the pre-war decades, through the attendance
of the newcomers at special classes, lectures, and mass meetings, where
they might be instructed in the language, the ideals, and outlook on
life which had come to be accepted as the traditional American point of
view. In this fashion, its advocates felt, the proper steps would have
been taken toward unifying the nation in the face of external perils,
while at the same time assuring the continued existence of the
traditional American way of life.

As an effort to solve the many problems which had resulted from the
great influx of European immigrants into America during the years
1880-1910, the movement to Americanize the immigrant takes its place
along side those other manifestations of American distrust and
discontent with their new neighbors,\--the nativism of the 1830's, the
Know-Nothingism of the 1850's, the APA-ism of the 1890's, the Ku Klux
Klanism of the 1920's, and the immigrant restrictionism of the first
quarter of the twentieth century. Unlike these other movements, however,
the new movement drew its leadership from the intelligentsia, the
educators and social workers, the industrialists, and from business and
civic groups generally.

Page 8

Unlike these others, too, it did not stress a negative program of
restriction or repression as the means of solving the immigrant
question. Instead, it outlined a positive program of education and
guidance as a means of meeting the problem involved through the
immigrant impact upon America. It manifested also, a faith in the
ultimate assimilative capabilities of the immigrant and of his eventual
transformation into a patriotic, loyal, and intelligent supporter of the
great body of principles and practices which the leaders of the movement
chose to consider 'America's priceless heritage'. The movement to
Americanize the immigrant offered a program which would solve the
problem of the immigrant with the least disturbance to the economic and
political life of the nation; a program which would not result in the
loss of an exceedingly valuable labor supply to America.

Pages 19-21

\[T\]he American Protective Association, represented a revival of the
nativist spirit of the mid-19^th^ century. A strongly anti-Roman
Catholic movement, the APA, as the organization was dubbed by Americans,
was formed as early as 1887, and did much during the short span if
\[sic\] its existence to embitter religious feeling throughout the
nation. The Association agitated constantly for a tighter control of
immigration and for stiffer requirements for admission to citizenship.

A second organization appeared in 1894 which had a much more successful
career. It soon became the spearhead of the growing movement to restrict
immigration. The Immigration Restriction League . . . was composed of
New Englanders of old American stock at first and represented the views
of the 'Teutonic Supremacy' school of thought.

From its organization in 1895 until the final passage of the literacy
test in 1917, the Immigration Restriction League carried on an active
campaign, which sought to educate the American public to the menace of
unchecked immigration by means of pamphlets, handbills, and form
letters.

Page 24

Debate over the status and future of the immigrant led an increasingly
large number of individuals to feel that some sort of program for
educating the immigrant, particularly in the fundamentals of the English
language and civics, would be the best means of solving the many evils
supposedly arising from his entrance upon the American scene.

Page 109

\[The Federal Bureau of Naturalization\] perfected steps in March 1915,
for a survey of the entire country by correspondence and through its
field officers to ascertain the efforts and accomplishments of the
public school authorities in the direction of the education of
foreigners over 18 years of age. The inquiry further asked what
percentage of foreigners were candidates for citizenship in these
classes, what scope of instruction was offered by the public schools,
and what other organizations were interested in the preparations of the
foreigner for citizenship. The survey was carried on throughout the
United States by the entire Naturalization Service and continued
uninterruptedly until the inauguration of the Bureau's cooperative-work
with the public schools in the autumn of 1915.

Page 121

When the Fourth \[of July, 1915\] arrived finally, not less than 150
cities observed it as Americanization Day, as a day to foster in the
hearts of the new citizens and immigrants a spirit of higher patriotism
and of loyalty to their adopted land. Particularly successful
celebrations were held in Seattle, Boston, Kalamazoo, and Washington,
D.C. At Pittsburgh, more than 10,000 adults, chiefly aliens, heard
almost 1000 school children sing patriotic airs as they formed a huge
American flag.

Pages 234-5

Although the Bureau of Education was forced to abandon the important
role which it played in supporting the movement to Americanize the
immigrant in 1919, the Federal Bureau of Naturalization continued to
carry on the work which it had started in 1914, and thus became the sole
federal agency actively supporting Americanization . . . . Whereas, the
Bureau declared, the school year in 1915 at the beginning of the
national campaign in behalf of Americanization opened with a mere 38
communities pledging their school systems to spreading the doctrines of
Americanism, the school year 1919 closed with 2,240 communities actively
supporting the movement and carrying on classes on behalf of the
immigrant.

Pages 265-6

\[A\] combination of four factors---the passage of the quota
legislation, the passage of suitable legislation by the several state
governments having a significant immigrant population insuring
facilities for the education of the same, the effects of the depression
of 1921 upon the financial backing of the groups at work on behalf of
Americanization, and finally the return of the American people to a
state of 'normalcy' after the war fever and hysteria of the immediate
post-war period---all contributed not a little in eliminating the
problem of the immigrant and the need for his Americanization from the
public eye and interest.

# Representative Americans: The Colonists

Norman K. Risjord

Roman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD 2000

Pages 36-37

\[Squanto\] was a member of the tribe that had originally occupied the
Plymouth site. In 1605 an English exploring party picked him up and
carried him off to England. He returned to New England in 1614 with
Captain John Smith, but he was no sooner reunited with his family than
one of the ship captains in Smith's fleet seized him along with about
twenty other men and carried him to Spain to be sold into slavery.
Squanto somehow escaped and made his way to England, where he lived for
a time in London. He returned to America with another exploring party in
1619. His village by then was gone, dispatched by smallpox, so he went
to live with the Wampanoags. Yet he must have been impressed by the
comfort and quality of European life, for he settled permanently with
the Pilgrims. He and Bradford became good friends, and to the end of his
life he served Bradford well as Indian emissary. To Squanto, as much as
to Bradford himself, can be ascribed the success of the Plymouth colony.

Page 38

Spirits rose with the coming of spring. Squanto showed the English how
to plant Indian corn. He grouped seeds in small hills (which aided
pollination) and fertilized them with dead fish (herring probably, or
inedible alewives). And then he posted guards over the cornfields to
keep wolves from digging up the fish before they rotted. Bradford
himself saw that the shallop was kept busy. As soon as one batch of
fishermen came in with a load another group was sent out. No one was
allowed to come in empty-handed; they stayed at sea until they caught
something. Even John Smith had never achieved such discipline.

During the summer the mud and branch huts were replaced with houses of
plank construction, probably under the supervision of John Alden, a
carpenter by trade. Thatch was used for roofing, as it was in England;
chimneys were of wood fireproofed with clay. By autumn there were eleven
houses, four storage buildings, and a church that doubled as a workshop.

When the corn harvest was in, Bradford decreed a day of Thanksgiving.
Harvest festivals are as old as humankind, but Bradford may have been
reminded by a more immediate model, the Thanksgiving celebrated every
October 23 by the people of Leyden in memory of their liberation from
Spanish rule. Thankful also that his people could walk "as peaceably and
safely in the woods as in the highways of England," Bradford invited the
Indians. Massasoit, evidently realizing that this was a suspension of
the rule against dropping in for dinner, showed up with ninety hungry
warriors. But he was also aware what his throng might do for the
colonists' foodstocks and sent his men into the woods after deer. For
three days the Pilgrims and their guests gorged on venison, Canada
goose, and shellfish, all of it graced with wild plums and dried
berries, and washed down with wine made from grapes. Miles Standish held
a military review, which no doubt held the secondary purpose of
impressing the Indians with the Pilgrims' readiness, and athletic
contests were held. It all sounds magnificent until on thinks of the
cooks and servers. If, as seems likely, these tasks fell upon the women,
their struggles must have been heroic. Counting even the teenagers,
there were only ten women in the entire colony! Widower Bradford,
however, considered the fete such a success that he staged another the
following year.