Gallery One:
Impressionism
This gallery looks at some of the theoretical underpinnings to the study of immigration and the shaping of social scientific narratives throughout the 20th century.
The Birth of a Jazz Singing Nation
Focusing on the origins of the Statue of Liberty and two movies, "The Jazz Singer" (1927) and "The Birth of a Nation" (1915), this essay examines the influence of race and gender on immigration narratives.
Beginning with Israel Zangwill's The Melting Pot and continuing with a discussion of Randolph Bourne's interpretation of the State, this essay looks at the importance of the social and cultural context in which migrations occurred for shaping migrant experiences.
This essay examines Woodrow Wilson's conception of immigration, considering the degree to which many of his assumptions about the inferiority of particular kinds of immigrants (along with the racial superiority of whites) still find their way into current political discourse.
Beginning with a discussion of liberal and conservative discourses
on poverty prevelant throughout the 1990s, this essay turns to a description
of the different proclivities of ethnic and racial groups in Philadelphia as
revealed in the work on that city produced by the American Guide's Series, created
by the Federal Writers Program.