Americanization

The mass immigration waves of the early 20th century made the United States an even more ethnically and religiously diverse country. In particular, large cities grew from the influx of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, and often more than 60 percent of a city’s residents were foreign born or of foreign parentage, as was true in New York, Chicago, and Minneapolis-St. Paul. Unassimilated immigrants and their children, some argued, weakened American society and increased social disorder, as shown in increasing urban crime and widespread labor conflict. Further, the failure of many immigrants to become naturalized American citizens seemed to show that resident aliens retained allegiance to the countries of their birth. Disloyalty and subversion were the likely outcomes of those with no ties to the United States. These “hyphenated Americans,” some warned, presented a threat to American democracy and social stability.

In response, Progressive reformers organized campaigns for the education of immigrants and their children.

Settlement House workers at places such as Hull-House in Chicago conducted CITIZENSHIP, American history, personal hygiene, and English classes; employers, such as Henry Ford, tied benefits, such as the Five Dollar Day wage, to workers who took English lessons and had citizenship papers. Prior to 1914, Americanization efforts, which took on the tone of crusades, were begun in most major cities. The war in Europe only intensified such efforts. Under the leadership of sociologist Frances Kellor, more than 150 cities took part in a National Americanization Day on July 4, 1915. The campaigns continued as Preparedness, for a country threatened by world war, became the watchword of national life.

After the United States declared war in 1917, the Wilson administration moved to solidify public opinion behind the war effort and especially to shore up precarious national unity. Americanization campaigns were central to the effort. As the president declared, “There are citizens of the United States, I blush to admit, born under other flags but welcomed under our generous naturalization laws to the full freedom and opportunity of America, who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out. The hand of our power should close over them at once.” Most states established Americanization committees, which engaged in the domestic surveillance of foreign workers as well as in public education, patriotic parades, and civic events. At the core of Americanization campaigns was the deep belief that loyalty and patriotism required immigrants to assimilate to American society and that the key to assimilation was learning the language and history of their adopted country. In 1919, Kellor wrote, “The English language is a highway of loyalty; it is the open door to opportunity; it is a means of common defense.” Woodrow Wilson put it more succinctly when he told immigrants at a ceremony, “You cannot dedicate yourself to America unless you become in every respect and with every purpose of your will thorough Americans.”

At the grass roots, however, Americanization took on different meanings. Immigrants were, more often than not, committed to remaining in the United States and integrating into American society but on their own terms. If learning the English language, taking civics classes, serving in the military during World War I, and holding down a regular job were part of an elite agenda to Americanize immigrants and their children, such measures also provided real benefits for those who signed up. Further, the creation of ethnic mutual aid societies, ethnic businesses, and other voluntary associations demonstrated the civic engagement of immigrants and their children and showed how they had learned the American way of life.

See also nativism; progressivism.

Further reading: John E. Bodnar, The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985); John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925, 2d ed. (New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1988); George J. Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1940 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).