Americanization

Between 1880 and 1924 more than 25 million immigrants arrived in the United States in search of a better life. Whereas earlier immigrants had come mostly from western Europe, a majority of these new immigrants hailed from eastern and southern Europe, arriving in port cities and quickly spreading out to work in the nation's burgeoning industrial areas. According to David Kennedy, at the start of the 20th century Americans began to question their long-standing laissez-faire policy toward immigration and assimilation. Up to this point, Americans had an abiding faith in the power of the melting pot to fuse a common culture out of the many European groups that came to America, but the existence of ethnic enclaves in mining towns and urban centers and the obvious persistence of Old World languages and customs made many Americans uneasy about this growing industrial proletariat. Asserting the primacy of western European heritage, a growing number of “old-stock” reformers began to devise ways to accelerate newcomers' acculturation to dominant social, cultural, and political practices. They understood their project as one of Americanization, that is, of making ideal citizens out of disparate and, what many believed to be, “inferior” immigrant groups. The goal of Americanization was to eradicate all visible markers of difference that distinguished immigrants as outsiders. This movement accelerated over the course of World War I, becoming a kind of national crusade to promote “100% Americanism” in the early 1920s. Along with settlement houses, factories, and labor unions, public schools became sites of aggressive Americanization campaigns and educational reform efforts beginning in the early 20th century. Some of these efforts provoked conflict and dissent.

Americanizing immigrants was a primary function of public education and a central reason for the expansion and public funding of schooling in the early 20th century. As John Bodnar notes, although Americanization was a constant in educational theory and practice, its perceived need fluctuated in intensity. This need flared, sometimes viciously, as Americans began to question the allegiance of “foreigners” living in the United States at the outbreak of World War I and continued through the heightened xenophobia and nativism that culminated in immigration restriction in 1924. Although Americanization programs are now considered disciplinary and coercive campaigns, which they were, it is important to remember that at the time, efforts to embrace European immigrants and ease their transition into America were considered progressive, liberal, and even kind. Public schools were especially effective Americanizing agents because they allowed the state to reach children during their formative years. Not only did schools offer instruction in the English language, American history, and democratic processes, they also functioned as agents of socialization for young students who wanted to make friends and appease teachers. For these reasons politicians and social activists viewed public education as a powerful vehicle to reform immigrants into ideal citizens.

The key to understanding schools as sites of Americanization is to recognize the complexity of historical actors and initiatives that took place under this rubric. Historians now believe that the process of Americanization was far more complex than the simple imposition of cultural norms by the majority group. We are beginning to know more about how immigrants resisted Americanization campaigns and also how immigrant groups supported and encouraged assimilation efforts. At times, immigrant leaders in the United States agreed with reformers that erasing the undesirable cultural markers of recent arrivals would improve immigrants' educational achievement and employment opportunities. At other times, immigrant leaders promoted the preservation of Old World cultural traits such as native languages only to find that the [Page 60]younger generation had no interest in Italian or Polish in the public schools. Americanization, therefore, was not necessarily a top-down process accomplished through repressive campaigns, but was instead a dialectical process that took place through everyday actions on the factory floor, in the streets, and in the schoolyard. Scholars now believe these kinds of everyday practices had as much if not more influence on the assimilation of European immigrants than top-down programs and reforms implemented through formal institutions such as public schools.

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