The Old World in the New: The Significance of Past and Present Immigration to the American PeopleRoss, Edward Alsworth
History
The Old World in the New: The Significance of Past and Present Immigration to the American People
Ross, Edward Alsworth
Immigrants -- United States; Noncitizens -- United States; United States -- Emigration and immigration
Coming from an industrial country, the Swedes bring skill, and show
no marked bent for agriculture. Only thirty per cent. of them are at
the plow-tail; of their sons, forty-three per cent. The rest will be
carpenters, miners, and quarrymen, railroad employees, machinists,
iron- and steel-workers, tailors, and teamsters. Although they
form only an eightieth of the army of bread-winners, one out of
twelve iron-workers, one out of fourteen cabinet-makers, one out of
twenty-one boatmen and sailors, and one out of twenty-five tailors
is a Swede. The Swedish aristocratic view of callings is perhaps
responsible for the fact that the immigrants' sons are three times
as successful in getting "white-handed" jobs as the immigrants, and
are much keener for such work than the sons of our Norwegians.
A like difference is visible in the choices of the daughters.
Between the first generation and the second the proportion in
the "ladylike" jobs increases from 3 per cent. to 13.5 per cent.
among the Swedes; from 4.2 per cent. to 9.8 per cent. among the
Norwegians. While the proportion of servants and waitresses falls
from 61.5 per cent. to 44.5 per cent. among the Swedes, it actually
rises from 46 per cent. to 48 per cent. among the Norwegians. Among
the former there is a more eager flight from kitchen to factory. On
the other hand, the affinity of a democratic people for education
reveals itself in the fact that in both generations the Norwegian
women are decidedly more likely to be teachers than the Swedish
women.
ASSIMILATION
It may be true that "every Sunday Norwegian is preached in more
churches in America than in Norway," still, no immigrants of
foreign speech assimilate so quickly as the Scandinavians. They
never pullulate in slums or stagnate in solid rural settlements. Of
10,200 families that have been studied in seven of our great cities,
it was found that the 148 Swedish families had the most dwellings
of five and six rooms, the largest incomes, the best housekeeping,
the best command of English, and the highest proportion of voters
among the men. The Scandinavians have not braced themselves against
assimilation, as have the Germans, with their _Deutschtum_. Not
being beer-bibbers, and warned by their desperate home struggle,
they will not stand with the Teutons for "personal liberty" on the
question of drink. The anti-liquor sentiment is very strong among
them, and in the Minnesota legislature nearly all the support for
county option is Scandinavian. Politically, the Norwegians are more
active than the Swedes, and they have been insurgent ever since they
formed in the Northwest the backbone of so American a movement as
Populism.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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