Small Strangers: The Experiences of Immigrant Children in America, 1880–1925 (American Childhoods Series) - Hardcover

Klapper, Melissa R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1566637333 ISBN 13: 9781566637336

Publisher: Ivan R. Dee, 2007

Synopsis

Children are the largely neglected players in the great drama of American immigration. In one of history's most remarkable movements of people across national borders, almost twenty-five million immigrants came to the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—from Mexico, Japan, and Canada as well as the more common embarkation points of southern and eastern Europe. Many of them were children. Together with the American-born children of immigrants, they made up a significant part of turn-of-the-century U.S. society. Small Strangers recounts and interprets their varied experiences to illustrate how immigration, urbanization, and industrialization—all related processes—molded modern America. Growing up in crowded tenements, insular mill towns, rural ethnic enclaves, or middle-class homes, as they came of age they found themselves increasingly caught between Old World expectations and New World demands. The encounters of these children with ethnic heritage, American values, and mass culture helped shape the twentieth century in a United States still known symbolically around the world as a nation of immigrants.

About this title

About the Author:

Melissa R. Klapper teaches history at Rowan University in New Jersey and has also written Jewish Girls Coming of Age in America, 1860–1920. She lives in the Philadelphia area.

Review:

Skillfully shows how the experiences of immigrant children highlight the dramatic shift from farm to factory. . . . An engaging synthesis. (Kriste Lindenmeyer, author of The Greatest Generation Grows Up)

Her culturally sensitive survey fills a gap in histories of childhood and of immigration. (Roger Daniels, University of Cincinnati)

Klapper has written a brief gem of a book, examining immigrant children in all of their diversity, tragedy, and triumph. (Jonathan Zimmerman, author of Whose America?)

A careful blending of personal accounts with the larger social issues and reform movements of the period. (Marilyn Irvin Holt, author of Children of the Western Plains)

Small Strangers touches on an astonishing range of key issues. . . . Indispensable. (Alice Kessler-Harris, author of Gendering Labor History)

Klapper paints a compelling portrait. . . . An especially pertinent story in light of the current debates over immigration policy. (Peter Bardaglio, author of Reconstructing the Household)

Small Strangers fills a gap. . . . An excellent addition to any college level collection strong in immigrant studies. (California Bookwatch)

Small Strangers captures the essence of what it meant to be one of the many children whose families immigrated to America around the turn of the last century. . . . Small Strangers manages to do an excellent job of telling their stories and shedding light on their lives and their contributions to building America. (Garrett Berger Virginia Quarterly Review)

Highlight[s] . . . experiences of individuals while still describing . . . structural similarities in the experiences of . . . a broad range of ethnicities. (Ellen L. Berg H-Childhood)

Stimulating study . . . fine insights concerning the effects that immigration had on American and its varied citizenry. (Robert Leiter Jewish Exponent)

About this edition

• Publisher: Ivan R. Dee
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1566637333
• ISBN 13: 9781566637336
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256