4. Cultural Impact of Immigration

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we examine the cultural impact of the New Immigration to the United States. New immigrants to the country helped the economy boom and fundamentally altered US popular culture. Immigrants provided a willing and cheap labour force for production, created new companies and brands that would spread countrywide, dominate the new and booming movie business, and help keep alcohol flowing throughout the country despite prohibition.

Course

In this course, Professor Susan Curtis (Purdue University) explains the causes and effects of international and internal migration patterns during the 1920s and what effects this had on popular culture in the United States. We start by examining the two movements of peoples into and within the United States, these were: (i) New Immigration; and (ii) the Great Migration. We then turn in the next two modules to examine the response to both New Immigration and the Great Migration. In the next two modules we explore the impact these new groups had on culture within the United States. Finally, we offer some concluding remarks on the period and topic as a whole.

Lecturer

Susan Curtis in Emeritus Professor of History and American Studies at Purdue University. She specialises in the History of American culture, religion, and race relations; and is the author of four books - A Consuming Faith:  The Social Gospel and Modern American Culture (1991): Dancing to a Black Man's Tune:  A Life of Scott Joplin (1994); The First Black Actors on the Great White Way (1998); and Colored Memories:  A Biographer's Quest for the Elusive Lester A. Walton (2008).