2. The Response to Immigration

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we'll explore how Americans reacted to the New Immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe. Many Americans felt threatened by these new immigrants as they believed them to be competition for jobs and inclined to more radical political beliefs. As a result, the US government instituted a new immigration system which aimed to limit immigrants from "less desirable" areas of the world.

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).