Translating America

An Ethnic Press and Popular Culture, 1890-1920

Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Cultural Studies, Emigration & Immigration, History, Americas, United States
Cover of the book Translating America by Peter Conolly-Smith, Smithsonian
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Author: Peter Conolly-Smith ISBN: 9781588345202
Publisher: Smithsonian Publication: September 29, 2015
Imprint: Smithsonian Books Language: English
Author: Peter Conolly-Smith
ISBN: 9781588345202
Publisher: Smithsonian
Publication: September 29, 2015
Imprint: Smithsonian Books
Language: English

At the turn of the century, New York City's Germans constituted a culturally and politically dynamic community, with a population 600,000 strong. Yet fifty years later, traces of its culture had all but disappeared. What happened? The conventional interpretation has been that, in the face of persecution and repression during World War I, German immigrants quickly gave up their own culture and assimilated into American mainstream life.

But in Translating America, Peter Conolly-Smith offers a radically different analysis. He argues that German immigrants became German-Americans not out of fear, but instead through their participation in the emerging forms of pop culture. Drawing from German and English newspapers, editorials, comic strips, silent movies, and popular plays, he reveals that German culture did not disappear overnight, but instead merged with new forms of American popular culture before the outbreak of the war. Vaudeville theaters, D.W. Griffith movies, John Philip Sousa tunes, and even baseball games all contributed to German immigrants' willing transformation into Americans.

Translating America tackles one of the thorniest questions in American history: How do immigrants assimilate into, and transform, American culture?

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At the turn of the century, New York City's Germans constituted a culturally and politically dynamic community, with a population 600,000 strong. Yet fifty years later, traces of its culture had all but disappeared. What happened? The conventional interpretation has been that, in the face of persecution and repression during World War I, German immigrants quickly gave up their own culture and assimilated into American mainstream life.

But in Translating America, Peter Conolly-Smith offers a radically different analysis. He argues that German immigrants became German-Americans not out of fear, but instead through their participation in the emerging forms of pop culture. Drawing from German and English newspapers, editorials, comic strips, silent movies, and popular plays, he reveals that German culture did not disappear overnight, but instead merged with new forms of American popular culture before the outbreak of the war. Vaudeville theaters, D.W. Griffith movies, John Philip Sousa tunes, and even baseball games all contributed to German immigrants' willing transformation into Americans.

Translating America tackles one of the thorniest questions in American history: How do immigrants assimilate into, and transform, American culture?

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