The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America

Interdisciplinary Studies in History

by John Bodnar

" . . . an excellent broad overview . . . " ―Journal of Social History

" . . . powerfully argued . . . " ―Moses Rischin

" . . . imaginative and soundly based . . . " ―Choice

"Highly recommended . . . " ―Library Journal

" . . . an outstanding major contribution to the literature on immigration history." ―History

" . . . a very important new synthesis of American immigration history . . . " ―Journal of American Ethnic History

" . . . a state of the art discussion, impressively encyclopaedic . . . The Transplanted is a tour de force, and a fitting summation to Bodnar's own prolific, creative, and insightful writings on immigrants." ―Journal of Interdisciplinary History

A major survey of the immigrant experience between 1830 and 1930, this book has implications for all students and scholars of American social history.

Genres: History, College, Nonfiction, American History, 20th Century, 19th Century

320 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1985

Reviews

[Dan Gorman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exhaustively researched but slow-going from a narrative standpoint, Bodnar's book is a solid introduction to American urban immigration. If you want to learn about immigrants settling in the countryside, then you should look elsewhere. Bodnar's emphasis on the family economy is a novel way to frame immigrant experiences. The author argues that the typical immigrant operated within the context of the family and took action based on what was most likely to help the family.

[Hans Myers · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well sourced, well-researched quantitative history of urban immigration that suffers under the weight of all its statistics.

[Brooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written source on Immigrant History organized heavily on a Marxian framework. A great resource for all interested in US Immigration and their nuances.

[Skjam! · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume, written in the 1980s, is a survey of patterns of immigration into urban areas of the United States between 1830-1930 (approximately.) It covers those who came to stay, those who just came to get a nest egg to improve life in their home country, and those who intended to go back but just never got around to it. Mr. Bodnar was and still is a professor of history at Indiana University.

The general theme of this book seems to be “it’s complicated.” The immigrant experience was not uniform, with their reactions and outcomes varying considerably depending on their initial motivations for emigration, the areas they came from, their initial social class and starting capital, and what part of America they ended up in. Trying to fit the immigrants into a single narrative that fits a particular philosophy doesn’t really work, according to Professor Bodnar.

It’s pretty dry stuff, starting with a chapter on the countries immigrants came from and focusing on when various regions had their largest numbers go. This isn’t a book for the casual reader.

The most interesting chapter for me was on religion and how their faiths both influenced how immigrants adapted to American life, and were forced to adapt themselves. Often there were clashes between those who felt they were (ethnicity) first, (religion) second, and those (especially religious leaders) who felt the reverse. One example was Slovak immigrants who were suspicious of their priests and ministers who preached in favor of Hungarian rule of the homeland. (It was later confirmed that the Austro-Hungarian Empire did indeed pay off religious leaders to spout pro-Hungarian propaganda in the U.S.)

Another conflict that often came up was between the urge to embrace Americanization and blend into their new society, and the fear of losing the unique cultural elements of their homeland or religious beliefs. This often led to a preference for parochial or ethnicity-based schools rather than putting children into the public school system.

There are extensive end notes, a bibliography and index, as well as a handful of black-and-white pictures.

Again, this isn’t a book for the casual reader, but is best suited for college students and up who are doing serious research on the subject of immigration. For most people, I’d recommend one of the many fine memoirs of immigrant families available at your local library.

[Miriam Borenstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Bodnar’s 1985 work, The Transplanted, assembles and synthesizes a great deal of comparative immigrant histories presenting a new image of the American immigrant. Bodnar’s image of immigrant communities pushes beyond the uprooted masses of Handlin and the relocated ethnics of Vecoli, identifying and illuminating a pragmatic, self-assured class-defined and culturally-imported immigrant culture.
Capitalism, Bodnar argues, cannot be ignored as the driving force of industrialization and the motivator for the movement of people in the homelands of the immigrants as they set out to new lands. Transportation networks and urbanization created the need for emigration from multiple destinations (helping to underscore the clearly inadequate pull factor of American immigration). As skilled jobs diminished in home countries entire family networks moved, creating horizontal work opportunity while maintaining strong familial networks. Acceptance of the capitalist world, in large part (such as the wage economy) was imported with the newcomers from the home country, who were not clinging to the past (as Handlin argued), but forging into the present.
As will happen in a capitalist system, new immigrant groups fragmented upon arrival. Some acquired wealth and power and emerged from the lower class as they entered middle-class American society. Previous immigration historians argued that ethnic communities served as weigh stations in a linear progression to the middle class, but Bodnar argues here that class itself is overlooked.
Immigrant groups are, Bodnar argues, not ignorant of their status. They are aware of and take an active role in their place as inferior in the capitalist American power structure. What he argues they do about this is most interesting, however. These groups make sense of their place in American society through the area in which they are capable of exerting their power: education, politics, and folk life—not by obedience to any leadership outside of their ethnic enclave.

[Hotavio · Rating 3 out of 5]

A macro investigation of emigration. Bodnar challenges accepted notions of immigration into America by focusing on conditions of the immigrant homelands, behaviors and social structures once immigrated. The author is careful to avoid monolithic statements by backing up assertions with statistics. He often provides the inevitable exceptions to his assertions.
The Transplanted could benefit from liberal use of charts and tables when dealing with statistical information. Due to the lack of these, some of the information is rather dry. Maps are rather ineffective in that they are hard to read and they could have been more effective by including percentages of emigrants from that location. This would have made the first chapter more palatable. Also Bodnar deals primarily with European immigrants but then unevenly throws in Mexican and Japanese immigration. This selection of study is rather awkward.

[Vincent DiGirolamo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fine synthesis of the immigration process to America as an adjustment to capitalism. An important theme that is neglected by so many other historians. Most emphasis on European immigrants between the 1880s and 1930s, but does look back further and includes Japanese- and Mexican-American experience. A very sound refutation of the "We came, we struggled, and we made it, God damn it!" school of immigration studies. Show mch more diversity within and among ethnic groups, in terms of class interests, religious inclinations, traditionalists, modernists, wage earners, entrepreneurs, radicals, bougies, etc. All good points for understanding current issues and shattering enduring stereotypes of newcomers.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though its a bit dry...if your grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. emigrated to this country (especially from Europe) I think you'll get a lot out of this book. By portraying immigrant populations during the century after 1830 not as the poor, huddled masses looking for streets paved with gold, but rather the hardworking, saavy and proactive peoples they were, you are left with a much more positive and in many cases accurate picture of these American newcomers.

[Suvi · Rating 4 out of 5]

North American Studies

[Sharone · Rating 2 out of 5]

My one word review: dry.

[Catherine]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/13614017