The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans as Told by Themselves: Expanded Edition

by Hamilton Holt (Editor), Edwin Emery Slosson (Contributor)

from reviews of the first Routledge edition:

"Entirely charming"
Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post

"A marvelous little book . . . . With no varnish or self-pity, . . . people who never achieved anything notable (except decency and dignity) tell the stories of their lives. A Chinese laundry-man, a Polish woman sweatshop worker, a farm wife--all considered themselves ordinary and all were extraordinary. Heroes come in a lot of funny shapes."
Molly Ivins, Ms Magazine

"To see the Florida seabed through a Conch sponge fisherman's water glass is as rich and strange as to sit in a Lithuanian log house at the turn of the century and listen, with a boy's ears, to an old shoemaker reading subversive literature... The voices that emerge [are] as vivid as the scratchings of an Edison cylinder."
Edmund Morris, The New Yorker

"The so-called undistinguished Americans generally speak in their own words; at times their writing is rough-hewn, even mundane, but informed with the rousing emotions of immigrants trying to succeed in a new land, of native-born Americans struggling against the prejudices of their fellow countrymen. The book recreates a bygone era by serving up the stuff of day-to-day life."
Publishers Weekly

Hamilton Holt, editor of The Independent, collected these touching autobiographies of ordinary people--new immigrants and sharecroppers, cooks and fishermen, women and men working in sweatshops, in the city, and on the land. First published in 1906, and reissued a decade ago, this new edition of Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans is expanded to include lives Holt did not include in his original selection, as well as a new preface by Werner Sollors.

Genres: History, Memoir, Nonfiction, American, American History

296 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 1906

Reviews

[Lobstergirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a treasure trove of first person testimonials from Americans (mostly - one is an Igorrote Indian chief from the Philippines on display, willingly, in a Coney Island exhibit), originally published in Hamilton Holt's progressive magazine The Independent between 1904 and 1906. Most are recent immigrants - from Lithuania, Poland, Italy, Greece, Sweden, Germany, Ireland, Hungary, Syria, Japan, China. Some of them have put down roots; others, notably the Asians, aren't sure if they're going to stay. Not surprisingly, the two most heartbreaking accounts come from black Americans.

A common experience of the arrivals at Ellis Island is being conned. A young French dressmaker and her traveling companion are told by a man that the 20 francs they have is not enough, and they will be sent back. However if they give him the francs, he will lend them $50 each. He gives them two $50 bills. When they get to immigration officials they find out the bills are Confederate, and worthless. Other immigrants around them lend them the money to pass through. A Greek operates a pushcart in New York City, where all the pushcart peddlers have to pay bribes of $1-2 per day to the police in order to work. The Lithuanians in Chicago have to pay job brokers to get work in slaughterhouses. If another worker comes along and pays money for their job, they are released.

Prejudices are on full view. An Irish cook is an avowed anti-Semite. She first works in a mill, where the supervisors "were nice appearing people enough, but the second day I found out they were Jews. I had never seen a Jew before, so I packed my bag and said to the lady, "I beg your pardon, ma'am, but I can't eat the bread of them as crucified the Saviour." "But, she said, "he was a Jew." So at that I put out. I couldn't hear such talk." The Chinese businessman in New York City finds Jews unclean and ignorant and says the Irish "fill the almshouses and prisons and orphan asylums" and the Italians are dangerous. There are no laundries in China; Chinese operate laundries in America because it's a business that requires little capital and one of the few open to the Chinese. Street boys break the windows of Chinese laundries all over the city, but "the police seem to think it a joke."

The wife of a controlling midwestern farmer subordinates her will to her husband. She stops going to church because he doesn't want to. She loves to read and has gotten the occasional glimpse of "great poets and authors," but has to do so in secret because he finds it a waste of time and thinks it means she doesn't love him; her few leisure moments should be spent talking to him. She rises at four or five in the morning and spends all day doing chores. "I have never had a vacation," she writes, "but if I should be allowed one I should certainly be pleased to spend it in an art gallery." She has always itched to write, and has had a few pieces published in newspapers for no remuneration. She persuades her stingy husband to allow her to takes courses from a correspondence school, which he allows her to do if she drops her subscriptions to papers and periodicals, which she was paying for from her own income. "...there is very little time for the higher life for myself, but my soul cries out for it..."

Chief Fomoaley of the Bontoc Igorrotes, on view at Coney Island, explains that his people are the oldest in the world. All people are descended from them. Once their people were so bad that God sent a great flood that drowned all except seven, who escaped in a canoe and landed on a high mountain. Once a white man came to his people and told them that God had a son who died for them. They should leave their God and go to this other God. But the Igorrote chief told him, "We did not want him to die for us. We can die for ourselves." Another white man tried to tell them that the world is round, and the sun does not go around it. "We know better than that, because we can see the sun moving." (This brings to mind the Polish sweatshop worker, who has heard "that there is a sort of clock that calls you at the very time you want to get up, but I can't believe that because I don't see how the clock would know.") This white man was trying to map their country, and wanted to know where the river went after it left the mountains. The chief asked, "What does it matter where the river goes?" Why should this man, "a stranger, be troubled about where the river ran? It was not his river. It was our river, and if we did not care, why did it matter to him?" Chief Fomoaley says that the best dogs to eat are male, about four years old, and short-haired. A great side dish with dog is roasted sweet potatoes. In America he is alarmed at how thin, stooping and pale people are, and he feels sorry for the children, who are forced to wear clothes when they should run around naked.

A "Negro peon" in Georgia, born during the Civil War, was hired out by his uncle to a Captain. He leaves in order to take a better paying job at a neighboring plantation, but it turns out he has been bound to the Captain until he's twenty-one, so he is returned, tied to a tree, and whipped. When he reaches 21, he signs a one-year contract with the Captain, or rather, he makes an X, since he can't write. He marries the Captain's house servant, Mandy, and signs several more one-year contracts. When the Captain dies, his son, who is called the Senator, signs him to a ten-year contract. The Senator builds a long shanty with stalls, and soon forty Negro convicts in chains are living in the stalls; the convicts have been leased from the state of Georgia, which pays for their guards, medical expenses, and their other expenses. The convicts made the peons afraid, and some of them wanted to leave. The Senator explained that if they broke their contracts, they would be in chains just like the convicts. Someone explains to them that the contracts they signed allow the Senator to lock them up in the stockade at night, or whenever else he saw fit.

The Senator builds another stockade and keeps bringing in more convict labor. But at the end of the "free laborers'" ten-year contracts, it turns out they are deep in debt to the plantation commissary, where they are forced to buy all their food and clothing. They are free to leave, however some of them are in debt $100 or $200 to the Captain, and they need to sign acknowledgment of that fact. The next day it is explained to them that in the papers they signed they have agreed to work for the Senator until their debts are paid by hard labor, so they become convict labor. The peon lives in this labor camp for the next three years. During this time Mandy becomes the mistress of a white camp boss and has two children. Their nine year son is given away to a Negro family in South Carolina. They never see him after this. The peon lives in the stockade for thirteen years. This is the new slavery: perpetual bondage in which men's (and women's) debts always accumulate, can never be completely paid off, and one can only be hired by a new employer with the consent of the old employer. We sometimes wonder today why adultery was illegal in some states, or why it remained so beyond our Puritan days; it's because it provided fresh convict labor in places like Georgia. The peon explains that white men would employ "negro lewd women" to entice negro men into their houses, and then raids would be conducted and the men hauled off to labor camps. Finally, the peon is released from the labor camp - in fact, he is ordered to leave by the camp boss who was living with his wife Mandy. The boss drives him across the river into South Carolina and tells him to "git." He makes his way to Birmingham and figures he'll die "either in a coal mine or an iron furnace" but at least it will be better than a Georgia peon camp.

A Hungarian immigrant is sent by his employment agency to a sawmill in the South. He is told he will get $1.50 a day and food. When he arrives the new boss laughs and says the pay is $1 for a twelve hour day. The Hungarian can't read the contract he signed. The next morning before dawn, he runs away but is tracked down by men and bloodhounds and whipped. When they arrive back at the sawmill he is whipped again (this happens constantly as the peons try to run away). This story has a moderately happy ending, as the bosses of the lumber company are put on trial and the peon testifies. "In the trial I learned that there was law in America, but its benefits to the poor were accidental." The man who whipped him gets fifteen months in jail, but an American acquaintance tells him he will probably never serve a day, due to graft. "Do they flog men everywhere in this country?" asks the Hungarian. He had been inspired to come to America after reading a book by Louis Kossuth. "No," says his acquaintance, "just down here in the South where they used to flog niggers." He gets a new job where the bosses are kind and humane and they work eight-hour days.

The book finishes with testimonials from a southern white woman, and a southern "colored" woman. The black woman is married to a doctor; they own a home and have bought two more rental properties She describes the racism she endures, the feeling of being an outcast in her own country. Not knowing about the Jim Crow laws in certain places, she takes the seat she wants in a trolley and is yelled at by the conductor as all the white riders titter. She asks the conductor to stop so she can get off, not wanting to suffer further insult. "These niggers get more impudent every day," announces another rider. At an office building she tries to board an elevator three times before someone tells her, "I guess you can't read, but niggers don't ride in this elevator...go to the back and you'll find an elevator for freight and niggers." The most painful racism she ever experienced was as a child, at the funeral of a young black Sunday School teacher who had been adored by many. Her house was filled with flowers sent by well-wishers. A fifteen year old girl says to her, "More flowers for that dead nigger? I never saw such a to-do made over a dead nigger before." As she runs away, the teens throw stones at her. She ends with a lament for her children, whose "fate" she doesn't know, since "everything is forgiven in the South but color."

The white woman is the daughter of a "Southern gentleman" who joined the Ku Klux Klan and with "his neighbors set about disciplining the negroes into a proper understanding of the Southern gentleman's idea of their freedom, more especially its limitations." Depending on one's understanding of the South, this essay may be astonishing or not. It should be required reading for any student of American history. It could properly be called a manifesto. "I belong to a class in the South who know the negro only as a servant," she writes. "The "educated negro" is an artificial production, which does not fit in with our natural order, and for this reason no distance is so wide as between the people of my class and aspiring, wronged, intelligent, vindictive negroes."

...the educated negro gets his conception of the white man's character largely from the lower orders of society. The best he can do socially is to meet the factory elements, say, on their terms of insolent inequality. And the proof of the negro's innate vulgarity is that he is willing to do so. No matter how respectable he may be himself in character and intelligence, he will welcome to his board and hearth the meanest whites and feel complimented at their presence. I think our old Mammy had a better notion of self respect. "I wouldn't set down to the table with no white person as would ax me," she used to say, "for I'd know by dat dey was pure white trash and not fitten for me to notice!"

As a child the woman was taught never to call her black playmates niggers, "or to hurt their feelings by referring to the quality of their hair." She says she was "never tempted to treat them unkindly," however, when they played horse, she was the rider and they were the horse. There was a young mulatto boy with blue eyes who was always sulky. One day she sprayed his face with black ink until it was completely covered. He ran crying to her mother, who calls for a servant and says, "Take that child to his mother. Tell her he is nearer the right color than I ever saw him before, and tell her he is never to come into my sight again." The woman says of the blacks who were devoted to her father, "Personally I never passed judgment on them. So far as I knew God had done that when he made me white and them black."

With the freedom of the blacks came "utter depravity" - their innate, degenerate nature caused them to sexually assault white women. Widespread lynchings are the inevitable result of white men's bloodthirstiness to avenge their women. As blacks move north, their criminal ways move with them so that lynching has become common there too. "Once [the black man's] abolitionist friends get a rational conception of his character they invariably desert him. And the whole trouble North and South comes from a disposition to hold the negro morally accountable, when really he belongs to a decadent race, which taints every other it comes in contact with, and is of itself incapable of regeneration." Black women are even more depraved than black men. "I sometimes read of virtuous negro women, hear of them, but the idea is absolutely inconceivable to me." The writer once hired two college graduates to work for her, "yellow Jezebels...from schools that have million-dollar endowments for the education of negro girls" but both "were manifestly immoral and they had deceit down to a fine art."

The reason why Northerners fail to comprehend the almost universal depravity of negroes is because they mistake the very high moral tone of the negro's conversation as an evidence of virtue. These people are very quick at catching a tune of any kind, mental or musical, and they like the noble sound of ethics as much as they enjoy musical harmony. Thus, it is very rare, indeed, to find a negro who does not shine in a religious discussion.

She wraps it up with a nearly mind-boggling display of hypocrisy, projection, and victim-blaming:

And finally, it is never wise to judge a race by individuals, but by those evidences common to the whole mass of it. And, regarded from this standpoint, the negroes are at their worst. No other people are so heartless in their discriminations against one another. Their very aspirations are mean. I know of two "colored churches" where black skinned negroes are not eligible to membership. Social distinctions depend with them upon externals, not character. They have no right sense of honor or virtue. Recently I sat in the auditorium of a great negro university, and of the two or three hundred students present I saw only four full blooded negroes. Nearly all were mulattoes or octoroons, the offspring of negro women, but not of negro men. Whatever this intimates of the Southern white man's morals, it teaches two things clearly - that negro men are rarely the fathers of those individuals in the race who develop to any marked degree intellectually, and that negro women who are prostitutes are the mothers of these ambitious sons and daughters. In short, the whole race aspires upward chiefly through the immorality of the superior race above it. I do not know a more suggestive intimation of the real quality of the negro's nature and disposition than this. A mulatto girl expressed the whole economy and ambition of her people the other day when a full blooded negro called her a "stuck up nigger." "Maybe I is," she retorted, "but I thanks y God I ain't er out an' out nigger sech as you is!" And that is what they are all thankful for who have a drop of white blood to boast of. It is the measure of their quality and degradation that they can be proud of a dishonor which lightens the color of their skin.

[Sheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I absolutely love books or documentaries which recount daily life of people throughout history. This book does not disappoint. It consists of 20 autobiographical sketches of immigrants coming to America in the late 1800s, as well as a few accounts of Native Americans and Blacks (which were equal parts heart breaking and blood boiling). I ended up ordering this used because I couldn't get it in my library, so if anyone wants it, I'd be happy to pass it on.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this short primary source collection after seeing it referenced on the acknowledgments for @marybethkeane ‘s novel “Fever.” So glad I did. Short, first-person narratives document the lived experiences in the late 1800s/early 1900s. It’s in the public domain, so there are several editions available... This kindle edition from Digital History Books had fewer scanning errors than others I sampled (I do wish they’d taken time to set the head notes in italic). Highly recommended for anyone interested in history in general and in the experiences of immigrants and laborers in particular.

[Celia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Undistinguished Americans is a well written, well-edited non-fiction book. It could be considered one of my favorite books. It is composed of little excerpts that describe what life might be like in America for an Italian Bootblack or a polish factory worker for example. I really enjoy reading this book and being able to take a peek at what a reality was like for many immigrants. In the Italian bootblack story for example, after 3 months of being here, they had saved 1,600 dollars in 1906 which would be very close to 45,000 dollars in 2018. The author obviously put a lot of work, effort, and time into this book and it shows. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a time-killer, a quick read, or to learn about immigration in the past.

[Christopher Mcilroy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, originally from the turn of the past century, focuses primarily on immigrants, all working class common folk from a variety of foreign lands. These are not case histories but real stories in the voices of the subjects, recounting struggles, journeys, successes and sorrows, and frequently personal relationships. The material is inherently political, keenly concerned with the distinctions and conflicts among social classes. The selections bring to life the spirit and doggedness that common people brought to their daily lives, which in many cases were literal struggles for survival. Not so different from today in that respect.

[Andrea Janov · Rating 4 out of 5]

These stories are enlightening. It was better than any history lesson I have ever had. I would even love to have a new series of these stories, immigration and building a new life in an unfamiliar country is an evergreen topic with endless nuances. My only real criticism here is that most of the stories were really of those who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and became successful. While I am sure there are many of these stories, this collections gives an unrealistic skew about how many immigrants were indeed that successful.

[Vince · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up because it had a very interesting title. It is a collection of short life stories of people who lived in the United States in the early 20th century. They talk of their homelands, their struggles, their identity, and worries for the future. Most of them had little means when they came to this country and their story reflects upon how they set out to thrive in a place so foreign to them. It took a little while to get into the book but I’m glad I persevered to the end.

[Marcella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this a lot. Despite being written over 100 years ago, the stories felt relevant (after adjusting for inflation). Lots of people living their lives, trying to make things better; not everyone had positive experiences in America. Many of the major societal problems cited by the authors haven't gone away (shocker).

[Ocean G · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an interesting insight into lives of Americans, from immigrants to former slaves to native Americans to an Igorrote chief (the only non-American). These are memoirs that would have otherwise been lost to time, but were shared by millions of people in similar situations. Well worth a read by anyone who can get access to the book.


https://4201mass.blogspot.com/

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

How do you NOT like this ... it's people's stories from a hundred years ago, in their own words -- it's awesome!

[Genna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a neat window into every day life, mainly of immigrants, in the early 1900s.

[Sharon Maclin · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like non-fiction and history, you'll love these personal stories of American immigrants from the late 1800s.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

The long and purposefully uncatchy title of this book is quite useful, because it is a good indicator of what the rest of the book is about. There is absolutely no suspense, romance, humor, mystery, or attention-grabbing action. These are simply a few short stories about real people from the turn of the century, told from their point of view. What was interesting about this book was, as mentioned above, it's no frills policy: when the heading of the story says "Swedish Farmer", you get a story about nothing other than a Swedish Farmer. Although the title calls them Americans, all of the people in the story are immigrants living in America, although not all of them are that proud of it: one is a French dressmaker who yearns to go back to France, and another is an indegenious person puzzled by the West's lifestyle.

The style and tone of the book is very dry and it can get quite boring at times, but I kept reading. Perhaps it was the idea of this completely conflict-free book that amused me and made me want to finish it. Nonetheless, I doubt I will be seeing this book on any best seller lists anytime soon.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely not a light pleasure read, but the stories themselves provide valuable insight on the immigrant culture in America at the turn of the century. I love using stories from this book when I teach American literature-- one of the best ways to illustrate the 'American Dream' and what it meant to different people and what they did to achieve it-- the streets are not paved with gold for many of these people. I love that the book is propaganda free-- some become horribly disillusioned with America (the French dressmaker, the Japanese servant). It's gutsy to publish a non-fiction book at the turn of the century that doesn't paint America as all sunshine and roses. That being said, there are several success stories (my favorite, and my students' is the Polish sweatshop girl).

[Book Club · Rating 4 out of 5]

DOUG'S PICK - Last Book Club at Wade & Kathy's before they moved.

Had this book discussion at Kathy & Wade's, even though Doug picked the book. Wade recently recovering from eyelid surgery and claimed to look like a "man-raccoon hybrid."

Doug 4 stars: Favorite stories were the White Southern Woman and the Black Southern Woman
Betsy 5 stars: Favorite story was the Indian.
Wade 4 stars: Favorite story the Swedish immigrant.
Kathy 4 stars: Favorite story was the Farmer's Wife.

Loved the history and portraits of immigrants lives as told by themselves.

[Cara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first book in months that I just devoured. This is a compilation of fascinating first-person stories from people living in the US around the turn of the century. Most of them are immigrants, and they write about why they came to the US, their thoughts about the culture, working, etc. The stories are largely unedited, and you can really hear each individual author's voice in each story.

[Erika · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at immigrants' and a few natural-born Americans' lives in the late 1800s and early 1900s. This book is a good reminder of how the U.S. was populated, first by Native Americans and then by immigrants from all over the world. I loved hearing the stories in the people's own words, because it gives the real sense of what they thought and felt. History books give the broad picture, but this one gives the intimate, detailed, personal picture.

[Shara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating short life history narratives capturing challenges faced by ordinary people in 1906-- mostly immigrants to the United States. Each narrative is perhaps 20 pages, and relays the initial hardship and then later improvement in most of the lives. This book would be a great enhancement or optional read, perhaps selected excerpts, for students in an American History class.

[Addie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book for anyone interested in what life was REALLY like in early america. Beautiful.

[Wendy Fall · Rating 5 out of 5]

So cool! Many different views of immigrant life in the US.