“Their New Jerusalem”
Representations of Jewish Immigrants in the American Popular Press, 1880–1903
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21743797 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Deborah Varat (Southern New Hampshire University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 277-300 |
| Publication date | 2021-04-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1537-7814 • E-ISSN: 1943-3557 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s1537781420000766 |
| OpenAlex | W3159178121 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 15 |
Millions of immigrants arrived in the United States during the Gilded Age, drastically altering the ethnic character of the American citizenry. This dramatic social change was met with mixed reactions from the native-born population that were vividly communicated in the popular press. Cartoonists for newspapers and magazines across the country developed a language of caricature to identify and distinguish among ethnic groups and mocked new arrivals in imagery that ranged from mild to malicious. One might assume that the masses of Eastern European Jews flooding into the country (poor, Yiddish-speaking, shtetl-bred) would have been singled out for anti-Semitic attack, just as they were in Europe at the time. However, Jews were not the primary victims of visual insults in America, nor were the Jewish caricatures wholly negative. Further, the broader scope of popular imagery, which, in addition to cartoons, includes a plethora of illustrations as well as photographs, presents a generally positive attitude toward Jewish immigrants. This attitude aligned with political rhetoric, literature, newspaper editorials, and financial opportunity. This article will propose a better alignment of the visual evidence with the scholarly understanding of the essentially providential experience of Jews in America during this period
Aesthetics · Art · Deportation · Ethnic group · Immigration · Judaism · Linguistics · Literature · Media studies · Newspaper · Political science · Politics · Population · Rhetoric · Sociology · Demography · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Jewish Identity and Society · Law · Race, History, and American Society
Strangers in the Land Patterns of American Nativism 1800-1925
A Concise History of American Antisemitism
Theodore Roosevelt and his Time
Inventing the Immigration Problem
The Kishinev Pogrom of 1903
Anti-Semitism in the Gilded Age
Barbaric Intercourse
A Definition of Caricature and Caricature and Recognition
Realism, Photography, and Journalistic Objectivity in 19th Century America
From Shanties to Lace Curtains
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2022 - 2023 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |