AS205: Inbetween Peoples

American Civilization III: In-Between Peoples has helped me begin the process of developing the analytical tools needed to evaluate and criticize the scholarly works on American culture.  Whereas in the first two courses in the American Studies core sequence consisted of reading and discussing works that make up the foundation of literature and history of American culture, this course involved examining and taking a critical stance on scholarly texts that make claims about and evaluate American culture.  It was difficult to be expected to act as a mini-scholar and while it was (is) frustrating that I don’t feel like I still quite have a command of the tools needed, I appreciated that the course challenged my brain to examine the readings in a new and deeper manner.  By that I mean, not just reading and reflecting on what I thought of the book, but criticizing and analyzing the author’s arguments, taking into consideration his/her time and place, and arguing and taking my own stance. 

            I liked that the framework of inbetween-ness allowed us to examine a few different aspects of culture, race, gender, religion, all being tied together by that common theme.  My absolute favorite class meeting was October 3^rd when we discussed the Roediger and Ngai articles and literally mapped out over the entire chalkboard every word related to race (ethnicitiy, nationality, national origin, etc.) and culture (blackness, whiteness, not-yet-white, etc.).  On the most basic level, this fascinated me because these words, though so important to the study of history and understanding our relationships to one and other and our world, are not very well defined.  Who can really give, offhand, a correct and clear-cut definition of each one and its relationship to the others?  Furthermore, the fact that we covered the board with these words illustrates the complexities involved in trying to describe and categorize and define all that falls in between categories and definitions.  To complicate things further, many, if not all of these words, have meant different things at different times.  We learned that ethnicity, for example, did not get its contemporary meaning until the 1960s.  So, these considerations also need to be taken into account when reading and analyzing scholarly work related to ethnicity prior to this time.

            While I realize that the bulk of my reflection on the course is connected to one specific class meeting, I think that this is also telling of the scope and complexity of the idea of inbetween-ness.  I don’t doubt that Professor Leon would ideally want to teach an entire semester course on just one of the topics or books that we discussed.  But, covering more topics, though less in-depth, allowed us to explore our interests and see which topic speaks to us.  Maybe each of us were especially intrigued by a specific ethnic group or racial conflict, how a particular religious group established itself, inbetween-ness in a certain geographic location or specific time period, etc.  In a general sense, I now know that, given the choice, I would much rather study race than gender.  I think that these seemingly simple realizations are just as important in navigating the rest of our academic careers (and picking a topic and writing a thesis) as the development of the aforementioned analytical tools that this course really jumpstarted and cultivated.

As an aside, I know that the blogging had mixed reviews, but I liked that it allowed us to start the conversation before we entered the classroom so that we could then hopefully delve more deeply into the material than we otherwise would have been able to do.  I wonder if it might be helpful to add an open forum for general postings on the site, in addition to the comments that are in response to a specific post.  This might help facilitate a group discussion in addition to the four or five that tended to develop through the response-to-a-specific-post method. 

This semester challenged us to broaden our ways of thinking about American culture and to incorporate those who have sometimes been sidelined in the context of history into our frameworks for understanding the authoritative structures in place during the later nineteenth century into mid-twentieth century. Not only this, but we also deeply examined just how American civilization had come to set up and maintain power blocks in society, which resulted in parts of the population becoming marginalized or characterized as an “in between” person. The upper echelons of society and the government accomplished this in articulating divisions by race, gender, class, geographical locality, profession, and education, in order to dictate cultural constructions of inferiority upon others. In attempting to maintain an “American identity” though, these power players were also able to subvert and define certain distinctions in order to preserve power away from “in between” people.

In encountering the works of Bederman and Pascoe, gender notions altered and became distinct identities when they were needed to preserve a developing American system promoting social control. By connecting the social forces of manliness, race, and class, in Manliness and Civilization, Bederman explains the changing notions of manhood and how these definitions were used to place African Americans and women in the “lower ranks” of society as people outside the norm. Pascoe similarly relates women’s efforts to enter into the public realm of society through their activities with rescue homes and their attempts at enacting female moral authority. These women attempted also to form distinctions from society, but in the end failed to fully gain social control or status. Constantly dividing themselves away from people of a varied race, gender, class, or locality, allows for one group to maintain authority at all times.

Shah works also to delve into the social structures set up in San Francisco by the local government to keep the Chinese population separate from the “native whites”. Boas’ work though points in another direction in asserting that the “old idea of absolute stability of human types much, however, evidently be given up” (4) in recognizing the fact that a certain race or gender may not be “naturally superior” over others. In ending the semester with Cohen’s Making a New Deal, I also believe that she allows us to see for one of the first times the similarities among each American, but at the same time, I believe she points to the true variety that make up the U.S. population. Through the readings, it is the people who were previously deemed inferior though who, in fact, develop into better arbiters of what delineates an American than the previous generations of Anglo-Saxon natives in representing the varied identities that characterize the population

As certain types of communities, both ethnic and corporate ties failed to provide support needed for the populations during the collapse in the economy as Cohen points to in the city of Chicago The United States government stepped in to fill this void and need in America with relief services that would have a profound effect on the course of an “American identity”. Not only would these services allow all people, regardless of race, class, gender, etc., the help they needed to recover, but also it forced the population to look elsewhere for a new community they could depend upon. Immigrants, native working class people, varying religious groups, etc., all could now look to a “community” within the encompassing American government acting as a system of support. Although still a visible force in society, identities based around differences among the population could now be understood also beneath an umbrella of the “American identity”.

An identity of “inbetween”, supposedly based on clear-cut delineations from others, becomes a term that could be used for anyone in the United States I believe. The concept of “in betweeness” as a somewhat muddled identification certainly did not disappear after the Depression and with the ensuing work of the governments though. Those putting up the power blocks lost ground during the Depression through the economic fallout and an alternation to the nation’s expectations of the government. This “in betweeness” in fact is part of the true American identity, as we all seem to fall in between the lines that are arbitrarily put in place through each distinction made.

Looking back at the semester, the one thing that stood out to me the most was when we discussed the idea of hegemony and counter-hegemony. The hegemonic group is the power bloc that has the power for the time being and must convince everyone that they should have the power. The counter-hegemonic group stands in opposition to this claim on power. The in-between groups and people we have studied this semester were apart of the counter-hegemonic group for much of the time period at which we have looked. From the challenges we witnessed to cultural ideas of manhood and womanhood in Bederman to the move to unionization in Cohen, groups at the intersection of different cultures, or on the margins of American culture have served as the counter-hegemonic force, calling into question not only the authority figures in America at the time, they also dispute the authority of categorizations of race, class, and gender themselves on which those in power draw their influence.

The concept of in-between-ness necessarily brings complexity to our understanding of American culture. Ignoring those who do not fit into easily identifiable characteristics, leads to an incomplete picture of culture. More than this, however, American culture would not be nearly as interesting if it were not for the constant challenge to the status quo made by people who do not quite fit neatly into the culture. In an American Studies elective I am taking this semester, the focus was the trickster figure in American culture. The trickster is an in-between character that often transgresses traditional boundaries within the culture. In doing so, the trickster reinvigorates culture; it is dynamic; it keeps culture from becoming stale. The in-between groups we have studied this semester engage in the same sort of cultural replenishing. This could be seen in Bederman’s work where the four individuals that she focused on reinterpreted notions of race and gender for their particular agendas and also in the multitude of other pieces we looked at.

Ultimately, I think the most important thing that I will take away from this class will be that it is important to notice who is in power and how they justify their authority, but it might be even more important, or at least more interesting to see who is challenging that power and how they utilize similar cultural resources to reach their own ends.

One of the most famous terms of inderament used for America is the “melting pot”. American history millions of immigrants made a new life for themselves in the United States. As we have studied throughout this semester, society very rarely was in fact a melting pot. Instead, what was more often the truth, people fell between cracks in the social, economic and political structure of America. Thus, inbetween people were created.

In Lizabeth Cohen’s book Making A New Deal the process of how Chicago laborers who found themselves as inbetween people fought to unionize and improve their overall lives. At the end of the book Cohen attributes the success of the labor unions during the 1930’s and 1940’s at three main things: government support, capable union organizers and leaders and rank-and-file labor workers willing to pledge their loyalty to the unions not just in words but also through action when necessary. She explains their relationship by saying, “It took strikes an other agitation by rank-and-file workers to move Roosevelt’s administration from a symbolic but unenforceable acknowledgement of workers’ rights to organize under the NRA to the establishment of real machinery to facilitate unionization through the Wagner Act.” (Cohen, p. 303) Thus, Cohen effectively puts the most emphasis on the role of the rank-and-file workers.

However, as seen throughout the semester, timing has everything to do with whether social movements are successful or not. As Gail Bederman discusses in Manliness and Civilization, the discourse for manhood has gone through many changes in history. Although there were individuals whose actions spurred these changes on, like the rancher writings of Theodore Roosevelt, without the timing that they happened to have, I seriously doubt that the individuals that history remembers would have had the same impact that they did. If Roosevelt had reached adulthood 75 years earlier than he did, when British discourse of manliness still had a stronghold in America, I highly doubt that he would have been able to have the impact of the image and conception of manliness as he did.

Additionally, the idea of situations improving for inbetween people due to different factors coming together is reflected in Nayan Shah’s examination of the Chinatown in San Francisco in her book Contagious Divides. Shah traces the way that Chinatown evolved over the decades. From being the outcasts of society to eventually having political power, the men and women who lived in Chinatown experienced circumstances changing that would eventually maker Chinatown a place that is not seen as inbetween. However, once again I believe that, in addition to all of the impacting factors that changed Chinatown’s image, timing had a lot to do with it. For instance, after the Great San Francisco fire, news papers expressed concern that Chinatown citizens would move to other West coast cities and take their trade with them. If it had been a century and a half earlier the men and women living in Chinatown would not have had that political clout due to the fact that technology facilitating trade would not have been available to them then. Thus, they would not have been seen as a valuable trading portion of society.

Thus, a common theme throughout the semester is again present in our last book, Making A New Deal. The idea that inbetween people can better their situation through their own efforts goes only so far before they simply must have timing on their side.

As AmStud majors, we are often asked why we decided to pursue such an amorphous course of study and what it is that we plan to do with our lives after we graduate. Or perhaps those are just my cynical relatives. In any case, we are inevitably here because something interests us enough about American culture to want to study it in a critical and extensive way. For me, it is understanding the meaning of American identity, and investigating what exactly makes us “American”.

As we have studied, Americans came up with all sorts of cultural devices to grapple with the onset and influence of new races, ethnicities, and even genders, that occurred during this period. These ranged from cultivating contradictory definitions of “manliness”, to making it their mission to “rescue” heathen (i.e. non-Christian) immigrants, to classifying one another solely on the (presumed) color of each’s skin. This period became one of conflicting identity, where those who had just arrived were struggling to find their place and those who were already here fought vigorously to keep theirs. What common ground was there? The answer: work.

In Gail Bederman’s book, we saw that as Americans sought to control their surroundings, they became somewhat confused about who they truly wanted to be, and thus developed contradictory definitions of civilization. The traditional definition of “manliness” had been rough, hard-working, with somewhat of a savage work ethic. However, all that work eventually led to a condition called “neurasthenia”, causing Americans to take a step back and revert to a more refined, less blatantly aggressive characterization of themselves. Peggy Pascoe similarly deals with work, in that WASP women of the later 1800s realized that their lack of work fueled their lack of civic opportunity, and thus sought to impose authority on another class/race—Chinese immigrant women. However, the Mission Homes ultimately ended in demise, as the white women did not have enough “real work” (read: economic resources) to keep themselves afloat, and the immigrants that they sought to help were too mired in the disapproval of their native community coupled with the pressures of their new Protestant one to contribute to the “work” of the homes.

Nayan Shah’s analysis of Chinatown in San Francisco saw a more hopeful avenue of work for Chinese immigrants, though largely ones of the second generation. Through learning to navigate the American system of work and politics, the children of Chinese immigrants effectively managed to garner a space of their own on their own terms, as opposed to the physical space their parents had been relegated to years prior. William Faulkner similarly dealt with “navigating the system” of work to some extent, as Joe Christmas’ demise was caused by his inability to know his presumed place. Christmas had worked in the same jobs and had lived the same lifestyle as whites, and because he was thought to be nonwhite, his style of work eventually catalyzed his death.

Of all our authors this semester, Lizabeth Cohen deals with work most explicitly. In describing the amalgamation of the CIO in the 1930s, she comments that “[the CIO] sought just the right balance between acknowledging ethnic difference and articulating worker unity. Their strategy was the meet workers on their ethnic, or racial, ground and pull them into a self-consciously common culture that transcended those distinctions…” (339). In this way, the CIO, a work-oriented organization, was able to find a “common culture that transcended” racial and ethnic divisions. Work seemed to therefore have to power to unite, as well as divide the Americans of this time period.

In the end, it seems somewhat irrational that our parents and relatives are so concerned with our future job prospects as American Studies majors. After all, if the identity of “American” if synonymous with work, wouldn’t we know it better than anyone?

Walking into class on Tuesday, September 5, 2006, I was filled with mixed emotions. For me, “In-between Peoples” was the “Anyone but Bush” 2004 vote for John Kerry—I’d take anything but the Civ. III documentary course. After an entertaining first year in the American Studies program, with Dean Cloke as our stalwart anchor through I and II and McKeown and RoJo adding their respective flair and talents, Civ. III would be the contagious divide of our 2008 American Studies class. I’d blog my life away, but at least I wouldn’t have to do the documentary. Three months later, I am prepared to offer my final reflection of the course. While I could easily capture the antics and revelations that occurred within the classroom in yearbook fashion, I will try to restrain myself.

Professor Leon’s Civ. III “In-between Peoples” course sought to expose those groups of people whom tended to stand in limbo within the socially constructed American roles. We examined the discriminated minorities of American history—defined by race, class, gender, religion, and ethnicity among others—through a variety of individual case studies, primary sources, short essays, fictional literature, and lengthy edited research projects….and then we blogged. We blogged through “manhood” until it became “manliness;” we blogged through morality missions until the Chinese women no longer wished to be “rescued;” we blogged until quarantine became a political measure; we blogged until Ngai, Roediger, and Boas were whittled down to a collection of singular words; we blogged until Teddy Roosevelt was not just a Rough Rider, but also a racial crusader; we blogged until the lines between science and religion were blurred and theatrics resulted; we blogged as Faulkner’s characters got lost within their own confused identity; and we blogged through welfare capitalism and the turn to governmental help during the Great Depression. The value of this course, to me, came through the blogs as it was a vital tool to link reflections and arguments without having to be in class three days a week (including Fridays while GUGS grilled outside our window). On my own, the assigned readings would most likely be treated in a Moby Dick fashion: read one chapter, skip the next…Dean Cloke will quote blindly whatever I miss. Especially with the more dry, lengthy works (i.e Shaw and Cohen), the blogs were an outlet to discover what I missed while I was reading with my eyes half-closed, and also it forced me to contribute to a discussion I would otherwise stay far from.

After three months and 27,000 blogs later, I am confident that I am in a much better position within the American Studies major than had I enrolled in the documentary course. This course followed two semesters of thematic studies in American history and culture, i.e. what is natural?, cultural memory, and now in-betweeness, that the documentary course simply cannot offer. One of the many, many, many reasons I am an American Studies major is because I learn more from themes and movements than I do from dates and events (actually, Ben Shaw made me realize that I am an AmStud major because I’m not a terrorist). Had I spent a semester with the documentary course I probably would have had a more concrete result, but that 10 minute video on one specific place in Washington, DC would do me little good in piecing together the jigsaw puzzle of America as an academic study. Furthermore, studying those groups of people whom were thrown into the American Melting Pot, or excluded altogether, is pertinent to understanding today’s America, as we simple cannot know what it is to be an “American” without understanding who formed that identity and whom that identity does not apply.

Over the course of the past semester, we have discussed those who have been marginalized because of their race, gender, or class.  Yet despite being ostracized by various groups, people have always seemed to find a way to fight back.  In the end, though, each text has seemed to suggest that it is impossible to escape the consequences of culture.  Like a good primary source paper, people must be contextualized.  Even if it does not define us, the culture that we live in provides a certain framework that we cannot escape, try as we might.  Similarly, the inbetween peoples that we have studied found that they were at the mercy of cultural forces that they could slow, but not stop.

These people often were on the proverbial fence between two cultures (though some might argue that they were on the outside of the fence completely).  They found that they were not fully accepted into society, and formed a culture of their own.  Sometimes this was merely a transplantation from their homeland (as in the ethnic peoples in Chicago), and at other times they attempted to actually create a subculture of their own (as in the rescue homes).

Either way, they often seemed to be locked in a struggle to determine who can and cannot be an arbiter of values.  Although they were often at the fringes of society, there was always a group of people who were pushing a different set of values than those held by the people in power.  Still, even as they were articulating a new way of thinking, these marginalized groups were often forced to compromise from the beginning.  For example, supporters of the rescue homes had to use language of the Christian family – it did not matter that they were advocating a radically different sort of family structure, they needed to use this terminology in order to have social currency.  In doing this, women were able to effectively illustrate that Anglo men were not the sole guardians of moral and political authority (though they often relied on them for funding).

Still, these groups often lost out in the long run.  As the culture around them changed, rescue homes became irrelevant.  Immigrants in San Francisco were subjected to a process of Americanization (the capitalization is deliberate).  Those that did not live up to a certain idea of manliness were outcast, and those that clung too closely to their ethnic identity had difficult choices to make during the Great Depression (and in a competition between putting food on the table and maintaining one’s ethnic identity, food usually wins).  If people were not willing to adapt to the culture that surrounded them, they became powerless – Joe Christmas was actually castrated.  It is impossible to escape culture.

Yet people still had a stake in the dominant culture that was emerging.  Hegel’s thesis, antithesis and synthesis is not altogether irrelevant here (sorry to use a foreigner, I know we’re supposed to be opposed to that kind of thing).  But as American culture swallowed up different groups, it changed, little by little.  There are no longer any rescue homes, but Anglo men are no longer the only keepers of moral authority (much to the consternation of Kyle Poelker).  People may no longer purchase their groceries in a foreign tongue, but they are still proud of their heritage.  We cannot discount the impact of an alternative value system.  Even if we cannot escape dominant culture, we can still reflect on its varied roots.  There is, after all, a reason that we read these books.  Or so we’ve been led to believe.

Since becoming an American Studies major, I have cringed every time I have heard someone use the term “melting pot,” especially when describing the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. It is cute and clever, and it makes a relatively truthful, if elementary, point (I once had a professor who said in a lecture, “You may cross the border speaking your native language and practicing your native traditions, but in one year’s time, you’ll be eating a hot dog at Yankee Stadium and swearing at Randy Johnson”). But anything melted in a pot leave no room inbetween its contents.
While preparing to write this post, I found myself wondering if there were any Americans at the turn of the twentieth century did not qualify as being inbetween. The nation as a whole, as we have seen in Cohen, was between two eras: an e-pluribus-unum, individualistic society of farmers who wanted nothing more from a government than to print their money and never touch it again, and a contemporary urban, industrial nation, that banded together to demand government intervention for the protection of their rights as workers. Couple this with a nation recovering from an identity-forging civil war and preparing to entire its first truly international conflict, while reconciling a growing emphasis on the sciences with a traditionally fundamental reliance on religion, and absolutely no one is spared from some degree of being inbetween. Faulkner and Bederman showed us that even with clearly defined social barriers such as race and gender, respectively, there are huge amounts of variance. Joe Christmas was neither white nor black. Jack Johnson was neither manly nor masculine. If you were the product of a rescue home, you were neither fully Chinese nor fully American (maybe not even capable of being fully American). Even those who may have been considered fully Chinese were neither citizens nor aliens, as Shah shows us. Who then, is not in some state of inbetweeness?
The answer may be of course that anyone can be considered inbetween, so long as you look long enough to find categories that a particular person or people’s cannot fit into. Or it may be (to re-use the classic melting-pot stand-by) that this very lack of categorization, and therefore state of inbetweeness, is distinctly American, making everyone essentially the same because of their differences. I have been looking for some kind of teleological trend in each of the texts that we’ve read, and unfortunately my admittedly limited intellect hasn’t found one. Joe Christmas cannot bear his state of being inbetween, nor can he find refuge, and so he is killed. The Chinese-American population begins a distinctly Chinese Americanization process. Rescue homes disappear as their moral foundations disintegrate in light of changing sentiments. Ethnic neighborhoods sprout up within miles of each other, and live isolated and independently for decades. None of these things, as far as I can tell, seem to have any strands of commonality, except to say that they are distinctly American. Though it may only be because my mind is tuned to it, inbetweeness seems to be present everywhere in the societal landscape of turn-of-the century America. The barriers to sameness that we’ve studied, be they religious, ethnic, class-based, gender-based, all seem to blur, ebb and flow, and create a synthesized society that forces us to, as Professor McKeown was fond of saying, “make it up.”
This class has followed the American Studies theme of “everything you thought you knew about America is wrong,” and I’m grateful for that. The diversity of thought that we have been exposed to has reshaped my understanding of American civilization to be that of not only race, class, and gender, but…. wait for it… everything in between.

Often what we think about when we discuss those who have been disenfranchised are those whose race has in some way given them an undesirable spot. Not that any of us think that we would like it this way, historically though this is true, and the discourse remains today over the idea of racial equality. We often view African-Americans as minorities and in s in-between–that is to say that they are given the technical rights, but for most purposes these rights are in some way taken away.

In this course however, we have discussed how this notion in terms of gender, class and especially within race itself has made up a great deal of the society that we now function in. We looked at each of these problems in depth with one book, and now have begun to unify these notions into a cohesive American culture as we have neared the end of the course. And while I don’t suppose that there is any real way to measure which of these inequalities has matter the most, but to think about one without regards to the others would be unfair.

We have searched geographically and across gender, racial, inter-racial, and class lines at through the views of several authors and have learned one thing: that even today there are divides that we deal with but that we have to deal with them still.  When the divides that we have talked about close, others increase.  When non-white become whites, whites and black become more separated and class becomes even more important.  Everything, it seems, creates a greater division somewhere else, and leaves us as a society wrought with in-betweenness.

This final book is a good way to finalize all the things that we’ve seen and bring them together for us in a way that shows us what was going on during the time period that we are studying.  In Chicago, we can see how the dynamics of race, class, gender, and place all play a part in the formation of identity in America.  And we’ve seen that in Mississippi, in the West, San Francisco, and other parts of the nation. With so many dynamics someone gets lost though, which seems to be typical.  To look at the in-betweenness of this course lets us retroject it on the past with slaves and slavery and then project it on today with the new immigrants and the continuing racism.  Either way, what seems to happen is that continually, the problems we see then happen now, and we can only understand them in some of  the ways we’ve studied.

I keep coming back to the question that I ended my comment with last week: Is this where the “American” culture finally formed? I’ve asked myself that question in every work we’ve discussed this year. I often overlook this time period because there’s nothing flashy or epic happening (minus a world war, of course); in reality, however, I think this is the most formative time in American cultural history. The idea of America while officially created in the 18^th century saw its first true manifestations in the post-Civil War America. Perhaps the end of this period marks the end of the inbetween-ness.

The Civil War broke down all existing ties between Americans. After the war, groups were forced to form new identities. North-South, Union-Confederate were no longer sufficient. A whole new population entered the American culture as slaves were freed and immigration increased. Americans found new separating principles, or at least strengthened those that existed before. In the end, we are left with a conglomeration of different groups. The Great Depression served as the great equalizer as all groups were forced to depend on the government. This is the American identity.

The population of freed slaves had to become American for the first time. While enslaved, they were not considered Americans – they were, in fact, 3/5 of an American. The question of race in this time period, however, encompassed more than African Americans. Anyone that was not “white” was a different race. The one-drop rule created divisions between the powerful white race and everyone else. These ethnicities, as Cohen (not Roediger) describes them, stuck together. Roediger argued that racial ideas were cultural constructions. Anything not white but not black was “not-yet-white.” Roediger also discussed the mongrel-ization of race. He uses scientific language to describe the “hybrid” population. This hybrid population is best explored Light in August. Joe Christmas represents this inbetween population – caught between the two races, accepted by neither. Joe Christmas’ obsession with the past represents another common thread in this course: history defines everything – this is ironic in a world trying to recreate itself, as America was.

The immigrant population continues to look to its past too – its past home in Europe or Asia. The immigrant groups flocked together, and geographies were redefines by these groups, as Shah presents. These groups represent the creation of the American – Americanization was meant for them. Their ideas of nation from the changing ideas from their homelands helped create America’s national movement. Racial values and stocks, national origins, and citizenship, as discussed by Ngai, represent this move towards definition.

Existing separations were redefined. As Bederman argues, a new manlihood was created. The Victorian ideals of the prim and proper man were replaced by a new masculinity. Fighting and hard work represented this return to savagery. Women changed too – rescue homes gave women a new role. Female moral authority brought the private sector lives of women into the public sector, argues Pascoe.

This female moral authority was the result of strong religious tendencies. Religious fundamentalists believed that they could save the world. Millennialism caused believers all over the world to take up new causes to rid the country of the evils. AS Larson describes, even the strongest of men were subject to this fanaticism.

Finally, class continued to separate Americans. The rise of the worker unions attempted to give voice to the lesser working class. But as Cohen suggests, working class Americans became the same as the rich, African Americans, immigrants, men, women, believers, and non-believers when the Great Depression struck in the 1920s and 1930s. Men were equal in the fact that they all had nothing – they turned to their wives to help support the family. Immigrants turned to their communities. When all else failed, the government’s New Deal programs gave them something that no one else could – a sense of hope. In “Cradle Will Rock,” the actors were happiest when at work – the Federal Theater Program put people of all levels and backgrounds (professionally, socio-economically, racially, and ethnically) in the same situation, working together.

While Americans were still not all equal at all after the Depression, it was the defining experience that they all went through together. Each man or woman was as desperate the next. The creation of American social programs, which continue to provide for many, represents the creation of the America that we all know (and love).

To use a Cloke-ism, we “unpacked” quite a bit of in between-ness this semester!  The topics we studied were ones that are often ignored in a typical American history class, especially concerning the lives of immigrants at the turn of the century.  Of course we knew they existed, but it was interesting to find out more about their daily lives: why they arrived, to what degree they were welcomed (or not), how they managed to survive in a new environment.  It was also nice to see the side of Americans that was welcoming to those different than themselves, such as the rescue homes that sprung up across the country.  Although they did try to push their own Protestant moral values on their residents, at least they thought of them as more than hopeless foreigners.

Another topic we covered was the evolution of gender roles at the turn of the century.  Social norms for men and women changed like fashion trends – but at a slower rate.  It seemed to be a constant battle between those who wanted to protect the status quo and those who wanted to push the limits of gender role possibilities.  Each seemed to be limited by the other, however, making it hard for radical changes to occur without a social upset.

The debut of the United States onto the world political stage in World War I had a ripple effect on the rest of the nation, as America developed a new vision for itself and the world.  Spinning from the effects of a rollercoaster economy, Americans needed to adapt to their postwar situation.  As second and third generation immigrants began to gain the success of their years of hard work, they cemented themselves as truly American, broadening the definition for future ethnicities to add on to.

For many of the aspects of American life at the turn of the twentieth century, the shift from one side of the spectrum was not easy – or quick.  The feeling of being stuck in a state of in between-ness was felt by all, whether immigrant or settled, rich or poor.  Situations changed with the weather as the Depression was soon to prove, and American ways and values were seriously challenged.  The United States came out stronger from the experience, learning over time to cherish those who stood in the state of in between-ness, because it was they who would be next to change the nation for the better.

Throughout history, certain groups and individuals have competed for authority.  Struggles over authority often emerge in light of perceived differences based on race, gender, class, and religion. Gail Bederman, in Manliness and Civilization, comments on the way in which white men created a “masculine” identity to order to assert their superiority over other groups.  The boxing match between Jim Jeffries and the African American boxer Jack Johnson reflects the tensions which emerged as blacks seemed to encroach upon white power.  Peggy Pascoe discusses female moral authority through a close analysis of female missionary workers. White Protestant female missionary workers attempted to extend their influence outside the domestic sphere while “civilizing” women in need of reform.  Shah touches upon conflicts based on spatial authority in San Francisco’s Chinatown.  Many Chinese residents were denied access to certain locations and labeled as “filthy” and “diseased.”  White Americans drew upon the general fear of disease in order to portray the Chinese as an inferior group.   Roediger analyzes the many tactics which were used by “native” Americans to assert their authority over foreign workers. The United States government, media, and groups such as the Ku Klux Klan emphasized the “in-between” identity of European immigrants. Some Americans compared the new immigrants to African-Americans in order to reinforce their inferior status.  Religion has also served a source of contention between various groups.  The Scopes Trial of 1923 sheds light on how religious fundamentalists sought to preserve their authority over “traditional” American values. Lizbeth Cohen, in Making A New Deal, discuses how many middle-aged males became emasculated as they were no longer able to function as the breadwinners of the family during the Great Depression.  Joining unions, these men demanded seniority rights in order to re-assert their authority.  In addition to exemplifying the way in which power struggles have emerged during this time period, these texts speak to the fact that power struggles do not rely solely on one variable.  Race, gender, class, and religion are inextricably linked.  The most significant piece of knowledge I will take away from this course is the fact that one cannot study history by merely examining single categories.  Historical analysis requires one to take a holistic approach and study the ways in which various elements have contributed to the formation of group identity.

Over the course of the semester we have attempted to understand the concept of in between-ness and how it was used to both define and differentiate individuals and whole groups of people.  Looking at the way in which in-between people were viewed has led us to a better understanding of how people are defined according to their ability or failure to fit into pre-existing categories.  On the first day of class this semester we learned about the ‘power block’ which “convinces people to go along with them, in exchange for some sort of benefits, in order to maintain power” (notes 9/12).  The power block is the group which creates the definitions around which the rest of society is constructed and therefore maintains the power to define.  The constant changing of the power block results in constantly definitions of in-between-ness throughout America’s history.  In attempting to understand in-between-ness, we discovered that in-between-ness is the result of the attempts of individuals to impose definitions on others in order to define society according to their own beliefs.  Failure of people to fit into specific standing definitions has resulted in the category of in-between, which in essence, has become a category which encompasses all things indefinable. 

By looking at defining factors in an individual’s life, such as ethnicity, gender, religion, job, and location, we have been able to learn how categories were constructed to define what was currently acceptable by the power block at a certain period of time.  Falling outside of what was socially endorsed resulted in a failure to be accepted and therefore necessitated the creation of a category of in-between.  The books and articles that we have read over the past semester demonstrate how people were defined as outside of what was socially acceptable, as well as relate how certain other individuals acted to broaden the definitions of what was acceptable.  The attempts to extend what was considered acceptable by society were made in order to encompass a greater number of people into legitimate categories rather than define them as in-between.  The efforts of reformers to mold people to fit definitions of what was socially endorsed demonstrate an attempt to overcome the idea of in-between-ness and create a population in which everyone can be categorized and defined.   

I would like to argue, however, that although I agree with the attempts of the reformers towards the Americanization, civilization, and overall improvement of the immigrants to America, the quality of in-between-ness is essential to the character of America as a country.  The idea of America as a melting pot would fail to be realized had America not been open to individuals of in-between status.  Although I agree that it is necessary to establish a degree of sameness among citizens of the United States, I find that racial, social, religious, and cultural in-between-ness have, for the most part improved on America.  Unlike other nations with far reaching histories, the United States was late getting started in creating a history.  Therefore, because of America’s relative youngness, the country was influenced as much by in-between-ness as it was by efforts to institute sameness among its citizens. 

The emphasis on primary sources in this course as well as the reading materials that we have covered have given me a new perspective on ‘storytelling.’  I am struck by the various ways in which stories are told and how storyteller’s interpretations lead to historical outcome, whether this outcome is more or less a historical reality.  The concepts that we have discussed are very much in the category of historical interpretation; gender, class, race, and religion are not exactly cut and dry historical facts.  These concepts require considerable research.  The role of storytelling then, has been to interpret historical phenomena on the basis of primary sources and create an argument based on those phenomena.  That is what all the authors we have read have done, and that is what we are asked to do as we finish this course.

            Various styles of interpreting history have been covered in our reading materials.  Many, such as Pascoe’s Relations of Rescue and Shah’s Contagious Divides have required the authors to look at individuals such as women living in rescue homes and the Chinese of San Francisco and create these peoples’ historical history.  Consequently, social historians replace the voices of those studied.  Storytelling becomes the way in which certain groups are portrayed, in light of others.  These ‘others’, usually the Anglo-Saxon protestant population, defined the means by which ‘inbetween peoples’ exist in American history.

            The portrayal of inbetween peoples against a more homogenous population is seen even more clearly in our study of immigration this semester.  Through the works of Nai, Shah, and Roediger, we studied how ‘otherness’ led to oppression and the devaluation of the minority members of society in American history.  Again, the voices of immigrants must often be deduced through incomplete records or alternative historical sources because of their precarious position in society.  As a result, primary sources such as census records and personal writings become the basis with which historians construct a history that is so vital to the American past and present. 

            In an ironic twist to a course so heavily influenced by historical study of inbetween peoples, we get a book like Light in August, which does not focus on the study of any particular people; indeed, this is a novel, a work of fiction.  The irony of this reading choice is that for the first time, the story is told in its entirety, with the author relaying the life story of a character like Joe Christmas.  History becomes most vivid in fiction, with the gender roles and oppression being relayed through a form of storytelling that allows the author to take the most liberty in their interpretation.  Faulkner finds historical truths in his imagination, and the result is the most complete historical history that we have read. 

            Finally, we go back to the type of reading that forms the basis of this course, social history.  For the first time, we begin to see the ability of the oppressed members of the social minority bind together and take on the system in a successful way more than any other group we have studied.  The working class of Chicago creates a new kind of social minority, one that wields more power than any other previously.  Though it would be a stretch to say that they leveled the playing field in any way, these immigrants and blacks begin to challenge a system that is so exclusively controlled by the Anglo-Saxon American.  Their mobilization and involvement in political matters such as labor create a whole new method by which Anglo-Saxon America must deal with the inbetween peoples and open the door for later gains in social and economic equality.  Here, storytelling by Lizabeth Cohen begins to resonate with a more modern historical phenomenon.  The same methods that we have seen in previous readings are used with regard to primary sources such as census records and newspaper articles, but the storytelling becomes more real as more familiar subject matter is used.  We may not have known about Chinese Rescue Homes, but we all live with the legacy of FDR. 

            What I feel is the most important aspect of this course that I have taken is that inbetween peoples, whether inbetween on the basis of race, class, gender, or religion, do not share the same experience as their cohorts in different times or spaces.  Time and space, as transient factors, considerably alter experience.  For example, the fact that the populations of immigrants from Eastern Europe were at one point considered ‘black’ is quite a departure from today’s standards.  That disease was once believed to have been a feature of a particular race, or that race is a scientific measure of a person’s worth, are other instances of what was once historical truth, but are now contemptible and archaic beliefs.  In the end, this course has allowed me to see these historical perceptions and to trace them to their modern manifestations, and as such, form my own existing set of truths. 

            In ethnically rich urban neighborhoods in the 1920s, members of the community held tightly to their heritage.  Especially in the case of those whose native language was not English, working class immigrants tended to frequent shops owned by people who shared their heritage, where they could order traditional foods in their native language.  These neighborhood shops were conveniently located close to their homes, surrounded by members of similar class and background who tended to trust and choose local shops over the new chain stores.

            America was still in a postwar adjustment period in the early 1920s, a time in which Americans began to explore their place among other nations.  The stress on nationalistic pride that comes along with any war made it even harder for the immigrants to adjust to the American way of life that was so different from their own.  In an attempt to capitalize on the immigrant market, a few brave chain stores tried to compete against local shops – to no avail.  Chain store owners simply could not get through to the immigrant consumer because they were operating on two entirely different points of view regarding the relationship between buyer and seller, the mode of purchasing, and the variety of stock available.

            The local shop advantage lay in the realm of relationships and understanding more fully the customer they served.  Catering mostly to limited ethnic populations, the shop owner stocked accordingly to satisfy their customer’s needs, whereas the big chain owner kept prices lower by stocking standard-brand, nationally advertised goods.  Cash and carry markets like the A&P failed to thrive in working class neighborhoods that depended on a credit system to get them from paycheck to paycheck.  Immigrants did not trust the nameless cashiers at the chain stores, preferring a personal relationship with the local store owner who knew their needs and buying patterns.

            The store served not only as a place to stock up on groceries, but also as a place to socialize and catch up on the latest gossip. Tapping into their domestic authority, women chose where to purchase goods, affecting the clothes her family wore as well as the food they ate.  Keeping in close touch with her roots, she preferred to shop in a language and atmosphere with which she was most familiar.  In this way, the younger generation would grow up keeping close ties with the native culture of their parents, while also absorbing the American way of life on the outside, especially at school.   

            The founders of Goldblatt’s department store in Chicago took advantage of their Jewish roots, creating a larger scale chain store that catered to the preferences of the area surrounding the store.  By setting up the store like a marketplace, allowing the customers to haggle for prices, and keeping in touch with the goings-on of the neighborhood, Goldblatt’s was successful in integrating a chain store price and product in a working class, immigrant neighborhood that normally resisted such stores.

            The urban immigrants did not shy away from everything that American capitalism had to offer – but they were careful before they tried anything new.  After being used to saving up during wartime, the working class continued to save while the middle and upper classes spent more, especially on credit with the new “buy now, pay later” system.  Working class immigrants did splurge a little however, sometimes purchasing phonographs, as well as new records to play.  They often listened to what the rest of America was listening to at the time, but more often stuck to their own ethnic favorites and traditional tunes. 

After reading chapter 3 of Cohen’s Making A New Deal, do you think that the development of American consumerism pushed new immigrants away from American culture or brought them more in synch with the rest of the nation’s desires and attitudes?

As I sat at the dinner table surrounded by loved ones for a delicious Thanksgiving meal, I considered the many blessings in my life for which I have to be thankful for: an incredible family, great friends, a prestigious education, and..…Lizabeh Cohen?? Well, not so much. Cohen’s “Making a New Deal” is painful, utterly painful. Without sounding completely ungrateful during this week of thanks, Cohen did cause me to reflect upon the issue of immigrant—especially illegal immigrants—workers in the United States, which continues to be a “hot button” topic in a nation devoted to its melting pot history.

With some 12 million illegal immigrants residing in the United States today, politicians at every level of government are engaged in debates over the destiny of these foreigners looking for higher wages and a greater hope for the future. Should they all be deported back to their home country or should a guest-worker program be established? Would allowing them to stay be amnesty? Regardless of what ultimately is decided in Washington, these illegal immigrants are still at the mercy of their employers, a much different scenario than that of the industrial workers in Chicago during the Great Depression era.

Unlike the evolving atmosphere among industrial workers in the 1920s and 1930s that Lizabeth Cohen examines, the illegal immigrants of today do not have the opportunity to unionize, and therefore have a very different relationship with their employers. Cohen details the changing ideal among Chicago’s industries: “The goal toward which Swift & Company is working in its relations with workers…to lead, not drive men, by having well-trained and sympathetic executives and bosses; to provide for self-expression on the part of our workers, and to keep the way wide open for their education and advancement; to bring about a closer cooperation and a better understanding between the workers and the management.” (Cohen pg. 161). This is very different from the mentality behind employing illegal immigrants. Most businesses hire these workers to perform the undesirable jobs, the tasks the majority of America’s proud citizens wouldn’t stoop to doing. Because the American employee will not apply for the menial jobs like janitor or crop-pickers, employers need their illegal employees to maintain these positions. Unlike the 1920’s Chicago companies Cohen examines, there is no attempt or incentive on behalf of today’s employer to foster the advancement of the illegal immigrant employee.

Another stark difference between Cohen’s case study and today’s situation is that employers today are not “wooing workers from ethnicity.” (Cohen pg. 165). Unlike Chicago’s industries that saw nationality as “clannish” and an “interference” to the business, today’s employer hires and groups workers according to their ethnicity, illegal immigrants comprising one entire entity. Ethnicity and comradeship among the illegal workers helps employers today rather than threatens them. One way that Chicago’s industries in the 1920s broke up ethnic clans in the work place was to offer individual promotions. As Cohen states, “Increasingly complex job ladders promised that the makeup of work groups would constantly change…” (Cohen pg. 170). For illegal immigrant workers, that drawl of a promotion is nonexistent. Employers have no incentive to dangle or realize a promotion since they hire illegal workers to maintain their undesirable posts indefinitely.

Ultimately, industrial workers of the 1920s were let down by the welfare capitalist employers, and they turned toward the government for protection: these “Americans now looked to Washington to deliver the American dream.” (Cohen pg. 289). Because of their illegal status, today’s immigrant workers do not have this luxury and continue to rely on their employer.

Welfare capitalism is noteworthy for its effectiveness in lessening the racial segregation which pervaded the factory environments despite its attempts to do the opposite.  With the goal of creating “… loyalty to the boss in return for good treatment and security on the job” (161), industrialists hoped that “In the era of welfare capitalism, the enlightened corporation, not the labor union or the state, would spearhead the creation of a more benign industrial society” (161).  One of the ways in which ‘loyalty to the boss’ was attempted to be instilled in factory workers was through the destruction of ethnic ties and the encouragement of racial segregation within the factory, with the hope that loyalty would be transferred to the boss and the corporation itself rather than to fellow workers.  The idea that the corporation, by being in tune with the wants of its workers could generate the loyalty of its workers over innate ethnic loyalties was, ultimately, a naive and unrealized concept.  Although in principle welfare capitalism seemed feasible, in actuality welfare capitalism failed to achieve its goal of worker loyalty to the corporation and instead led to a greater degree of racial integration and acceptance. 

To achieve welfare capitalism, Cohen writes that “… welfare capitalists sought to restructure workers’ interpersonal relationships at the plant” (163).  Cohen explains how factories sought to isolate individuals of the same ethnicity in order to achieve loyalty to the corporation.  To demonstrate this concept, Cohen quotes the Superintendent of Mill Number 5 from Wisconsin Steel as saying “We try never to allow two of a nationality to work together if we can help it.  Nationalities tend to be clannish and naturally it interferes with the work and the morale of the place” (165).  Attempts at preventing ethnic loyalty could have been more successful had the corporations found better ways of keeping members of the same race apart and solidifying ethnic barriers.  Although corporations were somewhat successful at separating individuals of the same ethnicity within the workplace, employers did not count on the decrease in racial segregation among workers in the factories. 

Despite efforts to encourage loyalties to the corporation instead of to fellow factory workers, welfare capitalists were unsuccessful in attaining the total loyalty of their employees.  This was the result of the fact that the employers’ “… determination to mix ethnic groups in the factory broadened the new alliances… among workers” (202).  The very attempts by the welfare capitalists to separate the workers only acted to unite them against the corporation.  Cohen writes that “… the wage incentives that employers implemented to set workers apart as individuals instead laid new ground for workers to come together” (202).  In rejecting the corporation’s attempts to individualize the worker, the workers banded together to attain the ends best for the greatest amount of people, demonstrating, as Cohen writes, “… that they trusted their peer community with their personal futures more than their employer” (201).  Despite racial and ethnic differences, in the 1920s, loyalties to fellow workers overpowered any loyalties to the boss and the corporation.    

Perhaps welfare capitalists would have been successful in creating and maintaining racial boundaries as a way in which to eliminate ethnic loyalties and create loyalty to the corporation had the welfare capitalists followed through on their proposed reforms.  Cohen writes that “By promoting a new set of expectations and then failing to fulfill them, employers frustrated their workers…  their failure to deliver widened the gap between workers and employers while narrowing the gap between individual workers on the shop floor” (209).  In failing to follow through on their promises for factory reform, welfare capitalists failed to earn the loyalty of their workers.  As a result, employers’ attempts to establish racial and ethnic boundaries to separate workers failed to be effective.  Rather, instead of racially and ethnically separating workers, employers brought different peoples together over their shared dissatisfaction with employer reforms.  Had the welfare capitalists worked to ensure that the factory reforms they proposed actually took place than employers would have been far more successful in ensuring the loyalty of factory workers to the corporation instead of to their fellow workers.       

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/05/cover.story/index.html