Activity Three

Analyzing Primary Source Texts to Identify Common Themes of the Immigrant Experience

Students use teacher-selected primary sources to identify the common themes of the immigrant experience.

1. Divide students into groups.
2. Assign each group to read a primary source oral history or narrative from the American Memory collections as homework. The oral histories listed below work well for a cross-section of immigrant experiences, or you may explore on your own.
3. One student in each group will be selected as the group's discussion leader for the following day.
4. The group will choose an historian to record the group's conclusions. The groups should use the Examining a Primary Source worksheet as a guide.

Oral Histories

The following oral histories are from American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940:

• Gardenia Banta - Describes the experiences of an African-American woman who moved to New York City in 1888 during the post-Civil War northern migration. She tells of her previous life in Savannah, Georgia, and of the difficulties of moving north after her father died.
• Philip Dash - This Russian Jewish immigrant describes his work in the shoe industry, his union involvement, and living in poverty in Brooklyn, New York.
• Mr. and Mrs. Elias Pederson - Mr. Pederson was born in Wisconsin in 1849, the year after his parents emigrated from Norway. He and his wife recall plowing the fields with oxen, loading heavy railroad ties onto a sleigh, and carrying butter and eggs to nearby Pokerville to exchange for groceries.
• Florence Cravens [I was born in Austin, Texas] - In 1886, Mrs. Cravens moved west with her family from Austin, Texas, on an immigrant train of covered wagons. She recalls hearing wolves, coming upon the newly dug grave of a child, a shooting, selling mesquite roots for firewood, the death of her mother, and a smallpox epidemic.
• Albert Zeigler - A German immigrant, Mr. Zeigler describes running a dry goods store with his brother in New Mexico, selling stove pipe hats to Apache Indians, and the impact of gold mining on the town in the 1880s.
• Giacomo Coletti - This narrative describes an Italian granite worker's life in Montpelier, Vermont, including the importance of family celebrations, living in poverty, working in "the sheds," and working with other immigrant groups.

• Chrysostom Verwyst [Reminiscences of a pioneer missionary] - A pioneer missionary immigrant from Holland, Mr. Verwyst describes his train ride to Hollandtown, Wisconsin, and how his family carved a farm out of the woods and meadows. His memoirs contain accounts of festive celebrations, clothing, agricultural practices, and local community life.

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