Core 101   Race, Ethnicity, and Identity

library guide examples

Part of the challenge of your library research for this class will be to figure out how to take pieces of information from a variety of sources to try and paint a picture of the experience of a particular ethnic group in the United States during a certain period of time. The examples below illustrate what types of information you might find in some of the different sources. Every resource listed in the library guide is not going to be helpful for each of you; it is going to take some digging through a variety of sources to find what works for your project. In class, you will be discussing how to take all these seemingly unrelated bits of information you have gathered and put them into the context of your paper.

EXAMPLES

• Source: The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates   What was going on in the 1890's in the United States? New York reflected the "melting pot" character of the nation--half as many Italian New Yorkers as Neapolitans in Italy, half as many German New Yorkers as Germans in Hamburg, twice as many Irish New Yorkers as Dubliners, etc. Child labor in the South employed some 23,000 children in the factories. Nation becoming increasingly industrialized, although agricultural products still represented the largest part of exports.
  
• Source: Encyclopedia of the American Religious Experience  Religion was the driving source behind the move to the U.S. for my ancestor. An encyclopedia article on The Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) has a good overview of the history of this religion. In 1847 the Mormons came west to the Salt Lake Valley. There they formed a "kingdom of Zion" and lived very much apart from the rest of the nation. They voted as a bloc, practiced plural marriage, and attempted to be economically self sufficient. Within a decade they had spread throughout Utah. When my great-grandfather came to Utah in the 1890's, more non-Mormons were coming to Utah, but the Mormons remained quite isolated, both physically and culturally. 
  
• Source: Dictionary of Family Names  The surname "From" comes from Jewish, Swedish, Danish, and German (altered spelling of Frohman). The Swedish variation is sometimes spelled Fromm and was a soldier's name based on Swedish from 'quiet', pious'. From has since been anglicized to Frome.
  
• Source: Thesaurus of Slang Lists Viking, squarehead, herring-choker, Olaf, Ole, Scandie, swenska for Swede. 
  
• Source: Color of Words  Look up the seven terms from the Thesaurus of Slang. "Squarehead" and "herring-choker" are listed.  "Squarehead" means: Derogatory nickname from the nineteenth century for a Scandinavian... The other slang meaning of squarehead (slow-thinking) and the slang meaning of square (dull or old-fashioned) may account for or reinforce the ethnic connotations.

• Source: Chapter "Scandinavian Saga" in The Peoples of Utah. Located in catalog under subject search "Utah history"  Information on how Scandinavians shared much of the culture of a large group (Mormons) that they were part of. At the same time they retained many of their own traditions (i.e. farming methods, architecture, food, etc.  

• Source: Article index America: History and Life  A search using the keywords "swedish utah" retrieves eight articles. Reading the abstracts, four of these look useful. To see if the library owns the periodical, click on the . The library  has only one of the four articles I'm interested in so I request one article from Interlibrary Loan (which arrives electronically three days later). 
  
  The article "Being Swedish-American in the Intermountain West: The Experiences of Immigrants to Idaho and Utah" discusses the often conflicting experiences of  Swedes in Mormon communities that were a mixture of ethnicities. Information on conflicts and stereotypes amongst the different Scandinavian groups (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish). The article includes anecdotes which come from primary source documents. From the bibliography of the article I also find two additional articles that prove useful.
  
• Source: Saturday Evening Post, Sept. 9, 1933, Vol. 26, p. 24.
    
  White woman in rickshaw says, "O, Dear, I'm Afraid I Made Him Mad When I Said 'Giddap.'"

• Source: Statistical Review of Immigration, 1820-1910  From the time period 1899-1910 4,564 Scandinavians immigrated to Utah. The English were the only group with more people (5,257) immigrating to Utah during this time period. Comparing this to the surrounding states of Idaho(1,862), Wyoming (1,495), Nevada (348), and Colorado (5,073) the only state that comes close is Colorado (not sure why?). This makes sense as previous reading stated that the Mormon church sent a lot of missionaries to Sweden in the late 19th and early 20th century. Many of those converts would have immigrated to the United States and come west to Utah. Another statistical table breaks down each ethnic group by occupation from 1899-1910. Of Scandinavian immigrants the largest numbers were laborers (172,194), servants (142,895), draymen, hackmen, and teamsters (36,237), mariners (28,430), and carpenters and joiners (15,405). A comparison with other ethnic groups shows significant differences in primary occupations.
  
• Source: Dictionary of Races of Peoples  Notes that the Scandinavian is "considered to be the purest type of one of the three great races of Europe as divided from a physical point of view", "make ideal farmers and are often said to Americanize more rapidly than do the other peoples", Norway has sent a larger per cent of its population to America than any other country excepting Ireland". This dictionary defines ethnic groups not with the standard political definitions but based on language (including literacy rate), physical qualities such as height, shape of head, etc., and psychic disposition.

• Source: Digital History Website has an immigrant photo album based on book  titled On the Trail of the Immigrant. One of the selections reads "Close of kin to us are the Scandinavians, not only in race, but in thought and in ideals. More than any other element do they blend quickly and thoroughly with our national life." This book was written by a professor at Iowa College in 1906 and reflects the perceptions about various ethnic groups.