Frances Kellor on Immigration
One hundred years ago today …. The Tribune reviewed Frances Kellor's new book Immigration and the Future.
New York Tribune, 2 January, 1921, p. 72. Chronicling America.
Kellor was an activist/reformer who made a career advocating for the rights of immigrants and women from both within the political establishment and without. In the January 1, 1921 ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science–in which her article also titled “Immigration and the Future” appears–the editor describes her:
Miss Kellor is the organizer and Vice-Chairman of The Inter-racial Council; the Chairman of the Board of the American Association of Foreign Language Newspapers, which she reorganized and put under American control. She was Chief of the New York State Bureau of Industries and Immigration before the war, and in charge of the War Work Extension of the Board of Education of the Department of the Interior. She is the author of Out of Work, Straight America and Immigration and the Future. She has recently returned from a study of conditions in Europe. (Kellor, 201)
Also on January 1, she was cited in an article on Italian immigration, noted as "vice-chairman of the Interracial Council and an authority on immigration." ("Italy Fears U.S. Will Remove Welcome Sign" New York Tribune, 1 January 1921 p. 9.)
Kellor was gay; she had a lifelong partnership with fellow activist Mary Dreier. According to Victoria Brownsworth, "she was likely known outside her lesbian reformist circles as a lesbian–not just a 'spinster.' " Kellor and Dreier were one of "many dynamic and deeply politically committed lesbian couples whose social reformist work radically altered American society"
Immigration and the Future was published in December 1920 by New York publisher George Doran.
First edition of Immigration and the Future with inscription to Joseph Mayper. Courtesy Ken Lopez Booksellers.
See the full text of Immigration and the Future here, via Hathitrust.
The Tribune review, which has no byline, is largely sympathetic to Kellor's calls for study, reform, and greater accommodation of immigrants.
Many Americans view with a mixture of alarm and indignation [the] close connection between many foreign colonies and the countries of their origin. This attitude finds expression in proposals to restrict or suppress the foreign-language press, to forbid the use of other languages than English, to register aliens, to make citizenship compulsory. Miss Kellor does not share this viewpoint. She does not believe that Americanism, any more than any other good thing, can be imparted to man by hitting him over the head with a club. Cooperation and persuasion, she feels, are more "potent instrumento of assimilation."
New York Tribune, 2 January 1921, p. 72. Chronicling America.
References/Further reading:
Brownworth, Victoria A. "Frances Kellor: The Lesbian Behind the Multiculturalism." LGBTQNation.com. 25 October 25, 2018.
Faderman, Lillian. To Believe in Women: What Lesbians Have Done For America - A History. NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1999)
Kellor, Frances. “Immigration and the Future.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 93, no. 1, Jan. 1921, pp. 201–211.
– Jonathan Goldman, January 2, 2021
TAGS: immigrants, reform, feminism, lesbian, gay, queer, lgbtq, book reviews, journalism, Italy, suffrage, women’s rights