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Rethinking the History of American Education pp 103–141Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

American Public Schooling and European Immigrants in the Early Twentieth Century: A Post-Revisionist Synthesis

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Abstract

Historians are important mythmakers.1 Among the central legends of American history is that of the immigrant and the school. The myth that—through schooling—early twentieth-century European immigrants to the United States were afforded and embraced unparalleled opportunities to achieve social mobility and to “become American,” has shaped responses to persisting poverty among African Americans, informed contemporary education policy toward “English Language Learners,” and, generally, stood as an object lesson for how success in America is available to all.2 Historians, as John Bodnar has observed, have contributed to that myth by depicting immigrants as “cherishing the idea of free public education and the promise it offered for social success,” and as demonstrating a “‘commitment’ to the American dream of personal advancement through schooling.”3

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Notes

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  1. Michael R. Olneck
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

    William J. Reese (Carl F. Kaestle Professor of educational policy studies and history) (Carl F. Kaestle Professor of educational policy studies and history)

  2. University of Kansas, USA

    John L. Rury (professor of education) (professor of education)

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© 2008 William J. Reese and John L. Rury

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Olneck, M.R. (2008). American Public Schooling and European Immigrants in the Early Twentieth Century: A Post-Revisionist Synthesis. In: Reese, W.J., Rury, J.L. (eds) Rethinking the History of American Education. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230610460_5

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