Guida degli Stati Uniti per l'immigrante italiano [Guide to the United States for the Italian Immigrant]. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1910.
Title
Guida degli Stati Uniti per l'immigrante italiano [Guide to the United States for the Italian Immigrant]. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1910.
Description
Edited by the Società delle figlie della Rivoluzione Americana, Sezione di Connecticut (Daughters of the American Revolution, Connecticut Section). This copy was printed in the same year of publication as the first. A folded map of the United States is laid down in rear cover.
Carr was a journalist, social reformer, Italophile (president of the local chapter of the Dante Alighieri Society) and head of the Immigrant Publication Society.
Carr's "What the Library Can Do for our Foreign Born," Library Journal, Oct. 1913 (Vol, 38, No.10), New York: Publication Office, 141 E. 25th Street, recounts the key role of this very Guide, as edited by the Connecticut DAR and published by Doubleday, in the education and Americanization of Italian and other immigrants.
There Carr exhorts librarians to recognize that the library's role is far more important than that of schools in the welcoming of the immigrant - the first step in their education and Americanization - because adult immigrants do not attend schools. He recounts how in his town, Mount Vernon, New York, the library has worked with Italian organizations to sponsor evenings of Italian culture mixed with an explanation to members of those groups of how to use the library.
And key to the entire process is the initial lecture given at a local school, in Italian (or Yiddish, Swedish, etc.) based on Carr's Guide, followed by a trip to the local public library at which an Italian group (in the case of Mt. Vernon that Carr recounts, the Verdi Club) begins the meeting with Italian music, followed by a talk on the use of the library.
Carr also appreciated and broadcast often the importance of libraries in the maintenance of books in the immigrants' original language, as well as the more obvious importance of books in English as assisting in the process of learning English as key to Americanization. He believed that maintenance of the language of origin was key to the self-respect the immigrant needed. See Carr's discussion of the subject in Bulletin of the American Library Journal, Vol. 8, Nov. 1914.
Among all immigrants he was fond of, Italian immigrants seemed to hold a special place: see "The Coming of the Italians," in The Outlook, 24 Frebruary 1906, 419-431.
In the third edition (1913), also in the collection, readers are directed on the cover (where “Doubleday, Page & Company” had appeared in the earlier editions) “Per Ordinazioni ed Informazioni” [For orders and information] to turn to the Immigrant Education Society on Fifth Avenue in New York, and in the frontispiece, President William Howard Taft has been dispatched in favor of a portrait of President Woodrow Wilson.
A practical guide, this work told immigrants the names of American states and cities, how to find work, spend money, travel, and even, summing up on the last page, in one of the relatively few condescending parts of the work, how to comport oneself in public: “Speak in a low voice. Try not to gesticulate too much when speaking, and don’t get excited during discussions. Take care about your personal appearance . . . don’t abuse liquor. Be proud of your homeland and your family. Never change your name, unless absolutely necessary to simplify it for American pronunciation. . . . The best opportunities for the immigrant are not in New York but in the interior of the country. By following these warnings you will be respected and well-received in America.”
Carr was a journalist, social reformer, Italophile (president of the local chapter of the Dante Alighieri Society) and head of the Immigrant Publication Society.
Carr's "What the Library Can Do for our Foreign Born," Library Journal, Oct. 1913 (Vol, 38, No.10), New York: Publication Office, 141 E. 25th Street, recounts the key role of this very Guide, as edited by the Connecticut DAR and published by Doubleday, in the education and Americanization of Italian and other immigrants.
There Carr exhorts librarians to recognize that the library's role is far more important than that of schools in the welcoming of the immigrant - the first step in their education and Americanization - because adult immigrants do not attend schools. He recounts how in his town, Mount Vernon, New York, the library has worked with Italian organizations to sponsor evenings of Italian culture mixed with an explanation to members of those groups of how to use the library.
And key to the entire process is the initial lecture given at a local school, in Italian (or Yiddish, Swedish, etc.) based on Carr's Guide, followed by a trip to the local public library at which an Italian group (in the case of Mt. Vernon that Carr recounts, the Verdi Club) begins the meeting with Italian music, followed by a talk on the use of the library.
Carr also appreciated and broadcast often the importance of libraries in the maintenance of books in the immigrants' original language, as well as the more obvious importance of books in English as assisting in the process of learning English as key to Americanization. He believed that maintenance of the language of origin was key to the self-respect the immigrant needed. See Carr's discussion of the subject in Bulletin of the American Library Journal, Vol. 8, Nov. 1914.
Among all immigrants he was fond of, Italian immigrants seemed to hold a special place: see "The Coming of the Italians," in The Outlook, 24 Frebruary 1906, 419-431.
In the third edition (1913), also in the collection, readers are directed on the cover (where “Doubleday, Page & Company” had appeared in the earlier editions) “Per Ordinazioni ed Informazioni” [For orders and information] to turn to the Immigrant Education Society on Fifth Avenue in New York, and in the frontispiece, President William Howard Taft has been dispatched in favor of a portrait of President Woodrow Wilson.
A practical guide, this work told immigrants the names of American states and cities, how to find work, spend money, travel, and even, summing up on the last page, in one of the relatively few condescending parts of the work, how to comport oneself in public: “Speak in a low voice. Try not to gesticulate too much when speaking, and don’t get excited during discussions. Take care about your personal appearance . . . don’t abuse liquor. Be proud of your homeland and your family. Never change your name, unless absolutely necessary to simplify it for American pronunciation. . . . The best opportunities for the immigrant are not in New York but in the interior of the country. By following these warnings you will be respected and well-received in America.”
Creator
John Foster Carr
Publisher
Doubleday, Page & Company
Date
1910
Format
18.5 x 12.5cm; 85 p.
Language
Italian
Citation
John Foster Carr, “Guida degli Stati Uniti per l'immigrante italiano [Guide to the United States for the Italian Immigrant]. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1910.,” Italian-Language American Imprints: The Periconi Collection, accessed April 29, 2024, https://italianamericanimprints.omeka.net/items/show/38.
Comments