How I Became an American

How I Became an American PDF

Author: Karin Gündisch

Publisher:

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13:

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In 1902, ten-year-old Johann and his family, Germans who had been living in Austria-Hungary, board a ship to immigrate to Youngstown, Ohio, where they make a new life as Americans.

Learn about the United States

Learn about the United States PDF

Author: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Publisher: Government Printing Office

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 36

ISBN-13: 9780160831188

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"Learn About the United States" is intended to help permanent residents gain a deeper understanding of U.S. history and government as they prepare to become citizens. The product presents 96 short lessons, based on the sample questions from which the civics portion of the naturalization test is drawn. An audio CD that allows students to listen to the questions, answers, and civics lessons read aloud is also included. For immigrants preparing to naturalize, the chance to learn more about the history and government of the United States will make their journey toward citizenship a more meaningful one.

Made in America

Made in America PDF

Author: Claude S. Fischer

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2010-05-15

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 9780226251455

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Our nation began with the simple phrase, “We the People.” But who were and are “We”? Who were we in 1776, in 1865, or 1968, and is there any continuity in character between the we of those years and the nearly 300 million people living in the radically different America of today? With Made in America, Claude S. Fischer draws on decades of historical, psychological, and social research to answer that question by tracking the evolution of American character and culture over three centuries. He explodes myths—such as that contemporary Americans are more mobile and less religious than their ancestors, or that they are more focused on money and consumption—and reveals instead how greater security and wealth have only reinforced the independence, egalitarianism, and commitment to community that characterized our people from the earliest years. Skillfully drawing on personal stories of representative Americans, Fischer shows that affluence and social progress have allowed more people to participate fully in cultural and political life, thus broadening the category of “American” —yet at the same time what it means to be an American has retained surprising continuity with much earlier notions of American character. Firmly in the vein of such classics as The Lonely Crowd and Habits of the Heart—yet challenging many of their conclusions—Made in America takes readers beyond the simplicity of headlines and the actions of elites to show us the lives, aspirations, and emotions of ordinary Americans, from the settling of the colonies to the settling of the suburbs.

How Books Came to America

How Books Came to America PDF

Author: John Hruschka

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2015-06-17

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 027107227X

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Anyone who pays attention to the popular press knows that the new media will soon make books obsolete. But predicting the imminent demise of the book is nothing new. At the beginning of the twentieth century, for example, some critics predicted that the electro-mechanical phonograph would soon make books obsolete. Still, despite the challenges of a century and a half of new media, books remain popular, with Americans purchasing more than eight million books each day. In How Books Came to America, John Hruschka traces the development of the American book trade from the moment of European contact with the Americas, through the growth of regional book trades in the early English colonial cities, to the more or less unified national book trade that emerged after the American Civil War and flourished in the twentieth century. He examines the variety of technological, historical, cultural, political, and personal forces that shaped the American book trade, paying particular attention to the contributions of the German bookseller Frederick Leypoldt and his journal, Publishers Weekly. Unlike many studies of the book business, How Books Came to America is more concerned with business than it is with books. Its focus is on how books are manufactured and sold, rather than how they are written and read. It is, nevertheless, the story of the people who created and influenced the book business in the colonies and the United States. Famous names in the American book trade—Benjamin Franklin, Robert Hoe, the Harpers, Henry Holt, and Melvil Dewey—are joined by more obscure names like Joseph Glover, Conrad Beissel, and the aforementioned Frederick Leypoldt. Together, they made the American book trade the unique commercial institution it is today.

American Sirens

American Sirens PDF

Author: Kevin Hazzard

Publisher: Hachette Books

Published: 2022-09-20

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 0306926083

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The extraordinary story of an unjustly forgotten group of Black men in Pittsburgh who became the first paramedics in America, saving lives and changing the course of emergency medicine around the world Until the 1970s, if you suffered a medical crisis, your chances of survival were minimal. A 9-1-1 call might bring police or even the local funeral home. But that all changed with Freedom House EMS in Pittsburgh, a group of Black men who became America’s first paramedics and set the gold standard for emergency medicine around the world, only to have their story and their legacy erased—until now. In American Sirens, acclaimed journalist and paramedic Kevin Hazzard tells the dramatic story of how a group of young, undereducated Black men forged a new frontier of healthcare. He follows a rich cast of characters that includes John Moon, an orphan who found his calling as a paramedic; Peter Safar, the Nobel Prize-nominated physician who invented CPR and realized his vision for a trained ambulance service; and Nancy Caroline, the idealistic young doctor who turned a scrappy team into an international leader. At every turn, Freedom House battled racism—from the community, the police, and the government. Their job was grueling, the rules made up as they went along, their mandate nearly impossible—and yet despite the long odds and fierce opposition, they succeeded spectacularly. Never-before revealed in full, this is a rich and troubling hidden history of the Black origins of America’s paramedics, a special band of dedicated essential workers, who stand ready to serve day and night on the line between life and death for every one of us.

Working Toward Whiteness

Working Toward Whiteness PDF

Author: David R. Roediger

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2006-08-08

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 078672210X

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How did immigrants to the United States come to see themselves as white? David R. Roediger has been in the vanguard of the study of race and labor in American history for decades. He first came to prominence as the author of The Wages of Whiteness, a classic study of racism in the development of a white working class in nineteenth-century America. In Working Toward Whiteness, Roediger continues that history into the twentieth century. He recounts how ethnic groups considered white today-including Jewish-, Italian-, and Polish-Americans-were once viewed as undesirables by the WASP establishment in the United States. They eventually became part of white America, through the nascent labor movement, New Deal reforms, and a rise in home-buying. Once assimilated as fully white, many of them adopted the racism of those whites who formerly looked down on them as inferior. From ethnic slurs to racially restrictive covenants-the real estate agreements that ensured all-white neighborhoods-Roediger explores the mechanisms by which immigrants came to enjoy the privileges of being white in America. A disturbing, necessary, masterful history, Working Toward Whiteness uses the past to illuminate the present. In an Introduction to the 2018 edition, Roediger considers the resonance of the book in the age of Trump, showing how Working Toward Whiteness remains as relevant as ever even though most migrants today are not from Europe.

Civilization

Civilization PDF

Author: Regis Debray

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2019-03-19

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1788734068

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American civilization’s dominance over Europe—and what to do about it In 1900, an American of taste was a European in exile; in 2000, a trendy European is a frustrated American—or one waiting for a visa. Régis Debray explores America’s global cultural ascendancy in this provocative and witty analysis of our contemporary condition. Whereas Europe once foregrounded the importance of time and writing, America is a civilization of spectacle and kinetics, blind to the tragic complexities of human life. A measure of America’s success is how its jargon has been adopted by European languages, but there is much more than that to the States’ infiltration into all aspects of modern life. For Debray, the dominance of American civilization is a historical fait accompli. Yet he envisions a sanctuary for the best of Europe modelled on Vienna at the cusp of the twentieth century, where art and literature flowered in the rich soil of a decaying empire. For decades to come, Europe can still offer a rich cultural seedbed. “Some will call it decadence,” writes Debray, “others liberation. Why not both?”

Citizen Sailors

Citizen Sailors PDF

Author: Nathan Perl-Rosenthal

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2015-10-12

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0674915550

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After 1776, Americans struggled to gain recognition of their new republic and their rights as citizens. None had to fight harder than the nation’s seamen, whose labor took them deep into the Atlantic world. Nathan Perl-Rosenthal tells the story of how their efforts created the first national, racially inclusive model of U.S. citizenship.

American Citizenship

American Citizenship PDF

Author: Judith N. Shklar

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 138

ISBN-13: 9780674022164

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In this illuminating look at what constitutes American citizenship, Judith Shklar identifies the right to vote and the right to work as the defining social rights and primary sources of public respect. She demonstrates that in recent years, although all profess their devotion to the work ethic, earning remains unavailable to many who feel and are consequently treated as less than full citizens.