Author Description

For nearly a century, the symbol of the American melting pot enjoyed considerable popularity. Bruce M. Stave and John F. Sutherland explore this and other concepts in an oral history comprising the voices of European immigrants to Connecticut. Both practicing oral historians, their interviews join others conducted by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, providing readers with a perspective of at least three generations of immigrant experience, including the role that the family unit played, both economically and socially. Of special interest is the place held by immigrant women in the new world, as traditional relationships between men and women, and within families, began to change.