1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910966895503321

Autore

Cosco Joseph P

Titolo

Imagining Italians : the clash of romance and race in American perceptions, 1880-1910 / / Joseph P. Cosco

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Albany, : State University of New York Press, c2003

ISBN

9780791486627

0791486621

9781417536085

141753608X

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (244 p.)

Collana

SUNY series in Italian/American culture

Disciplina

305.85/1073/09034

Soggetti

Italian Americans - Public opinion

Immigrants - United States - Public opinion

Italian Americans - Social conditions - 19th century

Italian Americans - Social conditions - 20th century

Immigrants - United States - Social conditions

Public opinion - United States

Italian Americans in literature

Racism - United States - History - 19th century

Racism - United States - History - 20th century

United States Ethnic relations

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 207-226) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front Matter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Magnificently Miserable Italians and Their Wretched, Princely Italy -- Jacob Riis: Immigrants Old and New, and the Making of Americans -- Edward Steiner: All is (Not) Race? -- Henry James’S Picturesque Peasants: Heroes of Romance or Modern Men? -- Henry James’S “Flagrant Foreigners”: Whose Country is this Anyway? -- Mark Twain: Racism, Nativism, and the Twinning of Italianness -- Conclusion: The Fight for Whiteness -- Notes -- Bibliography

Sommario/riassunto

Integrating history, literary criticism, and cultural studies, Imagining Italians vividly tells the story of two voyages across the Atlantic:



America's cultural pilgrimage to Italy and the Italian "racial odyssey" in America. It examines how American representations of Italy, Italians, and Italian Americans engaged with national debates over immigration, race, and national identity during the period 1880–1910. Joseph P. Cosco offers a close analysis of selected works by immigrant journalists Jacob Riis and Edward Steiner and American iconographic writers Henry James and Mark Twain. Exploring their Italian depictions in journalism, photos, travel narratives, and fiction, he rediscovers the forgotten Edward Steiner and offers fresh readings of Riis's reform efforts and photography, James's The Golden Bowl and The American Scene, and Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson.