American Jewish Identity in the Age of Mass Migration: A 1902 Marriage Scandal or When Marie met Samuel...and Joseph with Laura Shaw Frank

Marriage in late nineteenth and early twentieth century America was both intensely personal and also a powerful communal institution rooted in religion, culture, law, and politics. Using the lens of a headline-grabbing early twentieth century Jewish marriage scandal, this talk will give insight into the way Eastern European Jewish immigrants used courtship and marriage to perform Americanness and assert their belonging in an era of rising anti-immigrant sentiment and contested notions of citizenship.

(Baron Scholar Speaker Series)