After Ellis Island: Newcomers and Natives in the 1910 Census (review)

164 SHOFAR Fa111997 Vol. 16, No.1 and intellectual resources domiilate the smaller communities and even influence Athens, many of whose leaders are transplanted Salonikans. Plaut is concerned with survival of small communities (the term 'provincial' is not too applicable to Greece), and his patterns are usefully applicable .to the smaller communities in rural areas ofthe United States. (The latter too are notoriously neglected by the Jewish academy.) Hence even those scholars and learned public not particularly interested in the fates of Greek and Sephardi Jews in Greece during the twentieth century may fmd sufficient interest in his methodological chapter (5. 'The Shaping of Greek-Jewish Identity over Three Generations and Principles [he frames and discusses seven of these] of Small-Town Community Survival and Disintegration') to explore other chapters in the book and meet with some of our less well known co-religionists who have forged an interesting diasporic experience with contemporary connections in the United States and Israel. Steven Bowman Judaic Studies University of Ciricinnati After Ellis Island: Newcomers and Natives in the 1910 Census, edited by Susan Cotts Watkins. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1994. 472 pp. $49.95. After Ellis Island is the product of the collective effort of fifteen contributors, most of whom are or have been associated with the University ofPennsylvania, to use data from the federal census to examine immigrant and ethnic life in 1910. Susan Cotts Watkins is the author of the introductory essay and of a background chapter about the 1910 census, which delved more deeply than preceding or subsequent canvasses into issues related to immigration. The central chapters, all but one ofwhich were written by pairs or trios ofscholars, examine the connection of ethnicity and race with child mortality, fertility, family and household structure, residential segregation, schooling, and industrial affiliation. Making the book unique is the authors' common reliance on the "public use sample" drawn, under the direction of Samuel H. Preston, from the manuscript schedules of the 1910 census. A random sample of the national population, the PUS contains data on the members of one out of every 250 households. Appendices to the volume describe the creation and content of the PUS and present valuable summary characteristics ofthe immigrant population, categorized by ethnic group. But, because the information in it pertains to individual persons, the PUS liberates researchers from dependence on aggregate tables published by the Census Bureau and allows them to Book Reviews 165 create cross-tabulations relevant to their own set of questions. Whether the variations observed between the foreigri-stock and native populations or among different ethnic and racial groups stem from socioeconomic circumstances or from cultural differences is question repeatedly of concern to the contributors. To answer it, the authors, most of whom are sociologists and demographers, routinely resort to multivariate statistical techniques that take maximum advantage of the individual-level nature ofthe PUS data. Unfortunately, traditional historians unschooled in such methods may have a hard time effectively evaluating the arguments. The inclusion in the analyses of considerations such as the length of time in the U.S., the ability to speak English, and various indicators of education, income, and geographic location does reduce substantially the differences observed between ethnic groups and the host population made up ofnative-born persons whose parents were also native-born. Despite such controls, however, notable differences remain. For example, child mortality was especially high among French Canadians; Italians and Poles showed little interest in limiting fertility, while Jews were clearly practicing birth control; and, in general, the experiences ofAfrican-Americans were qualitatively different from those of whites. Ewa Morawska, a researcher best known for her use of more traditional historical methods, has written an "Afterword" for the book. She notes that most of the fmdings based on the PUS are consistent with those previously derived from local studies. She also reminds the readers that, despite the efforts ofthe contributors to tease longitudinal information from the PUS, a source focused on a single year is limited in its ability to capture change over time. For the most part, however, Morawska devotes her effort to raising interesting alternative ways of looking at some of the material presented in the book and...