An Outsider's View of the Association

Abstract

by RUDOLPH J. VECOLI 14 An Outsider's View of the Association The a notable NORWEGIANS, occasion, who and are the here Italians, celebrating with a notable occasion, and the Italians, with whose ethnic heritage I have been identified, have been at odds for many years over the question of who first discovered America. These feelings become particularly heated at this time of year when irate Norwegian Americans write letters to the editor protesting Columbus Day. Perhaps you have noticed on the capítol grounds in St. Paul the statues of Columbus and Ericson; they have their backs to each other. It is a testimony to the largeness of mind and spirit of your officers that they invited a son of Italy to speak at this observance of the fiftieth anniversary of the Norwegian- American Historical Association. The question of who discovered America has been a very serious matter over which much ink, if not blood, has been spilt. All ethnic groups, it seems, have felt it necessary to lodge a claim that they were here first. The Irish, for example, assert that St. Brandon reached the New World centuries before Leif Ericson. Of course, Italians and Norwegians can agree on the mythical nature of that claim. What is interesting about all this, may I suggest, is the apparent need of the various immigrant 272 AN OUTSIDER'S VIEW groups to trace their roots in American history to the age of discovery and colonization. The reason for this tendency seems to me to be quite clear. During the late nineteenth century, a distinction was drawn between "real Americans" (those whose ancestors had come before 1776 and who vaunted their ancestry as Sons or Daughters of the American Revolution or as Mayflower Descendants and the "latecomers" (those whose families immigrated after the colonial period). Richmond Mayo-Smith, in 1890 for example, distinguished between the "colonist" and the "immigrant." The first, he wrote, "came to this country when it was an unclaimed wilderness, and by their toil and sacrifices established a great commonwealth. To them belongs the glory of having established the state and given to the new country its institutions, laws, customs, and language . They are, in a sense, the founders and proprietors of the new state, and they have a right to guard its institutions ." Those who came later were immigrants "who simply migrate into a country where state laws and customs are already fixed. They occupy a subordinate position . They are not there through any merit of their own, but by consent and upon invitation of the original colonists ."1 Given such an invidious distinction between colonist and immigrant, one can understand the obsession of the immigrant groups with finding pre-1776 antecedents so they could prove they had as much right to be here as anyone else. The first ethnic historical societies thus were stimulated by an inferiority complex. The ScotchIrish Society of America, founded in 1889, had for its purpose correcting the alleged neglect of the role of its group in the colonial and revolutionary years. The Scotch-Irish also wanted to make it perfectly clear that 1 Richmond Mayo-Smith, "Emigration and Immigration," 35-36 (New York, 1890). 273 Rudolph J. Vecoli they were not "merely Irish." Not surprisingly, an American Irish Historical Society was established a few years later, dedicated to making better known the "Irish Chapter" in American history. The bulk of its publications were devoted to proving that it was the Irish who had beat the britches off the British in the American Revolution. Similarly, the American Jewish Historical Society was formed in 1892 to demonstrate the participation of Jews in the American colonies and in the struggle for independence.2 The Norwegian-American Historical Association was certainly not the first of the ethnic historical societies, but it was different. From its very beginning, it dedicated itself to documenting and publishing the authentic history of the Norwegians in America. Eschewing historical apologetics, it did not concentrate on finding Norwegians in the first colonial settlements or in Washington's army. Rather, the Association sought to tell the actual stories of the immigrants and their children, of their triumphs and failures, of their joys and...