Literature, Social Science, and the Development of American Migration Narratives in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

This article traces the complementary relationship between social science and American migration narratives in the twentieth century, with particular attention to texts produced in the Depression era, and to more recent scholarship on the literature of African-American migration. While social scientists borrowed the tools of literary artists to understand migration in the 1920s, writers in the Depression era employed sociological and anthropological methods to bring the plight of the southern migrant into the public consciousness. Narratives of southern white, Mexican-American, and African-American migration proliferated within a social scientific paradigm that depicted the migrant as a marginal figure, and the emergence of the concept of ‘ethnicity’ shaped the representation of internal migrants. Social science continues to influence literary criticism, as critics employ sociological and anthropological concepts to understand migration narratives.