(Neither) Expatriates (n)or Immigrants? The American Colony in Paris, 1880-1940

Abstract

The Left Bank American expatriates in Paris of the 1920s have captured the American and French imagination for decades. But there was another group of Americans in Paris less well known yet ten times more numerous and arguably more important for the “American Century.” The Americans of the Right Bank included bankers and businessmen who went abroad for years if not a lifetime. They were implicit and often explicit “Americanizers,” bringing American goods and methods overseas. These “elite migrants” take us to the heart of the problems of defining migration. They were largely well-to-do; they went to France by choice. We can ask an Albert Hirschman question: to what extent did the businessmen have their own particular brand of “exit,” expressed through a distinctive “voice” (such as the bulletins of the American Chamber of Commerce) and reflecting “loyalty” rather than its opposite (Hirschman, 1970)? Far from the Bohemians of the Left Bank, the Right Bank Americans in Paris do not quite fit the usual history of immigration, but they show that specific forms of mobility and globalization existed well before the late 20th century.