Made in America?: Immigrant Occupational Mobility in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

• In Event: 528 - Regular Session. The Limits of Intergenerational Mobility and the Power of Social Reproduction

Abstract

Assimilation research largely assumes that southern and eastern European immigrants became indistinguishable from their western European predecessors due to the proliferation of job ladders within manufacturing firms in the first half of the twentieth century. But this literature has never tested these claims often acknowledging that little is known about whether Italians and Slavs experienced upward mobility. This article focuses on this unexplored issue: Did manufacturing allow for the upward advancement among southern and eastern European-origin groups? Using unique datasets containing employment histories in three manufacturing companies – A.M. Byers Company, Pullman-Standard Manufacturing, and Ford Motor Company - between 1900 and 1950, this article is the first to analyze occupational mobility within factories among European-origin groups. Results suggest that organizational structures within firms prevented upward occupational mobility for immigrant populations. Immigrants were hired at an older age, started at lower occupational positions, and experienced little upward occupational movement. This article illustrates the importance of how organizational structures affect the process of assimilation among immigrant groups.

Author

• Peter Catron, University of California-Los Angeles