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Smoothing the Jew
"Abie the Agent" and Ethnic Caricature in the Progressive Era
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2024
About this book
The turn of the nineteenth century in the United States saw the substantial influx of immigrants and a corresponding increase in anti-immigration and nativist tendencies among longer-settled Americans. Jewish immigrants were often the object of such animosity, being at once the object of admiration and anxiety for their perceived economic and social successes. One result was their frequent depiction in derogatory caricatures on the stage and in print.
Smoothing the Jew investigates how Jewish artists of the time attempted to “smooth over” these demeaning portrayals by focusing on the first Jewish comic strip published in English, Harry Hershfield’s Abie the Agent. Jeffrey Marx demonstrates how Hershfield created a Jewish protagonist who in part reassured nativists of the Jews’ ability to assimilate into American society while also encouraging immigrants and their children that, over time, they would be able to adopt American customs without losing their distinctly Jewish identity.
Smoothing the Jew investigates how Jewish artists of the time attempted to “smooth over” these demeaning portrayals by focusing on the first Jewish comic strip published in English, Harry Hershfield’s Abie the Agent. Jeffrey Marx demonstrates how Hershfield created a Jewish protagonist who in part reassured nativists of the Jews’ ability to assimilate into American society while also encouraging immigrants and their children that, over time, they would be able to adopt American customs without losing their distinctly Jewish identity.
Author / Editor information
JEFFREY A. MARX is an independent scholar, the Rabbi Emeritus of The Santa Monica Synagogue in California, and a former visiting lecturer at Emeritus College, Hebrew Union College, and Pepperdine University. His publications appear in scholarly journals and in popular media on topics ranging from Jewish studies to New York culture.
Reviews
“A lively, well-researched, and insightful exploration of a comic strip character who deserves to be better known, as he helped pave the way for Jews to join the American mainstream.”— Ted Merwin, author of In Their Own Image: New York Jews in Jazz Age Popular Culture (Rutgers University Press, 2
"A deft cultural history of Jewish comic strips in the first half of the twentieth century, Smoothing the Jew is concisely and elegantly written. Informative and rigorous, it traces aesthetic and political values in comics and related popular forms, revealing dynamics of self-creation and multiplied identities as cartoonists harnessed the thorny and productive power of image-making in an uncertain age. A significant contribution across fields."— Hillary Chute, author of Why Comics?: From Underground to Everywhere
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Frontmatter
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Contents
ix -
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Introduction
1 -
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Chapter 1 Caricatures and Smoothing Efforts
17 -
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Chapter 2 Censoring Attempts
46 -
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Chapter 3 Smoothing Abie
63 -
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Chapter 4 Becoming American
105 -
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Conclusion
132 -
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Acknowledgments
139 -
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Notes
141 -
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Bibliography
165 -
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Index
189 -
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About the Author
195
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
June 12, 2024
eBook ISBN:
9781978836372
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781978836372
Keywords for this book
jew; judaism; America; american studies; immigrant; emigrant; pop culture; stereotype; ethnicity; religion; discrimination; assimilation; nativism; nationalism; jewish studies; media
Audience(s) for this book
For universities and colleges of further and higher education
