The first question Bruce Garver's history professor asked him when he attended the University of Colorado was, "How many languages do you speak?"
Being just a French major at the time, Garver's answer didn't impress his professor. The professor persuaded Garver to begin taking German, and that advice has stuck with Garver to this day.
Garver, now a professor of history at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, gave a lecture at the Great Plains Art Museum on Wednesday as part of the Paul A. Olson Seminars in Great Plains Studies. He opened his lecture named "Immigration to the Great Plains, 1865-1914: War, Politics, Technology and Economic Development" speaking in Czech, Italian and German. It was these three nations that Garver focused on during his lecture.
"Together they represent the skills of the rest of the European immigrants," Garver said.
It was ambition and knowledge of language, Garver said, that allowed immigrants to transform the Great Plains from a "trackless wilderness" into an agriculturally and industrially advanced area, which saw the arrival of small towns and even a few large cities.
"This happened in an extraordinarily short amount of time," Garver said.
Garver talked about the structural changes that occurred after wars in both Europe and the Americas that helped spur immigration to the Great Plains. One of the reasons immigration increased during the latter part of the 19th century was the end of serfdom, a system of servitude, in Europe after the Crimean War, Garver said.
Similar repression ended after the defeat of Austria by France and Piedmont in 1859. The Union states' defeat of the Confederate states in the American Civil War led to the abolition of slavery and a more progressive education system throughout the Great Plains, Garver said.
Immigration during the time could not only occur because the United States welcomed immigrants, but the countries in Europe had to allow their citizens to leave, Garver said.
Garver said the immigrants that left Europe during this time were ambitious, intelligent and formally educated.
"They were ready-made citizens," he said.
Garver said he thinks one of the reasons why the Great Plains progressed so quickly was how readily employable the immigrants were even without knowing English. These immigrants were ready for the jobs that were available to them.
"Most of the Italians who came to the Great Plains worked on the railways or in food processing," Garver said.
One factor for the upswing in immigration was the worsening of agricultural conditions in Europe, Garver said. He said those who immigrated weren't the super poor or rich, but it was those who couldn't make a living. These immigrants had enough money to come to the West and have a little left over for capital.
The introduction of public schools and increasing technology helped continue the ambition and educational base that the immigrants brought with them from Europe.
The advice Garver's professor gave him in college was something that would have helped out the immigrants in the late 1800s. The immigrants who spoke multiple languages were given jobs at the railroads greeting people as they arrived from all over Europe to the Great Plains of the United States.
"A person who is literate in one language rapidly becomes literate in another," Garver said.
News@dailynebraskan.com
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