Volume: 8  Number: 4  Page: 275–297

‘Ask Each Pupil About Her Methods of Cleaning’: Ideologies of Language and Gender in Americanisation Instruction (1900–1924)

Aneta Pavlenko CITE Department, College of Education, Temple University, Philadelphia, USA

The focus of this paper is on the complex interaction between ideologies of language, gender and identity during the Americanisation era (1900–1924) in the USA. I will argue that the Americanisation movement had a ‘hidden curriculum’ which singled out immigrant women – and in particular mothers – for specific kinds of English instruction. Americanisers attempted to control women's linguistic repertoires and reduce them to ‘pots and pans’ English, linked to consumerism and domesticity. Three main responses can be distinguished among the women. Some ignored the classes altogether. Others enrolled and then dropped out, either disappointed by outdated teaching methods or overwhelmed by family and work pressures. And yet others did take the classes but did not adopt the patriarchal femininity constructed for them by the Americanisers. Instead, many immigrant women adopted alternative linguistic repertoires and identities offered to them by the labour movement.

Keywords: language, gender, identity, ideology, immigration, Americanisation

© 2005 A. Pavlenko

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