Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

1945

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

M.S.S.W.

Department

Social Work

Subject

German Americans--Kentucky--Louisville; Austrian Americans--Kentucky--Louisville; Refugees--Kentucky--Louisville; Austrian Americans; German Americans; Refugees; Kentucky--Louisville

Abstract

This paper will deal with the adjustment of refugees in an American middle-sized city, Louisville, Kentucky. It will attempt to touch the background and past of the group, but it will be pointed to a question which indeed is vital to each refugee: What does he make of his life after immigration? Can what was in origin compulsory, become constructive for the future? Will America for him be more than a haven of refuge after a harassing persecution - will it be a home for him and his children? And the answer to these questions is inextricably tied up with the other aspect of immigration: What, if any, contribution to America will these immigrants be able to make? What are their assets and liabilities? How do they compare with previous immigrants? How do they fit into the general and present socio-economic picture of American life? This paper endeavors to furnish some factual material to answer these questions in a sample case, for such we might consider the immigration to Louisville where immigration developed according to its own laws, supported by an active committee, but not fostered beyond the natural trends. We think that to look at the adjustment of refugees in such a community will give a more typical picture than to examine a larger city with its disproportionate numbers of refugees, since in such a setting the refugees appear as a mass unrelated to the American population as a whole, and the problems which the group may actually present are numerically exaggerated.

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