REVIEWS
“Green has given us the most comprehensive, incisive, and entertaining account yet written of the ‘American Colony’ in Paris across the first half of the twentieth century. The conceptual sophistication and research skill Green brings to the study of this emigrant community sets new standards for the field, and will be much discussed and emulated by those working on other portions of the American ‘ex-pat’ global archipelago. A masterful and sparkling work of social history.”
— Gary Gerstle, author of American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century
“’The other Americans’ were a diverse and slippery crew of people on the move who fortunately had a predilection to organize, write, or at least come under arrest, and thus they could come under the purview of accomplished historian Nancy L. Green. This witty and deeply scholarly book makes a cogent argument about prewar Americans in Paris – the lovers, workers, corporate managers, the idle rich, soldiers, the ‘financially down and legally out,’ complementing the better known left-bank intellectuals and jazz performers. Chockablock with entertaining tales of the famous and obscure, young and old, Green offers the reader a lesson in intellectual ingenuity and acumen as she analyzes yesterday’s transnationals, united in location, but divided by class, circumstance, and interest.”
— Leslie Page Moch, Michigan State University
“With her keen sense of the French American difference, her deep understanding of the vicissitudes of migration, and her incomparable wit, Nancy L. Green has transformed the literary cliché about Americans in Paris into an original and compelling social history. Whether she is taking us into the territory of marriage and divorce, which inspired Edith Wharton and Henry James with their best plots, unearthing consular records of American misdeeds, or tracking down the capture of Baby Cadum soaps by Palmolive, she surprises and delights on every page. The Other Americans in Paris will captivate historians of business, cultural critics, political scientists and, most of all, tourists and expats discovering life in the City of Light.”
— Alice Kaplan, Yale University
“Historians of international migration are undoubtedly familiar with the literary Americans living in Paris in the 1920s but only rarely have they incorporated such migrants into their scholarly field of study. With The Other Americans in Paris, Green gives migration historians ample reason to re-visit and to re-think both Paris (as a unique host society) and Americans as emigrants and immigrants. Green appreciates and documents the individual idiosyncrasies of American businessmen, soldiers, wayward countesses, ‘expats,’ and working-class wanderers, even while making mobility, community organization, and transcultural contacts and misunderstandings—bread and butter issues for migration historians—central themes in her very readable account of Paris’s American ‘colony.’”
— Donna Gabaccia, University of Minnesota
“A fascinating, compelling, and sometimes hilarious look at the Americans of the Right Bank: those who lived across the river from the Lost Generation and belonged to a world apart. Who knew that 90 percent of the interwar Americans in Paris rarely visited Shakespeares' and never heard of Gertrude Stein? Greens' wonderful book tells the untold story of the American businessmen, lawyers, renters, heiresses, and slackers who created the 'American colony' in Paris and never thought of writing the Great American Novel.”
— Edward Berenson, New York University
"A thorough and perceptive study. . ."
— The Wall Street Journal
“Green’s greatest achievement in The Other Americans in Paris is to shed light on a unique group of American migrants in Paris, one that has hitherto been largely absent from the literature on the subject. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly for migration scholars, Green refutes the dominant narrative that elite migration is a relatively recent phenomenon born out of globalization.”
— International Migration Review
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction - Nancy L. Green
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226137520.003.0001
[immigrant neighborhoods, community formation, voluntary associations, International Herald Tribune, Daughters of the American Revolution]
This chapter examines the construction of the American community in Paris (some 40,000 by the mid-1920s) while questioning the concept itself. While the more well off Americans clustered in a “golden ghetto” in the well-to-do neighborhoods of the city, black Americans (several hundred in the interwar period) congregated near the Montmartre cabarets. Like other foreigners, the Right Bank Americans created numerous voluntary associations many of which still exist today (the American Church, the American Cathedral, the American Hospital, the International Herald Tribune). Business clubs and veterans’ groups gathered a world of men; women met together in the American Women’s Club in Paris and the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). But the Americans in France were no ordinary immigrant group; their organizations, by Americans, for Americans, were also one of the most visible signs of the growing overseas presence of the U.S. in the first half of the twentieth century. (pages 1 - 12)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
The Not So Lost Generation - Charles F. McGovern
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226137520.003.0002
[citizenship, expatriation, U.S. Embassy, U.S. Consulate, protection of citizens, World War I]
Americans abroad present a paradox. They can be seen as ambassadors of good will or the avant-garde of American capitalism; they can also be considered suspect citizens, ex-patriots in sum. Some may never set foot in a U.S. Consulate; others turn beseechingly to their government to defend them in times of trouble. The life of the Paris Consulate is where citizens activated their citizenship rights from abroad, contacting the government for help for matters ranging from the serious to the frivolous, during World War I as in peacetime. This chapter examines the changing notion of expatriation and the protection of citizens abroad through the prism of the consulate, where an everyday use of citizenship by overseas Americans was brought to bear on everything from tiffs with French shopkeepers to more serious difficulties with the French state. (pages 13 - 46)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Uses of Citizenship - Nancy L. Green
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226137520.003.0003
[love, marriage, divorce, heiresses, international marriages, mixed marriage, citizenship loss, women, gender]
The love lives of Americans in Paris in the first half of the twentieth century were more complicated than most tales of Parisian romance imply. This chapter begins with rival images of the city – danger versus freedom – before examining the marriage and divorce of the American men and women of Paris. France was a complex backdrop to private lives, but it was also the site of two types of liaisons: Americans with each other but also Americans with the French (and the consequent loss of citizenship by American women). The “international marriages” were differentially gendered, linking different sexes, class and culture. There were wealthy American heiresses married to French noblemen, but there were also the U.S. veterans who had stayed in France with their French wives. Many lived happily ever after; others did not. These mixed marriages, personal experiments in international relations, ultimately floundered or flourished like many marriages. (pages 47 - 76)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
For Love or Money - Nancy L. Green
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226137520.003.0004
[dentists, jazz, lawyers, American Chamber of Commerce, immigrant worker, gender]
Many Americans came to Paris to play, but the vast majority had to work to live there. This chapter looks at the variety of (gendered) jobs Americans did in Paris, from those servicing the American colony itself to those marketing American specialties to the French such as dentists and jazz musicians. Americans brought bits of America with them to the French capital, even when they were not explicit Americanizers. Some, however, more explicitly set about expanding the American horizon. The American businessmen and lawyers in Paris and the indefatigable organizers of the American Chamber of Commerce were important middlemen with both governments, and they represent the Right Bank colony at its most self-aware. By the turn of the twentieth century, the American colony was being transformed from a community of the idle rich into a busy group of the working rich. They were not your average immigrant worker. (pages 77 - 112)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Americans at Work - Nancy L. Green
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226137520.003.0005
[American imperialism, direct investment overseas, Hollywood, business history, tariffs]
Without design or intent, according to Reinhold Niebuhr in 1930, the United States had become an “awkward imperialist,” forced to conquer foreign markets to prevent the glut of domestic ones. This chapter explores the ways in which industrialists went abroad to sell and manufacture their goods, and how they were the important precursors for those who would head overseas after the Second World War. However, unlike outdated histories of American isolationism or overly-optimistic tales of an irresistible advance of the American commercial empire, this chapter argues that there was nothing inevitable about the gains. By looking behind the scenes thanks to lawfirm archives, noting the difficulties of setting up business abroad, we can see how the “natives” fought back, with tough tariff negotiations and other resistance to American models. From Hollywood to Palmolive, American companies tested different strategies of governance from afar in the first half of the century. (pages 113 - 142)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Doing Business in France - Nancy L. Green
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226137520.003.0006
[poverty, crime, Paris, veterans, arrests, police]
Even “elite migrants” have their pockets of poor within the community, The poor American art student or destitute writer may be a fairly well-known figure to an American audience at least, but the down-at-heel veteran, the struggling English teacher or the jailed American in Paris is not. Yet from the late nineteenth century into the twentieth, stereotypes (and the two previous chapters) notwithstanding, not all Americans in Paris were rich, upstanding lawyers, dentists or manufacturers’ representatives. The City of Light also attracted – and produced – under-funded, overspending Americans who had to turn to the American Aid Society for help. And the French capital was also riddled with a small, but lively assortment of wayward souls. Some ended up in French jails, in spite of themselves or as willful crooks. Altogether this motley lot of the financially “down” and the legally “out” were a frequent enough if frequently ignored phenomenon. (pages 143 - 182)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Down and Out in Paris - Nancy L. Green
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226137520.003.0007
[philanthropy, American Francophilia, American Francophobia, French Americanophilia, French anti-Americanism]
Americans clustered in Paris and created their own institutions. But this chapter turns the “community” paradigm on its head and re-examines the archives and club records in another way to underline the Franco-American connections. No matter how proudly and defiantly “American,” most of the clubs and organizations set up by Americans for Americans were also meeting places where French friends and associates were welcomed and could even, under certain circumstances, become members. This chapter looks at the social and even philanthropic “mixers” (the latter another form of albeit very structured interaction) as well as the abundant “cross-eyed” literature. Instead of the usually separate studies of American Francophilia or French anti-Americanism, it is important to understand the entire range of Franco-American reciprocal visions: American Francophilia, American Francophobia, French Americanophilia and French anti-Americanism. The constants and the contradictions, the permeability of encounters and impressions all underscore the kaleidoscope of attitudes. (pages 183 - 202)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
French Connections, Reciprocal Visions - Nancy L. Green
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226137520.003.0008
[Americanization, identity, elite migrants, transnationalism, assimilation]
Americans left Paris in two major waves: after the stock market crash and with the onset of the Second World War. This chapter explores both moments, largely through the eyes of a lawyer, a socialite, and a host of other individuals who lived through them both. Many stuck it out in Paris after the May 1940 Exodus, but eventually they too had to pack their bags and return home. It was the end of an era for many who had lived in Paris for years if not decades. They turned once again to the Embassy, drew up extensive inventories of their belongings in order to get protection certificates, and as a result, have left a rich trail revealing the material culture of these elite migrants in the French capital. (pages 203 - 236)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Heading Home - Nancy L. Green
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226137520.003.0009
[Americanization, identity, elite migrants, transnationalism, assimilation]
Many Americans consciously carried their capital and their culture on their sleeve, interacting with the locals as unremitting “Americanizers,” bringing their own vision of modernity to the world. Wending their way between American and French business and social practices, overseas Americans have run the gamut from boisterous boosterism to active assimilation to foreign ways. The expatriate experiences of the lawyers and socialites, a necessary complement to Gertrude Stein’s inimitable salon, show how these elite migrants navigated between two systems, in business as in marriage and divorce. Ironically, if these transnationals were sometimes too American for the French, they could also be seen as too soft on the French for Americans at home. But, like most foreigners, they most often claimed that they were caught between two worlds. (pages 237 - 254)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
