University of North Carolina Press
Welsh Americans: A History of Assimilation in the Coalfields
Key Metrics
- Ronald L Lewis
- University of North Carolina Press
- Paperback
- 9781469614892
- 9.21 X 6.14 X 0.91 inches
- 1.37 pounds
- Social Science > Emigration & Immigration
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Lewis describes how Welsh immigrants brought their national churches, fraternal orders and societies, love of literature and music, and, most important, their own language. Yet unlike eastern and southern Europeans and the Irish, the Welsh--even with their foreign ways--encountered no apparent hostility from the Americans. Often within a single generation, Welsh cultural institutions would begin to fade and a new Welsh American identity developed.
True to the perspective of the Welsh themselves, Lewis's analysis adopts a transnational view of immigration, examining the maintenance of Welsh coal-mining culture in the United States and in Wales. By focusing on Welsh coal miners, Welsh Americans illuminates how Americanization occurred among a distinct group of skilled immigrants and demonstrates the diversity of the labor migrations to a rapidly industrializing America.
Author Bio
Upon receiving the PhD in 1974, I began my teaching career at the University of Delaware. With a joint appointment in the Black American Studies Program and the Department of History, I was promoted through the ranks to Professor while at the U of D. During my eleven years there, I taught African American history.
My research focused on the uneasy intersection of race and labor in America. I also became interested in regional studies while at the U of D, and offered a graduate seminar on Appalachian history and culture. When I was hired at WVU in 1985 to teach West Virginia and Appalachian history, the pieces of my second career as a regional historian fell into place. WVU has been good to me and my family, and in retirement we continue to call Morgantown home.
My professional activities have slowed considerably, but I still occupy myself with several research projects.
Education
Ph.D. 1974 and M.A. 1971, University of Akron (American History)
B.A. (1966), Ohio University (Political Science and Economics)
Source: West Virginia University
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