Lawrence Harold Larsen

Abstract: III

Abstract: El Paso Native Owen Payne White eulogized the passing of the frontier in his numerous books and articles about El Paso and the Southwest. For White and authors like C. L. Sonnichsen and H. Gordon Frost the El Paso of the past was a glorious tribute to gambling prostitution and above all lawlessness. White regretted El Paso’s transformation in the last decade of the nineteenth century from “a town of twelve thousand that was about 80 percent adobe and 92 percent sinners” to “a city of twenty five thousand that was 75 percent brick and only 90 percent sinners.” He also bewailed its “descent into obscurity” which occurred when “Civic Pride and Reform and Social Consciousness” closed the bordellos and dance halls of the Utah Street red-light district and attempted to end “El Paso’s chief industry which of course was sin.” This case study circumscribed by time (the Progressive Era) and locale (the El Paso borderlands) examines how national sociopolitical concerns played out in a regional context. During the Progressive Era coalitions of diverse and disparate reformers attempted to solve perceived problems within urban industrialized society. These reformers shared a belief that “objective” scientific experts from medicine and the social sciences held answers for a civilization destined to progress. While many groups debated the causes and cures of prostitution sexuality and venereal disease the impulse for reform in sexual matters manifested itself in opposing directions: some sought the regulation and inspection of prostitutes others the suppression of vice through public education or the abolition of the vice trade by criminalizing it. (excerpt)

Abstract: The North American West is a culturally and geographically diverse region that has long been a beacon for successive waves of human immigration and migration. A case in point, the population of Lincoln, Nebraska-a capital city on the eastern cusp of the Great Plains-was augmented during the twentieth century by significant influxes of Germans from Russia, Omaha Indians, and Vietnamese. Arriving in clusters beginning in 1876, 1941, and 1975 respectively, these newcomers were generally set in motion by dismal economic, social, or political situations in their sending nations. Seeking better lives, they entered a mainstream milieu dominated by native-born Americans---most part of a lateral migration from Iowa, Illinois, and Pennsylvania---who only established their local community in 1867. While this mainstream welcomed their labor, it often eschewed the behaviors and cultural practices ethnic peoples brought with them. Aware but not overly concerned about these prejudices, all three groups constructed or organized distinct urban villages. The physical forms of these enclaves ranged from homogeneous neighborhoods to tight assemblies of relatives, but each suited a shared preference for living among kinspeople. These urban villages also served as stable anchors for unique peoples who were intent on maintaining aspects of their imported cultural identities. Never willing to assimilate to mainstream norms, urban villagers began adapting to their new milieus. While ethnic identity constructions in Lincoln proved remarkably enduring, they were also amazingly flexible. In fact, each subject group constantly negotiated their identities in response to interactions among particular, cosmopolitan, and transnational forces. Particularism refers largely to the beliefs, behaviors, and organizational patterns urban villagers imported from their old milieus. Cosmopolitan influences emanated from outside the ethnic groups and were dictated largely but not exclusively by the mainstream. Transnationalism is best defined as persistent, intense contact across international boundaries. These influences were important as the particularism of dispersed peoples was often reinforced by contact with sending cultures.