Teaching Philosophy and Materials
Cahan, "A Sweatshop Romance"
Once again, as with other texts this semester, when we spoke of Cahan's short story, we spoke of "translation." As Cahan was the editor of the most widely distributed Yiddish language newspaper in America and was a central figure in New York Jewish community in the early 20th century, we know that he was invested in making the transition to American culture more comprehensible to "greenhorns." Many articles in The Jewish Daily Forward concerned this transition. We can clearly see that he was a documenter of Jewish culture in New York as comprised of people from many eastern European nations, who had all come to America with a desire to "succeed" and, as a great motivation, to escape persecution, most dramatically in the form of pogroms in their homelands. I spoke to you about the phenomenon of "diaspora" and how the Jewish diaspora is often described as the archetypal diaspora. A "diaspora" is, in essence, a "scattering." Jews were scattered across the globe and in many countries they strove to form coherent communities comprised of those in diaspora in the new land. We see this clearly in Cahan's story. In the "sweatshop" in the tenement building, we see a sample of this diasporic Jewish population. We see adherence to a faith, we see the specter of social codes from the old country, and we see a refusal by some of these codes in the new country. We see posturing, conviction, and invention all in the same tale, a tale that is nominally a "romance," as the title tells us. So, within the frame of a romance, we see a whole lot.
We detect efforts of assimilation, certainly. We see the mechanisms of the (proto-)industrial workplace, in the "sweatshop." We see family dynamics, in Leizer's family, and in the relationship between the visiting rabbi and his wife. We also see as emerging "American family," in a way, in the blossoming romance between Beile and David. That Beile and Heyman do not marry is significant. We discussed what kind of man Heyman is, per Cahan's description. Can he be the Jewish American hero? Cahan gives us a definitive answer to this question in the end. What it takes to succeed in America -- in work, romance, or in the sustaining of one's culture -- is conviction.
Some of the themes we noted in this story were assimilation, class, language, translation, gender, and immigration. We've discussed these topics in the past, vis-a-vis another texts. You might consider any one of these as it comes into play in this short story.
From what "place" does Cahan write? Certainly, his fiction is informed by his own immigrant experience, his own experience in his homeland, his own religion, and his own perception of the state of other immigrants who he sees around him. Do we see a picture of a vital Jewish community emerging in his story, one that exhibits adaptability and conviction (to morals, to faith, to . . . anything else)? Finally, think about the "setting" of this story. What does this tell us about the industry in which these immigrants work? The garment industry, as your introduction tells you, employed many Jewish immigrants. What kind of "insight," as your introduction notes, does this story give you into that industry?
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