This paper examines the contrasting and competing images of Polish peasants in American popular non-fiction. In the period from 1900 to 1940 native-born Americans became increasingly concerned about immigration and its effect on American society. Of particular concern were immigrants from eastern and southern Europe, who were usually viewed as "racially" inferior and a "threat" to Anglo-America. This concern led to restrictive legislation in the 1920s, aimed at these ethnic groups, which effectively ended their mass entry into the United States. At the same time, Americans were also becoming increasingly aware of the world outside of the United States through the pages of such popular publications as National Geographic. With greater disposable income, especially in the 1920s, more Americans were able to visit foreign countries than ever before.
Although Poland was never a major destination for American tourists, it did attract its share of travel writers looking for an "exotic" foreign destination (much like tourists to Peru in the late twentieth century). American travel writers viewed the Polish peasantry (who made up the vast majority of Poland's population), as exotic, quaint, and colorful additions to the scenery. Their overall attitudes toward Polish peasants were likely to be shaped by the attitude of the Polish upper class and intelligentsia (the one group able to speak English to any significant degree). Despite an obvious degree of condescension, however, American travel writers tended to view Polish peasants in a rather favorable light.
This stands in sharp contrast to the way writers in popular non-fiction journals viewed Polish peasants when they came to America as Immigrants. The image of the colorful peasant disappeared, replaced with a picture of crude, brutal, sub-human beasts who formed a racial "threat" to Anglo-Americans.
In the final analysis, neither picture of the Polish peasant was accurate, and each said far more about the writers, and their goals and world views, than it did about the subjects they were describing. Travel writers looking for interesting destinations and influenced by popular anthropology and sociology, were apt to see "traditional" locals who, while poor, possessed "colorful" customs and folkways. Other non-fiction writers, influenced by popular ideas of race and ethnicity and expressing fear of the "other," projected that fear onto a large and rather visible group of new immigrants.
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