Presentation in Minneapolis, April 2010

Presentation, held together with Annemarie Steidl and Jim Oberley:

»The Transnational Migration Experience. The Austrian-American Connection 1870–1914«.

›Minnesota Population Center Seminar Series‹, Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis/MN, April 19, 2010.

Abstract: : Social scientists and historians have developed a rich body of research on transatlantic migration during the 19th and 20th centuries, but most studies have addressed migration as a phenomenon affecting either individual nation states or individual ethnicities. To overcome such limitations the comparative approach serves a valuable purpose. The extensive territory of the multi-ethnic Habsburg Monarchy provides as an excellent case study for such an analysis. The panel presentation will be devoted to questions of how ethnicities were recorded by state officials, how ‘migrant elites’ grouped themselves, and how we, as scholars, are constantly defining our own groups.

The project is based at the Center for Austrian Studies and will use census material from the Minnesota Population Center, census material from the former Austria-Hungary and manifests from shipping lists, as well as qualitative archival material from the Immigration History Research Center and the Minnesota Historical Society.

Co sponsored by:  Center for Austrian Studies, Global Race Ethnicity and Migration Series, Immigration History Research Center, Institute for Global Studies, and Minnesota Population Center