Three pieces of American writing, and one voice never written down. Read each one, then answer the questions beside it.
1790A letter from the President
George Washington, President of the United States, wrote to the Jewish congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, on August 18, 1790, the day after they welcomed him to town. He called them “the Hebrew Congregation.” “Hebrew” was the word then used for Jewish.
“For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.” (In 1790, “demean themselves” meant “behave.”)
Who wrote it?
Who was it for?
What kind of writing?
1883A poem for a statue
Emma Lazarus, a Jewish poet born in New York City, wrote a fourteen-line poem in November 1883 to help pay for the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal. She called the statue “Mother of Exiles.” Since 1903 the poem has been on a bronze plaque at the statue, still on Liberty Island today. Its last five lines are below.
1“Give me your tired, your poor, 2Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 3The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 4Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, 5I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Who wrote it?
Who is speaking?
What kind of writing?
1915A studio, a voice in pictures
Carl Laemmle, a Jewish immigrant born in 1867 in Laupheim, Germany, arrived in America at seventeen. He ran a nickel movie theater, then made films himself. In 1915 he opened Universal City, a whole town built for making movies. Most of the big Hollywood studios were founded by Jewish immigrants or their sons. This voice is not written down. It is in the movies.
Who built it?
Where was he from?
What kind of voice?
1918A song: “God Bless America”
Irving Berlin, a Jewish immigrant, was born Israel Beilin in the Russian Empire in 1888. He came to New York with his family in 1893, at about five, and grew up to write more than a thousand songs. He wrote this one in 1918 at an Army camp, for a soldiers’ show, then put it away. In 1938 he rewrote it as a song about peace, and Kate Smith sang it on the radio that November. Its words are still under copyright, so they are not printed here. You have probably heard them at a ballgame.
K–5 Lesson