The WWI-era reformer who urged America to welcome immigrants — and assimilate them

In the early 20th century, the United States was experiencing one of the largest waves of immigration in its history. As millions of newcomers from across Europe settled into major cities to build new lives, sharply differing views emerged over how the country should manage that transformation.

At the center of that debate stood Frances Kellor, a leading figure of the Progressive Era's reform movement. Trained in law and deeply engaged in social reform work, Kellor focused much of her career on the question of how immigrants should integrate into American society.

When World War I broke out, the loyalty of America's immigrant population became a matter of national concern. The country grew increasingly preoccupied with the question of how attached immigrants from warring European nations truly were to their adopted homeland.

Against that backdrop, Kellor led efforts to organize a celebration known as Americanization Day. The event was designed to encourage immigrants to celebrate American citizenship and embrace the values of their new country.

Kellor's approach, by the standards of her time, cut two ways. On one hand, it stressed that immigrants were welcome in America and accepted as part of the nation. On the other, that acceptance was implicitly conditioned on immigrants largely setting aside their own cultural identities in favor of adopting an American way of life.

This emphasis on "assimilation" stood in sharp contrast to today's more multicultural framing of immigration debates. Kellor and her contemporaries believed national unity depended not on different cultures coexisting side by side, but on rallying around a single, shared American identity.

The movement's motivations weren't purely exclusionary. Kellor also pushed back against explicitly anti-immigrant groups, arguing that immigrants were a valuable part of American society. But that advocacy centered on urging immigrants to conform to American norms rather than defending their right to preserve their differences.

Americanization Day celebrations evolved over the years into formal ceremonies held in cities across the country. Immigrants would repeat citizenship oaths at these public events, with local officials and community leaders often taking part.

Historians today weigh Kellor's legacy from a complicated angle. She is remembered as a progressive figure who pushed back against openly exclusionary rhetoric toward immigrants, while at the same time championing an assimilationist vision that framed cultural difference itself as something to be managed away.

Kellor's story reflects a tension that persists today: the question of how a society "welcomes" immigrants remains, as it was then, tightly bound up with the question of how much those immigrants are expected to change.