Date of Award

2021

Document Type

Honors Thesis (Open Access)

Department

Colby College. Economics Dept.

Advisor(s)

Samara Gunter

Second Advisor

James Siodla

Third Advisor

David Freidenreich

Abstract

I examine the college attendance patterns of second-generation Russian-Jewish immigrants in Maine in the early 20th century relative to other ethnic groups using individual-level Census records. I employ the Abramitzky, Boustan, and Eriksson (ABE) algorithm to track second-generation Jewish, Italian, French Canadian, English Canadian and European immigrants from the 1910 Census to the 1940 Census. My logistic regression analysis indicates that second-generation Jewish immigrants in Maine attended college at significantly higher rates than their peers of similar background in every other ethnic group. While I cannot evaluate them, I also discuss potential explanations for the disparity in college attendance between Jews and other groups.

Keywords

Jewish, college attendance, immigration, Maine

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