“The man with a job to offer or land to sell has been America's land interpreter. On him has fallen the burden of presenting its romance, adventure, and beauty. He has failed so often because the land was not enriched by that cultural development and by those associations which satisfy the immigrant's need. The method has been to build a good industrial plant and to let the village grow up about it, with little thought of satisfying the longings of men for religion, knowledge, recreation, or even so simple a thing as gardens. Some time ago a factory having some idle land wondered what it could do for Mr. Hoover and started factory gardens, giving each man a small plot. The management made a discovery. The gardens cut down labor turnover. The crops were worth very little money, but the men did not want to leave until they had their potatoes in.”
What is Americanization? (1919)
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Frances Kellor 37
American sociologist 1873–1952Related quotes

“America has been transformed from a land of growing economic plenty into a hollow shell.”
The Fine Print (2013)

Speech to the Empire Rally of Youth at the Royal Albert Hall (18 May 1937), quoted in Service of Our Lives (1937), pp. 162-163.
1937
Context: The twenty post-War years have shown that war does not settle the account. There is a balance brought forward. When emancipation is achieved a new slavery may begin. The moment of victory may be the beginning of defeat. The days which saw the framing of the League of Nations saw the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. Should both be entered on the credit side? Twenty years ago we should all have said, "Yes"; to-day the reply would be doubtful, for both have belied the hopes of mankind and given place to disillusion. Freedom for common men, which was to have been the fruit of victory, is once more in jeopardy in our own land because it has been taken away from the common men of other lands.

1940s, Third inaugural address (1941)

“No poet in England has ever been in the masses what Tulsidas has been to the people of this land.”
Edwin Greaves, in "A Garden of Deeds: Ramacharitmanas, a Message of Human Ethics", p. 35
On Tulsidas’s epic Ramacharritamanas
Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter VII : "It's Just Like Living", p. 162