*Bolded text in the articles is important information about The View From The Bridge*

AMERICAN MASTERS: Arthur Miller Biography.. pg. 2-3

Article from http://www.pbs.org

Arthurs Miller A View From The Bridge Is A Cold War Political Allegory As
Well As A Family Tragedy...... pg. 4-8
Article from www.huffingtonpost.com

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (The McCarran-Walter Act)

... pg. 9-10
Article from www.history.state.gov

The History of Immigrants in Brooklyn ... pg. 11-13

Article from www.explorebk.com

Italian Society and Art From 1945 to 1950 .... pg. 14-15
Article from www.lifeinitaly.com

Women in the 1950s . pg. 16-18

Article from www.khanacademy.org

Gay in the 1950s .. pg. 19-22

Article from www.lgbt.foundation

Student Guide
What to Know about A View From the Bridge .. pg. 23-26
Information from www.sparknotes.com

Glossary .... pg. 27

Definitions from www.dictionary.com

1
 AMERICAN MASTERS: Arthur Miller Biography

In the period immediately following the end of World War II, American theater was transformed
by the work of playwright Arthur Miller. Profoundly influenced by the Depression and the war
that immediately followed it, Miller tapped into a sense of dissatisfaction and unrest within
the greater American psyche. His probing dramas proved to be both the conscience and
redemption of the times, allowing people an honest view of the direction the country had
taken.

Arthur Miller was born in Manhattan in 1915 to Jewish immigrant parents. By 1928, the family
had moved to Brooklyn, after their garment manufacturing business began to fail. Witnessing
the societal decay of the Depression and his fathers desperation due to business failures had
an enormous effect on Miller. After graduating from high school, Miller worked a number of jobs
and saved up the money for college. In 1934, he enrolled in the University of Michigan and
spent much of the next four years learning to write and working on a number of well-received
plays.

After graduating, Miller returned to New York, where he worked as a freelance writer. In 1944,
his first play, The Man Who Had All the Luck, opened to horrible reviews. A story about an
incredibly successful man who is unhappy with that success, The Man Who Had All The Luck
was already addressing the major themes of Millers later work. In 1945, Miller published a
novel, FOCUS, and two years later had his first play on Broadway. All My Sons, a tragedy
about a manufacturer who sells faulty parts to the military in order to save his business, was an
instant success. Concerned with morality in the face of desperation, All My Sons appealed to a
nation having recently gone through both a war and depression.

Only two years after the success of All My Sons,

Miller came out with his most famous and
well-respected work, Death of a Salesman. Dealing
again with both desperation and paternal
responsibility. Death of a Salesman focused on a
failed businessman as he tries to remember and
reconstruct his life. Eventually killing himself to leave
his son insurance money, the salesman seems a
tragic character out of Shakespeare or Dostoevsky.
Winning both a Pulitzer Prize and a Drama Critics
Circle Award, the play ran for more than 700 performances. Within a short while, it had been
translated into over a dozen languages and had made its author a millionaire.

Overwhelmed by post-war paranoia and intolerance, Miller began work on the third of his major
plays. Though it was clearly an indictment of the McCarthyism of the early 1950s, The Crucible
was set in Salem during the witch-hunts of the late 17th century. The play, which deals with

2
extraordinary tragedy in ordinary lives, expanded Millers voice and his concern for the
physical and psychological well being of the working class. Within three years, Miller was
called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and convicted of contempt of
Congress for not cooperating. A difficult time in his life, Miller ended a short and turbulent
marriage with actress Marilyn Monroe. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he wrote very little of
note, concentrating at first on issues of guilt over the Holocaust, and later moving into comedies.

It was not until the 1991 productions of his The Ride Down Mount Morgan and The Last
Yankee that Millers career began to see a resurgence. Boths plays returned to the themes of
success and failure that he had dealt with in earlier works. Concerning himself with the
American Dream, and the average Americans pursuit of it, Miller recognized a link between
poverty of the 1920s and the wealth of the 1980s. Encouraged by the success of these works, a
number of his earlier pieces returned to the stage for revival performances.

More than any other living

playwright working today,
Arthur Miller has dedicated
himself to the investigation
of moral plight of the
white American working
class. With a sense of
realism and a strong ear for
the American vernacular,
Miller has created
characters whose voices
are an important part of
the American landscape.
His insight into the psychology of desperation and his ability to create stories that express the
deepest meanings of struggle, have made him one of the most highly regarded and widely
performed American playwrights.

3
Arthur Millers A View From The Bridge Is A Cold War Political Allegory As
Well As A Family Tragedy

By: Peter Dreier

Last year, the 100th anniversary of playwright Arthur Millers birth, saw a remarkable revival of
five of his plays. A View From the Bridge and The Crucible opened on Broadway. A staging
of Incident at Vichy took place Off-Broadway. The New Yiddish Rep staged a Yiddish version
of his most famous work, Death of a Salesman (with English subtitles). Millers lesser-known
play Broken Glass opened at the Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut.

Ivo van Hoves production of A View From the Bridge generated the most interest because of
the unusual staging. It got rave reviews in London (winning the Olivier award) and had a similar
reception last year in New York (winning the Tony award). That production recently opened at
the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles and I saw it on Thursday night. Ive seen the play at least
five times and it is my third favorite among Millers plays, after The Price and All My Sons.

I wasnt crazy about some aspects of van Hoves version. The set was too spare and the
performances were too stylized. Even so, I was impressed with all the actors, especially
Frederick Weller as Eddie Carbone, with the exception of Thomas Jay Ryans characterization
of Alfieri, the lawyer who serves as the plays narrator and one-person Greek chorus,
whose voice and posture lacked the moral gravitas that the role requires. Miller intended the
character of 18-year old Catherine to be sexually innocent and naive, but the directors
insistence that Catherine (played extremely well by Catherine Combs) constantly jump into her
uncle Eddies arms and wrap her legs around him strains credulity. I was also disturbed by the
low-level music constantly humming during the play, and the occassional drum sounds, which
all seemed designed to alert the audience to various turning points in the play and the overall
theme of doom and tragedy. In other versions Ive seen, the director trusts the actors and
audience to get the point.

The play centers on Eddie Carbone, a longshoreman who lives in Brooklyns Red Hook
working class and mostly Italian neighborhood in the 1950s with his wife Beatrice and his
18-year old niece, Catherine. From the start we see that Carbone has too much affection
for the niece, who has lived with the Carbones since her parents died when she was very
young. Beatrice is clearly jealous of Catherine, who has finished high school and is
enrolled in a secretarial school. When shes offered a job as a secretary in a nearby
business, Catherine encourages her to take the job and move out, but Eddie wants her to
stay in school and stay in their home.

The Carbones lives are disrupted when two of their relatives from Italy brothers Marco
and Rodolpho arrive in the U.S. as illegal immigrants. Back then, Italian Americans
were expected to welcome their relatives into their homes, help them find jobs, and

4
protect them from immigration authorities, and Eddie pledges to do so. But when a
relationship begins between Rodolpho and Catherine, Eddie becomes jealous, but tries
to mask his feelings by expressing concern that Rodolpho only wants to marry Catherine
so he can become a U.S. citizen. Catherine is in love with the good-looking and
easy-going Rodolpho and doesnt buy Eddies accusations. So Eddie tries to persuade
her that Rodolpho is homosexual, although he never uses that word. (He says that
Rodolpho aint right and other euphemisms). Eddie can barely contain his lust for
Catherine. At one point, Eddie and Rodolpho get into a heated argument in front of her.
But instead of punching Rodolpho, Eddie kisses him on the lips in order to expose and
shame him for what he perceives as his rivals homosexuality. The situation spirals out
of control after that and, as were led to feel from the very beginning of the play, ends in
tragedy.

Indeed, most critics have viewed A View From the Bridge as a story of personal and family
tragedy, as it certainly is. But theres much more to the play, including a political undercurrent
that is easily missed if one isnt familiar with Millers biography, including his personal and
political experiences. Indeed, the plays back story is as fascinating as the play itself.

It begins in 1947, when Miller was doing research for a screenplay in Red Hook,which is
near the Brooklyn docks and where a lot of longshoremen and their families lived. That
screenplay eventually became The Hook, which was based on a true story about the battle
within the longshoremans union. Miller finished the screenplay in 1950 and wanted his friend
Elia Kazan to direct the film. Kazan had directed Millers first two blockbuster Broadway plays,
All My Sons in 1947 and Death of a Salesman in 1949.

In 1951, Miller and Kazan traveled to Los Angeles to try to get a Hollywood studio to finance the
film. Harry Cohn, the president of Columbia Pictures, expressed an interest in making the film
but insisted that the enemy in the film be changed from corrupted union leaders to
Communists, which he viewed as a greater threat to the dock workers. This was the McCarthy
era. All the major Hollywood studios were trying to demonstrate how patriotic and
anti-Communist they were. But Miller refused to change the script and the project died.

A few years later, Budd Schulberg, a novelist and screenwriter, worked with Kazan on a
screenplay for On the Waterfront, which made Marlon Brando famous and earned an
Academy Award. On the Waterfront, is a total rip-off of The Hook. What had changed
between Miller writing The Hook and Kazan directing On the Waterfront is part of Cold War
and Hollywood lore. Kazan and Schulberg, both former Depression-era Communists, had
become friendly witnesses before HUAC, informing on (naming names) their former friends
and fellow Communists, for which both (especially Kazan) earned decades of hatred among
liberals, progressives, and radicals in Hollywood. Miller, in contrast, was also called before
HUAC but refused to name names.

5
On the Waterfront, which came out in 1954, was clearly meant to justify Kazans decision to
name names and became an informer. The hero of the film, Terry Malloy, played by Brando,
informs on his his friends (including his brother), who are corrupt leaders of the longshoremans
union. The film portrays Malloy as a brave and heroic figure, who (with the support of his
girlfriend and a local priest) testifies before a government committee against the corrupt union
bosses, who were clearly meant as a stand-in for corrupt Communists.

Meanwhile, Miller was writing his own play about the Red Hook neighborhood that hed first
visited in 1947. He wrote it in 10 days in 1955 as a one-act play (which was staged in New York
that year), and the following year expanded it to a full-length play (which opened in London in
1956 before coming to New York City). He based it on a story hed heard in 1947 that
reminded him of the plot of a Greek tragedy. An Italian-American longshoreman had
turned in to authorities two illegal immigrants, relatives he had been sheltering in his
home, in order to stop one of them from marrying his niece. He was banished and later
killed. In that neighborhood, there was a clear code of honor: one doesnt inform on
illegal immigrants - most of whom were family members of the Italian Americans. If you
inform on your fellow Italians, you will be disgraced and, some cases, killed for violating
the code.

That was the origin of View From the Bridge, which debuted on Broadway in 1955, a year after
On the Waterfront opened in movie theaters. Although View from the Bridge has no explicit
political references, when it opened in September 1955 many critics recognized Eddie Carbone
as a stand-in for informants, rats and stool pigeons people who betrayed their
friends during the Red Scare witchhunt.

Carbone, however, is not a one-dimensional figure. Hes not simply a rat. Hes also a
tragic character, which means that despite Millers antipathy toward Kazan (they were never
friends again) and other informers, he had some empathy for the situation they were in. Toward
the end of A View From the Bridge, Eddie tries to do the right thing by telling his niece to
get the two immigrant brothers out of the house right away. He realized that hed done
the wrong thing by calling the immigration agents (to force Rudolpho to leave the
country). He wanted Catherine to get them out of the house before the immigration
agents arrived, but he couldnt tell her why, which would expose the fact that hed called
the immigration agents. By that point in the play, Katherine no longer trusted Eddie, so
she didnt do as he asked. The result is that the immigration agent came to the house and
told the older brother, Marco, that hed be deported back to Italy. Ironically, Rodolpho
could stay in the U.S. because he was going to marry Catherine.

Schulberg and Kazan took different sides than Miller in the metaphorical battle during the
McCarthy era. Millers View from the Bridge portrays informing as evil, while Schulberg and
Kazans On the Waterfront portrays informing as virtuous.

6
Obviously A View from the Bridge isnt simply a metaphor about McCarthyism and
informing. A few years earlier, Miller had an affair with Marilyn Monroe, which ruined his
marriage. A View from the Bridge reflects Millers recognition that sexual passion can
become a self-destructive obsession. (He later married and then divorced Monroe). One can
also view Eddies feelings for Catherine as a version of incest.

Eddies antipathy toward Rodolpho is clearly due his jealousy due to his own passion for
his niece, who is thus off-limits to him. But the argument he made to his wife Beatrice,
and to Katherine, was that Rodolpho was homosexual. However, we also learn that Eddie
had stopped having sex with his wife, about which she complains to him and which she
suspects is due to his passion for Catherine. But it could also be possible that he
stopped having sex with Beatrice was because he was a latent homosexual. When he
kissed Rodolpho, were supposed to think it was to shame him and to show the others
that Rodolpho was gay. But he could simply have make that accession to his face, in
front of others, to send that message. He didnt have to kiss him. So Miller might have
been suggesting that he was not only angry at Rodolpho for stealing Catherine away
from him, but also angry at himself for his suppressed homosexual feelings. That Eddie
and Beatrice, both church-going Italian Catholics in the 1950s, have no children also
suggests that their lack of sexual intimacy may have as much to do with his sexual
orientation (or perhaps impotence sexual as well as social and political) as his lust for
his niece.

Sidney Lumet directed a French-Italian film version of A View From The Bridge, which was
released in 1962. It starred Raf Vallone as Eddie, Maureen Stapleton as Beatrice, and Carol
Lawrence as Catherine. It didnt do well at the box office but it made a bit of film history. It was
the first film screened in America that showed a kiss between men. In 2005, Barry
Levinson announced that he would direct another film version of the play with Anthony LaPaglia
as Eddie, Scarlett Johansson as Shannon, and Frances McDormand as Beatrice, but it was
never made.

So, whatever happened to The Hook, the screenplay that Miller wrote in 1950 but which was
never made into a film? It was finally produced last year, not as a film but as a play, by a British
theater company. The British production got a lot of attention, not only in England but also in the
U.S., although it has not yet been staged in the U.S. Miller died in 2005, so the British producer
and director got an American playwright to revise Millers screenplay into a play. The review of
The Hook in the New York Times provided some of the plays history, but didnt mention that
On the Waterfront was a rip-off of The Hook years ago. Another r eview, in a British
publication, said that the two were similarly plotted. The reviewer cant quite bring himself to
say the Kazan and Schulberg stole Millers idea.

7
Until the days they died, Schulberg and Kazan claimed that they wrote On the Waterfront
independently from Millers original version of The Hook, but that is obviously a lie. Some
articles about the On the Waterfront take Schulberg and Kazans side in this dispute, while
others see the clear line between the two stories. Whats remarkable is that Miller never publicly
rebuked Kazan or Schulberg for the heist.

Both Kazan and Schulberg were already major figures, but On the Waterfront solidified their
reputations.

Prior to On the Waterfront, Kazan had won plaudits as both a Broadway director (All My
Sons, Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire, among them) and a Hollywood
director for such films as Gentlemens Agreement (1947) about antisemitism, Pinky (1949)
about racism, A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), which gave Brandos his first big break in film,
and Viva Zapata (1952). After On the Waterfront (1954), he directed East of Eden (1955),
A Face in the Crowd (1957), Wild River (1960), Splendor in the Grass (1961), the
autobiographical America America (1963), and The Arrangement (1969). During his career,
he won two Oscars as Best Director, won three Tony Awards, and four Golden Globes.

Schulberg was already well-known for two highly-acclaimed novels - What Makes Sammy
Run? (1941) and The Harder They Fall (1947) before he joined forces with Kazan with On
the Waterfront. What Makes Sammy Run? about upward mobility among working class Jews,
was turned into several TV dramas as well as a successful Broadway play and later a musical.
The Harder They Fall was turned into a wonderful 1956 film noir about the moral bankruptcy of
boxing, starring Humphrey Bogart, based on the life of heavyweight boxer Primo Carnera.
Schulberg won the 1954 Academy Award for his On the Waterfront screenplay, while the film
also captured the Oscars for Best Picture, best Director ( Kazan), Best Actor (Brando), Best
Supporting Actress (Eva Marie Saint), and several others. Schulberg also wrote the screenplay
for the 1957 film A Face in the Crowd, which is one of the greatest unsung films of all time,
anticipating the political power of television. It Andy Griffith in a remarkable dramatic role as a
country singer, radio, and TV star who uses his celebrity to influence the political views of his
followers and whose support candidates for political office seek. Many people this year have
rediscovered the film because the Griffith character is a lot like Donald Trump.

Like Eddie Carbone, Kazan and Schulberg faced opprobrium from Hollywood liberals and
progressives for naming names They may have suffered emotionally from the
widespread hatred, but it didnt harm their careers. Nor did the fact that their best-known
collaboration was based on an idea that they pilfered from Arthur Miller have any
negative consequences on their fame and fortune. But perhaps if Kazan and Schulberg
hadnt stolen The Hook from Miller, the great playwright would not have felt compelled
to write another waterfront story, A View From the Bridge.

8
 The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952(The McCarran-Walter Act)
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 upheld the national origins quota system
established by the Immigration Act of 1924, reinforcing this controversial system of immigrant
selection.

It also ended Asian exclusion from immigrating to the United States and introduced a
system of preferences based on skill sets and family reunification. Situated in the early
years of the Cold War, the debate over the revision of U.S. immigration law demonstrated a
division between those interested in the relationship between immigration and foreign policy,
and those linking immigration to concerns over national security. The former group, led by
individuals like Democrat Congressman from New York Emanuel Celler, favored the
liberalization of immigration laws. Celler expressed concerns that the restrictive quota system
heavily favored immigration from Northern and Western Europe and therefore created
resentment against the United States in other parts of the world. He felt the law created the
sense that Americans thought people from Eastern Europe as less desirable and people from
Asia inferior to those of European descent. The latter group, led by Democratic Senator from
Nevada Pat McCarran and Democratic Congressman from Pennsylvania Francis Walter,
expressed concerns that the United States could face communist infiltration through
immigration and that unassimilated aliens could threaten the foundations of American
life. To these individuals, limited and selective immigration was the best way to ensure
the preservation of national security and national interests.

Remarkably, economic factors were relatively unimportant in the debate over the
new immigration provisions. Although past arguments in favor of restrictionism focused on
the needs of the American economy and labor force, in 1952, the Cold War seemed to take
precedent in the discussion. Notably, the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of
Industrial Organizations took opposite sides in the debate, demonstrating that there was not
one, clear pro-labor position.

At the basis of the Act was the continuation and codification of the National Origins
Quota System. It revised the 1924 system to allow for national quotas at a rate of one-sixth of
one percent of each nationalitys population in the United States in 1920. As a result, 85
percent of the 154,277 visas available annually were allotted to individuals of northern
and western European lineage. The Act continued the practice of not including countries in
the Western Hemisphere in the quota system, though it did introduce new length of residency
requirements to qualify for quota-free entry.

The 1952 Act created symbolic opportunities for Asian immigration, though in reality it
continued to discriminate against them. The law repealed the last of the existing measures to
exclude Asian immigration, allotted each Asian nation a minimum quota of 100 visas each year,
and eliminated laws preventing Asians from becoming naturalized American citizens. Breaking
down the Asiatic Barred Zone was a step toward improving U.S. relations with Asian nations.
At the same time, however, the new law only allotted new Asian quotas based on race, instead
of nationality. An individual with one or more Asian parent, born anywhere in the world and
9
possessing the citizenship of any nation, would be counted under the national quota of the
Asian nation of his or her ethnicity or against a generic quota for the Asian Pacific Triangle.
Low quota numbers and a uniquely racial construction for how to apply them ensured that total
Asian immigration after 1952 would remain very limited.

There were other positive changes to the implementation of immigration policy in the
1952 Act. One was the creation of a system of preferences which served to help American
consuls abroad prioritize visa applicants in countries with heavily oversubscribed quotas. Under
the preference system, individuals with special skills or families already resident in the
United States received precedence, a policy still in use today. Moreover, the Act gave
non-quota status to alien husbands of American citizens (wives had been entering outside of the
quota system for several years by 1952) and created a labor certification system, designed
to prevent new immigrants from becoming unwanted competition for American laborers.

President Truman was concerned about the decisions to maintain the national origins
quota system and to establish racially constructed quotas for Asian nations. He thought the new
law was discriminatory, and he vetoed it, but the law had enough support in Congress to pass
over his veto.

10
 The history of immigrants in Brooklyn
by Emily Nonko - Feb 20, 2015

Theres a saying that one in seven

Americans can trace their roots to
Brooklyn, and while its impossible to
prove accurate, theres no denying that
Brooklyn is one of the most
important immigrant destinations in
the entire country. For decades, this
borough was where immigrants
arrived straight from Ellis Island,
earning Brooklyn the moniker of
Americas hometown. Read on to
learn more about the major waves of
immigration into the borough, and how
it still impacts Kings County today.

1766 Brooklyn map photo courtesy of

Tommyill via Wikipedia.

Football at Fort Greene, ca. 1872-1887 |

Brooklyn Museum via Wikipedia

Brooklyn began as a modest village

or, more accurately, six modest villages
before eventually evolving into a
major city. The reason for this dramatic
growth was the arrival of immigrants. At the beginning of the 19th century, Irish immigrants
settled around Wallabout Bay (now known as Vinegar Hall and the northern edge of Fort
Greene), working at waterfront factories and in the new Brooklyn Navy Yard. With the 1825
completion of the Erie Canal, merchants, mechanics, and manufacturers continued to pour in for
work. Many of these new workers, however, were not immigrants but rather New England
transplants.

What soon followed was Brooklyns first major wave of immigration, from 1840 to 1845.
European immigrants came from all over, and included Irish peasants escaping famine and

11
Germans fleeing the disruption of a failed revolution. During those five years, the population
doubled to nearly 80,000. Ten years later, nearly half of Brooklyns 205,000 residents had
been born overseas half of that foreign-born population being Irish and the rest mostly
Germans and Britons.

The Brooklyn Bridge, ca. 1872-1887 | Brooklyn Museum via Wikipedia

A more diverse crowd arrived in the late 1880s. This second wave of immigration brought
Russian Jews, Italians, Poles, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, and Finns. 1883 also marked an
important event that helped boost Brooklyns population. The Brooklyn Bridge opened,
allowing easy access between Manhattan and Brooklyn for the first time. All of a sudden,
immigrants were arriving to the borough in seek of relief from the high rents and poor, crowded
living conditions of New York City. By the end of the 19th century, more than one million
people lived in Brooklyn and more than 30 percent were born in another country.

Female factory workers | Eberhard Faber Pencil

Factory photography, ca. 1920 via Brooklyn
Historical Society

In the early 1900s through the 1930s,

transportation, jobs and industry flourished in
the borough. The next great wave of newcomers
were African Americans arriving from the south
by 1930, more than 60 percent of the African
American population in Brooklyn was born outside
the borough. Thousands of Puerto Rican
immigrants also settled in Brooklyn, landing in
Red Hook, Downtown Brooklyn, and Greenpoint.

12
The industry boom began to wane in the 1950s, with manufacturers suddenly moving to
cheaper locations in other cities. And so the makeup of Brooklyn changed yet again, with
many upper and middle class families moving to the suburbs. Many Jewish communities stayed
in Brooklyn but moved to Flatbush, Borough Park, Eastern Parkway, and Brighton Beach, where
there are still strong Jewish communities today. And many Italian families moved to
Bensonhurt and Gravesend, which are also still Italian enclaves though you can count
on the demographics of any Brooklyn neighborhood to change over time.

Today, Brooklyn is still home to a diverse population and immigrants from around the world. You
will find thriving immigrant communities from the Caribbean, Latin America, the former Soviet
Union, the Middle East, China, and Korea across the borough.

13
 ITALIAN SOCIETY AND ART FROM 1945 TO 1950

The Italian industry (in particular iron and steel) was severly damaged
during the war. Agriculture had also greatly suffered, in particular in Central Italy. Big
parts of the railroads and harbors had been destroyed. Many Italian cities had been
bombed. After the war, unemployement rates rose and the value of the "lira", the
Italian currency, collapsed; in one year, from 1945 to 1946, the cost of goods
doubled; the cost of life was 20 times higher than in 1938. The recovery was slow,
the transition to a "peace" industry was difficult and there were no commodities. The
food rationing brought to the diffusion of the black market. In 1948 started the
Marshall Plan, the American funds directed to help the Italian economy, but its effects
could only be seen from 1953 onwards.

Young women in Naples, 1948.

Ph. Public Domain on wikipedia

During the war, half of the

Italian soldiers had been taken
prisoners and were held in
laboro camps. It took them
some time to go back to their
families, and the welcome was
not always warm. The men
asked the factories to fire the
women that had been hired
while they were on the battle
ground. The friction between
those who supported the fascist
government and the partisans
was not completely solved. It
was a time of social and
political tension.

The wind of change that

followed the end of the war and
the wish of restarting from
anew, involved the birth of a
new artistic movement, the
neo-realism. It was particularly
14
vivid in the cinema, with movies showing the daily difficulties of the poor and the
working class, using non-professional actors. Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini and
Vittorio De Sica are the main directors of this movement in the cinema industry. In
literature, the movement was embraced by Alberto Moravia, Ignazio Silone, Cesare
Pavese, Vasco Pratolini.

Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves - 1948) is another movie that entered the history of
Italian cinema. It's the story of an unemployed man that got a job as posting advertising
bills, a job that he desperately needs to sustain his family. His bikes, necessary for this
job, is stolen and he plans to steal one himself (as he has no money to buy a new one).

After the war, restarting was difficult. Italy's towns and people had to be
completely rebuilt, physically and socially. But eventually Italy got back into its feet
and became one of the strongest democracies of the world.

15
 Women in the 1950s
Learn about the myths and realities of womens lives in the 1950s.

Conformity and the 1950s

The 1950s is often viewed as a period of conformity, when both men and women
observed strict gender roles and complied with societys expectations. After the
devastation of the Great Depression and World War II, many Americans sought to build
a peaceful and prosperous society. However, even though certain gender roles and norms
were socially enforced, the 1950s was not as conformist as is sometimes portrayed, and
discontent with the status quo bubbled just beneath the surface of the placid peacetime
society. Although women were expected to identify primarily as wives and mothers and to
eschew work outside of the home, women continued to make up a significant proportion
of the postwar labor force. Moreover, the 1950s witnessed significant changes in
patterns of sexual behavior, which would ultimately lead to the sexual revolution of
the 1960s.

Changing social trends following World War II

Demobilization at the end of World War II brought a great many changes. Millions of
women who had joined the workforce during the war were displaced by returning
soldiers. Messages in popular culture and the mass media encouraged these women to give
up their jobs and return quietly to domestic life. Most women, however, wished to keep their
jobs, and thus women made up approximately one-third of the peacetime labor force.

During the 1950s, marriage and homeownership rates skyrocketed, so there is no

doubt that many Americans were content to pursue the American dream. These trends
were aided by suburbanization and the mass production of automobiles. Cars allowed
Americans who lived in the suburbs to commute easily into urban areas for work. Cars not
only changed work and housing patterns, but also facilitated the rise of new sexual norms.

16
They provided young couples with a place to spend time together alone, away from the prying
eyes of parents and other members of the community. This, in turn, led to a rise in premarital
sex and birth rates. Thus, patterns of sexual behavior were changing even as the traditional
ideal continued to insist upon marriage before sex.

Between 1946 and 1964, the largest generation of Americans, known as the baby
boomers, was born. This demographic trend in turn reinforced womens identities as wives
and mothers. Despite societal norms that encouraged women to stay in the home and
out of the workplace, approximately forty percent of women with young children, and
at least half of women with older children, chose to remain in the work force.

Cold War domesticity and popular culture

Gender roles in the 1950s were intimately connected to the Cold War. The term
nuclear family emerged to describe and encourage the stability of the family as the essential
building block of a strong and healthy society. In this view, a woman played a crucial role in
waging the Cold War, by keeping the family unit strong and intact. She could do this
best, it was thought, by remaining at home to take care of her husband and children,
and refusing to pursue a career. Thus was a link forged between traditional gender roles
and national security.

Moreover, because the Cold War was also a competition between two very different
economic systems, the virtues of capitalism were touted as proving the superiority of the
United States over the Soviet Union. Capitalism revolved around the exchange of goods
and services in the marketplace, and so identifying with consumer culture became a
way of waging the Cold War. Women, traditionally expected to do most of the shopping
for the household, were encouraged to identify as patriotic Americans by being savvy
consumers.

The norms of consumer culture and domesticity were disseminated via new and
popular forms of entertainment not just the television, which became a fixture in
middle-class American households during the 1950s, but also womens magazines, popular

17
psychology, and cinema. Shows promoting the values of domesticity, like Leave it to Beaver
and Father Knows Best, became especially popular. These shows portrayed the primary
roles of women as wives and mothers. Lucille Ball, in I Love Lucy, inevitably met with
disaster whenever she pursued job opportunities or interests that took her outside of
the household. On the other hand, the fact that every episode revolved around Lucys
attempts to pursue outside interests indicated her discontent with remaining at home.
Moreover, Lucille Ball, while playing the role of a hapless housewife on TV, was in reality a
highly successful actress and producer, and thus challenged societys expectations of
women.

18
 Gay in the 1950s
Publish Date: 09/02/2012

As an only child, born in Second World War London and

raised in the post war period of recovery, reconstruction and
subsequent economic expansion, Mike Newman grew up in
a time of growing living standards but also of sexual
repression.

Sex was something mysterious which happened to

married couples and Homosexuality was never
mentioned; my mother later told me my father did not
believe it existed at all until he joined the army. As a child I
was warned about talking to strange men, without any real
idea what this meant. I was left to find out for myself what it
was all about.

Sex Crimes & the Wolfenden Committee

By the time of my caresses with another young man at school, there were moves towards legal
reform, principally by the Homosexual Law Reform Society, founded in 1958. My friend and I
were aware that our limited physical contacts were illegal, and were certain it was a phase,
which would pass in favour of relations with women - we both later married.

This all took place, while the Wolfenden Committee was undergoing its deliberations on the
subject of prostitution and homosexuality. All homosexual behaviour, or even
suggesting it, were illegal at the time.

Anal intercourse, officially buggery in England and sodomy in Scotland, was punishable by
life imprisonment, though before 1861 it was a capital crime. There were shorter
sentences for other sexual acts, and for seeking them - cottaging (sexual activities in public
lavatories) and Gross indecency (mutual masturbation, oral-genital contact or intercrural
contact (referring to legs or thighs) - was only made a crime, for consenting behaviour in private
in 1885 under the Labouchere Amendment.

The maximum sentence was two years imprisonment, as it was for procuring or attempting to
procure such acts. Prosecution for soliciting and importuning invited the use of police agents
provocateurs. For this, six months in prison could be awarded by a magistrates court, but two
years by an assize or quarter sessions.

19
Between 1945 and 1955 the number of annual prosecutions for homosexual behaviour
rose from 800 to 2,500, of whom 1,000 received custodial sentences. Wolfenden found
that in 1955 30% of those prosecuted were imprisoned. The irony of imprisoning
homosexual men in institutions which were all-male seemed lost on the system.

I remember this being mocked on That Was the Week that Was, and Leo Abse, later to steer
the 1967 Act through the Commons, likened them to imprisoning a sex maniac in a harem.
Much misery was the outcome even for those not prosecuted, promoting a feeling of self
loathing among gay men (the term gay at that time meant happy) and at worst leading
to suicide.

The reform activist Antony Grey quotes the case of police enquiries in Evesham in 1956, which
were followed by one man gassing himself, one throwing himself under a train, leaving widow
and children, and an 81 year old dying of a stroke before sentence could be passed.

The justifications of all this were various, centering around abnormality, a concept questioned
by the American biologist Alfred Kinsey in America, when his extensive researches with large
numbers of men suggested that they could be allocated on a seven point scale, between totally
heterosexual and totally homosexual, with most men somewhere in between, suggesting in
1948 that most men had had some kind of homosexual experience at some time in their
lives.

Not for the last time, the great and the good were of other opinions, with one Lord Chancellor
refusing to sit in cabinet when the filthy subject was discussed. Even Wolfenden, refers to
homosexuality as the problem, others were less restrained, thinking of it as sin. The
special feature of this particular form of sin is that it was also illegal.

How to Spot a Homo

There were numerous cases, of men both prominent and obscure in this period,
publicised in the press in a style simultaneously outraged, moralistic, self-righteous and
full of juicy scandal, though it is interesting to note that opinion surveys suggest that far from
all the general public agreed with such a stance, and a decreasing proportion as time went by.

The infamous Sunday Pictorial feature of 1963, How to spot a Homo, might be less a subject of
interest today. Much use was made of stereotypes of mincing queens and child molesters
or corrupters which bore at best marginal resemblance to the generality of gay men, then
as now, but were nonetheless often believed.

20
The former Knitting Circle website, source of much vital material in the study of gay history,
referred to the fifties as the time of the Great Purge. Most of those arrested in the police
drive in the autumn and winter of 1953-4 were ordinary unexceptional men whose
personal tragedies did not make much in the way of waves, except in the local press.

A few achieved wider notoriety, such as the case of Rupert Croft-Cooke and Joseph Alexander,
who invited two Royal Navy cooks who they met in a pub in London to spend the weekend at
their home in a Sussex village. When the cooks had difficulty getting back to their base in
Chatham, they tried to steal a bicycle and were arrested.

In the course of questioning, they claimed to have been involved in committing indecencies -
such an occurrence, where the original cause of interrogation was forgotten in the authorities
eagerness to pursue homosexual men, became part of a pattern. Croft-Cooke and Alexander
were arrested, an attempt by the Navy men to withdraw their earlier statements in writing was
deemed inadmissible in court, and their Sussex hosts received prison sentences.

The Last Gay Trial

Of all the cases from this time, the highest profile is that of Montague and Wildeblood in 1954,
the former an aristocrat, the latter diplomatic correspondent of the Daily Mail. Montague and film
director Kenneth Hume were accused and acquitted in 1953 of committing an unnatural
offence with two boy scouts on Montagues estate at Beaulieu, but the jury could not agree on a
further charge of indecent assault, and a retrial was ordered.

Shortly after, Montague, his cousin Michael Pitt-Rivers and Wildeblood were charged with
sodomy, attempted sodomy and gross indecency with two RAF men, and with conspiracy to
commit the offences, a charge with less stringent rules of evidence which was also used later,
even after law reform.

It is likely the RAF men were encouraged to name other names by promises of immunity if
they did so - certainly, of all those they did name, only three men were charged. Use was also
made of the social gulf between them and the accused, suggesting that itself was unnatural.

The RAF men disappeared into obscurity; the three accused were all found guilty and
imprisoned. The only positive note is that Wildeblood was courageous and gifted enough a
writer, to publish his account, called Against the Law, a widely praised work which helped to
create the climate of opinion which led to the setting up of the Wolfenden Committee.

21
It has to be said that such prominent men must have been judged of little significance to polite
society, perhaps because of their consorting with the lower orders. Others from upper echelons
seemed to possess immunity from prosecution.

Noel Cowards preferences were well known, but it can hardly have been a disadvantage to
have friends in the royal family. The composer Benjamin Brittens relationship with the tenor
Peter Pears was widely enough known that my friend in school who was taking A level music
said Everyone knows they would get married if they could.

The poet W H Auden, and Stephen Spender, even Burgess, Maclean and Blunt before their
revelation as spies, all pursued their proclivities without falling foul of the law. So did the MP
Tom Driberg, notorious for his casual liaisons, supposedly protected by his employer Lord
Beaverbrook, for whom he wrote the William Hickey column.

It might be added that, while the law came down heavily on working class men, they were
often more accepted by their families and communities than other groups - one thinks of
Allan Horsfalls later foundation of the North West Homosexual Reform Committee in a miners
cottage in Lancashire, as well as the good-natured banter researchers reported between
gay and straight in working class pubs."

22
A View From The Bridge Arthur Miller
Context

In 1947, Arthur Miller was doing research on Pete Panto, a young Longshoreman who
was executed by the mob for attempting to revolt against union leadership. He was told
an interesting story about another Longshoreman in the area who had ratted to the
Immigration Bureau on his own relatives. The Longshoreman was attempting to prevent
the marriage between one of the brothers and his niece. The man was scorned and
ostracized in the community and soon disappeared. In the community it was rumored
that one of the brothers had killed him. Eight years later, in 1955, the one-act version of A
View from the Bridge, based on the story of that same Longshoreman, was produced. The play
was presented with another one-act Miller play, A Memory of Two Mondays.

New York critics poorly received the evening of two plays and the production only ran for 158
performances. Miller believed the story was so complete and shocking that he did not wish to
adorn the tale with subjective meaning, but rather lay out the facts in an action-oriented,
objective tale. The result, according to critics, was a cold, un-engaging work. Miller admitted his
play was an experiment, an attempt to stray from the psychological realism that dominated
the American theatre, "I wanted to see whether I could write a play with on single arch
instead of three acts I wanted to have one long line of explosion we have all forgotten that the
Greek plays were all one-act plays, a continuous action." Not just the form, but also the
actors were taught to consciously disengage themselves from the emotion of the work
and, in a Brechtian sense, attempt to reveal abstract ideas about the human condition.

After two years, time that possibly allowed Miller to find an emotional connection with the work
(Miller's condemnation as a Communist in the McCarthy era and his relationship with Marilyn
Monroe), he revised the script. The new version was staged in London and received rave
reviews. Miller enlarged the characters of Beatrice and Catherine, who played a greater
role in Eddie's fate. The set was more realistic, a Brooklyn neighborhood scene, and
Miller eliminated the use of verse. The relationship between Eddie and Catherine was
played down and the final scene altered. Rather than at the feet of Catherine, Eddie dies
in the arms of his wife Beatrice, and he reconciles the couple's relationship.

In the Paris production, Miller rewrote one more final ending to the play in which Eddie
actually commits suicide. While this ending may be the most dramatically satisfying, Miller
chose to publish the London edition in his collected works.

Arthur Miller was born in was born in New York City on October 17, 1915 to Isidore and Augusta
Miller. At the time, Miller's father owned a successful clothing business and the family lived in a
Harlem neighborhood. In 1929, the family business failed as a result of the depression and
moved to Brooklyn. Miller was a very active child and hardly spent any time reading or
studying. He only took an interest in academics in his final year of school, too late to make the
grades to be accepted into college. Miller worked various jobs after high school, including one
as a salesperson that inspired his later play, Death of a Salesman. Miller was finally accepted
into Michigan State in 1934 and he studied journalism. While in college, Miller won several

23
collegiate awards for his plays. Out of college, Miller's first successful work was All My Sons,
which opened on Broadway in 1947. Miller is best known works are The Crucible and Death of a
Salesman. In 1956, Miller was asked to testify before the House Un-American Activities
Committee, but heroically refused to name the names of communist sympathizers. The following
year he was charged for contempt, a ruling later reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals. In 1956,
Miller also divorced his college sweetheart and married Marilyn Monroe.

Themes

NAMING NAMES

Arthur Miller was called to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee to
name names of communist sympathizers in 1956, the height of the McCarthy Era. Miller refused
to do so and was heralded by the arts community for his strength of conviction and loyalty. In
1957, Miller was charged with contempt, a ruling later reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Miller, like Eddie Carbone, was faced with the problem of choosing to be American or not,
specifically by naming names of people who were doing (what were considered then)
unlawful acts. Miller's own struggle with this issue is very present in A View from the Bridge.
Unlike Eddie Carbone, Miller chose to be loyal to his fellow artists, but like Carbone, Miller went
against the cultural consensus at the time. Miller, in the play, has reversed the scenerather
than the mass culture supporting the extrication of possible communists, Miller chose to
script a community that accepted and protected unlawful people. The consequences and
eventual repercussions of naming names, for Eddie Carbone, are drastic. Miller used this play
to strongly condemn the McCarthy trials and those who named the names of innocent artists.

THE IRRATIONAL HUMAN ANIMAL

Eddie loses control of his actions in the play. Driven and possessed by incestuous love for
his niece, Eddie resorts to desperate measures to protect his identity and name in the
community. Alfieri's commentary often remarks on this theme. Alfieri seems constantly amazed
by Eddie's actions and his own reactions to the events of the play. Alfieri sees his own irrational
thinking, just as he recognizes Eddie's irrational behavior. Irrationality is also how Alfieri
defines acting wholly. The human animal becomes irrational when he acts fully on his
instinctsjust as Eddie does in the play. Alfieri proposes that humans must act as a half, or
restrain some of our instinctual needs or wants for reason. Nonetheless, Alfieri still admires
the irrationalthe unleashed human spirit that reacts as it will.

ALLEGIANCE TO COMMUNITY LAW

There is great conflict between community and American law in the play. The community
abides by Sicilian-American customs protects illegal immigrants within their homes,
values respect and family, is hard working and know the shipping culture, has strong
associations with names, believes in trust and wants revenge when a member has been
wronged. Some of these values, however, come in conflict with those of the American
system of justice. Eddie Carbone chooses to turn against his community and abide by the
state laws. He loses the respect of his community and friendsthe name and personal
identity he treasures. Eddie Carbone, with a stronger allegiance to the community, reverts
24
back to another custom of Sicilian-Americans: revenge. Not only is Eddie pulled back to the
values of his community, but the final victor of the play is symbolic of community valuesthe
Italian, Marco. Thus, the small community is stronger than American law.

Motifs

HOMOSEXUALITY

Although specifically articulated, homosexuality or what makes a man "not right" is a

persistent theme of the novel. Eddie obviously identifies Rodolpho as homosexual because
Rodolpho sings, cooks and sews a dress for Catherine. Eddie also questions Rodolpho
because he does not like to work and has bleach blonde hair that makes him look more
feminine. Eddie gives Rodolpho several tests of his masculinity. In the first he teaches
Rodolpho how to box and the second, more blatantly, Eddie kisses Rodolpho on the lips. Many
critics think that this kiss is a sign of Eddie's own repressed homosexual feelings, an easy
parallel with his kiss with Catherine. Miller seems to take no stand either way, and the
sexuality of Rodolpho or Eddie is unclear. However, the stereotypes of the gay man and
societal implications of being gay are obvious. Louis and Mike, when talking about
Rodolpho, clearly think there is something wrong with him and Eddie speaks directly to Alfieri
about the specific things that bother him about Rodolpho.

WOMANHOOD

The idea of what makes a woman or what defines a woman is very prevalent in the text.
Catherine and Beatrice talk specifically about the terms in their conversation in Act I. Beatrice
thinks Catherine needs to grow up and become a woman. To do this she needs to decide by
herself whether she wants to marry Rodolpho. She needs to stop walking around the house in
her slip in front of Eddie, and not sit on the edge of the tub while Eddie shaves his beard. In
essence, being a woman means reserve and modesty in front of men, and independently
making decisions. The idea of independence or separation from Eddie is coupled with the
decision to find another male to attach to, a husband. Catherine's attempt at womanhood
is deciding to marry Rodolpho and follow his rules rather than Eddie's.

COMMUNITY

Community is a powerful context for the play; it dictates very specific norms and rules for the
family that controls the actions of the characters. All of the characters are forced to
reconcile between American culture and the Italian community culture that surrounds. The
cultural and moral difference between the two provides one of the great conflicts in the play.
The tight community around them also creates great tension in the Carbone family because
they are constantly being watched. The neighbors knew when Marco and Rodolpho arrived,
saw Marco spit in Eddie's face and Eddie die by Marco's hand. The community is the
watcher; the group controls and monitors the behavior of every member. Although Eddie
takes a substantial turn away from the community by calling the Immigration Bureau, he still
needs acceptance and spends his last moments fighting Marco for his good name in the
community.

25
Symbols

HIGH HEELS

For Catherine, high heels are representative of womanhood, flirtation and sexiness. She
has just started wearing high heels around the community and to school and obviously enjoys
the attention she gets from men. They are also symbolic as a rite-of-passage to
womanhood. As Eddie strongly disapproves of her wearing them, Catherine purposefully rebels
against her uncle every time she puts them on. The high heels give her sexual power over
menthey look, stare and gawk at her beauty. Eddie thinks the heels are threatening for the
same reasons Catherine loves them. Eddie is fearful that, if she looks attractive, some man will
ask her out and she will leave the house. Eddie has a powerful reaction when she wears the
high heels, as if she must take them off so they do not arouse him or anyone else.

BROOKLYN BRIDGE

The Brooklyn Bridge is symbolic of a pathway of opportunity to Manhattan and also the
linkage between American and Italian cultures. The bridge, which is very close to the Red
Hook community, is a constant reminder of American opportunity and industry. From the
bridge, one can see the community below and, like the title of the book, one can see the
entire community and seek greater abstract meaning from his viewpoint. Alfieri is symbolic of
the person on the bridge looking down upon the Red Hook community or, perhaps, he is the
bridge himself, allowing the people to cross into Manhattan and modern, intellectual American
culture. Alfieri attempts to unite the American laws with Italian cultural practices and
negotiate a place in between the two. Alfieri, narrating the story from the present looking back to
the past, has the same vantage point as one looking from the bridge. After some time passes,
he is able to process the events and see the greater societal and moral implications it has for
the community as a whole.

ITALY

The origin of the majority of the people in the Red Hook community, Italy represents
homeland, origin and culture. What the country means to characters greatly varies. Catherine
associates Italy with mystery, romance and beauty. Rodolpho, on the other hand, is actually
from Italy, and thinks it is a place with little opportunity that he would like to escape from. All of
the characters, as much as love the benefit of living in the U.S., still strongly hold to
Italian traditions and identify it as home. Italy is the basis of the cultural traditions in Red
Hook and unites the community in common social practices and religion.

26
GLOSSARY
STAGE DIRECTION: The street and house front of a tenement building (pg. 3)
Tenement: n. a run-down and often overcrowded apartment house, especially in a poor
section of a large city.
ALFIERI: This is the gullet of New York swallowing the tonnage of the world. (pg. 4)
Gullet: n. the esophagus.
STAGE DIRECTION: a husky. Slightly overweight longshoreman. ( pg. 4)
Longshoreman: n. a person employed on the wharves of a port, as in loading and
unloading vessels.
EDDIE: Listen, you been givin me the willies the way you walk (pg. 6)
Willies: n. nervousness or fright; jitters; creeps.
CATHERINE: It aint exactly a secretary, its a stenographer first (pg. 10)
Stenographer: n. a person who specializes in taking dictation in shorthand.
STAGE DIRECTION: ...as though already she had divulged something publicly (pg. 15)
Divulged: v. to disclose or reveal (something private, secret, or previously unknown).
RODOLPHO: We stand around all day in the piazza listening to the fountain like birds.
Piazza: n. an open square or public place in a city or town, especially in Italy.
RODOLPHO: Three arias I sand without a mistake! (pg. 24)
Arias: n. an elaborate melody sung solo with accompaniment, as in an opera or oratorio.
RODOLPHO: Oh, I sing Napolidan, jazz, bel canto (pg. 25)
Bel canto: n. a smooth, cantabile style of singing.
EDDIE: Whats the high heels for, Garbo? (pg. 26)
Greta Garbo: U.S. film actress, born in Sweden.
STAGE DIRECTION: sensing now an imperious demand (pg. 38)
Imperious: adj. domineering in a haughty manner; dictatorial; overbearing.
EDDIE: Im a patsy, what can a patsy do? (pg. 42)
Patsy: n. a person who is easily swindled, deceived, coerced, persuaded, etc,; sucker.
STAGE DIRECTION: In deference to Eddie. (pg. 48)
Deference: n. respectful submission or yielding to the judgment, opinion, will, etc., of
another.
EDDIE: What do you say, Marco, we go to the bouts next Saturday night. (pg. 50)
Bouts: n. a contest or trial of strength, as of boxing.
CATHERINE: He razzes me all the time but he dont mean it. (pg. 56)
Razzes: v. to deride; make fun of; tease.
STAGE DIRECTION: Pugnaciously, furious, he steps toward Beatrice. (pg. 68)
Pugnaciously: adj. inclined to quarrel or fight readily; quarrelsome; combative.
ALFIERI: ...for I confess that something perversely pure calls to me from his memory..(pg. 79)
Perversely: adj. willfully determined or disposed to go counter to what is expected or
desired; contrary.

*all definitions retrieved from www.dictionary.com

27
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ancos, (2017, March 14) Life in Italy. Retrieved from

http://www.lifeinitaly.com/history/italy-1945-to-1950

Blackwood, C., (2004, Aug. 24) American Masters. Retrieved from

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/arthur-miller-none-without-sin/56/

Dreier, P., (2016, Sep. 17) The Huffington Post. Retrieved from
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/arthur-millers-a-view-fro_1_b_12058490.html

Khan Academy (2016) Women in the 1950s. Retrieved from

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-us-history/period-8/apush-1950s-america/a
/women-in-the-1950s

LGBT Foundation (2012, Sep. 2) Gay in the 1950s. Retrieved from

http://lgbt.foundation/news-articles/-gay-in-the-1950-s/

Nonko, E., (2015, Feb. 15) Explore Brooklyn. Retrieved from

http://explorebk.com/2015/02/20/history-immigrants-brooklyn/

Sparknotes (2017) Sparknotes: A View From the Bridge. Retrieved from

http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/viewbridge/context.html

United States Department of State (n.a.) Office of the Historian. Retrieved from
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/immigration-act

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