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Twenty Nationalities, But All Americans

Woolston School, Portland, 1922

Woolston School, Portland, 1922

Item 41789 info
Maine Historical Society/MaineToday Media

In 1920, close to 4,000 immigrants in Portland came from countries where English was not the primary language: Italy, Russia, China, Syria, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Greece.

About 20,000 Portland residents had at least one parent born outside the United States. The 1920 census counted 1,453 foreign-born whites as illiterate.

This was Clara Soule's target population.