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Opportunity Beckoned in the New World

Resource for Grades 4-12

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Media Type:
Video

Running Time: 1m 37s
Size: 35.0 MB

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Source: Faces of America: "Opportunity Beckoned in the New World"

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Faces of America on VITAL is made possible by The Cola Company.

Funding for Faces of America on PBS was provided by The Coca-Cola Company and Johnson & Johnson. Additional funding was provided by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Atlantic Philanthropies, and The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS.

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Supplemental Media Available:

Opportunity Beckoned in the New World Transcript (Document)

Accessibility Features: Transcript

Discussion Questions

Identify possible motivations for Stephen Colbert’s seventh-great-grandfather to immigrate to Pennsylvania from Germany in the early 1700s.
What was one obstacle Colbert’s German ancestors faced when they arrived in Pennsylvania?
What was Colbert’s seventh-great-grandfather required to do when he arrived with his family in Philidelphia? Why?
In what way were immigrants not welcomed to the United States?

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Transcript

Narration: Hans Diebold saw opportunity beckoning in the new world. Pamphlets written by the Quaker, William Penn, were circulating in Alsace, part of his campaign to attract settlers to his new colony of Pennsylvania.Stephen Colbert: A plantation seems a fit place for those clogged and oppressed about a livelihood. These persons that providence seems to have most fitted for Plantations are carpenters, masons, smiths, weavers, tailors, shoemakers, shipwrights, et cetera.

Narration: By the early 1700s, Germans -including Colbert’s ancestors - were crowding onto ships bound for Philadelphia.Gates: There was just one little obstacle. Believe it or not, anti-immigration sentiment was already powerful. Deep suspicion of non-English speaking immigrants led to the passage of a law in 1727, requiring all men over the age of 16 who were not British subjects to swear allegiance to the English monarchy upon landing at the Port of Philadelphia. Now Stephen the second ship to arrive after the passage of this law was a ship called the James Goodwill. This is the list of the men from that ship who signed that oath.

Colbert: Hans Diebold Ledermann.

Gates: That, Stephen Colbert, is your seventh great grandfather.

Colbert: That is unbelievable.

Narration: For a nation formed by immigrants, we’ve not always greeted new arrivals with open arms.