The Melting Pot

The Melting Pot is a play by the Anglo-Jewish writer Israel Zangwill, first staged in 1908. It depicts the life of a Russian Jewish immigrant family, the Quixanos, in the United States. David Quixano has survived a pogrom that killed his mother and sister, and he wishes to forget that horror rather than look back on it. Inspired by the Kishinev Massacre of 1903, he composes a great symphony, "The Crucible", expressing his hope for a world in which ethnic differences have melted away. He falls in love with Vera, a Russian immigrant of Christian faith, and the dramatic peak comes when David discovers that Vera's father is the Russian officer responsible for the destruction of his family. The man admits his guilt, the symphony is performed to acclaim, and the lovers agree to marry.

Although the metaphor of "melting" to describe ethnic assimilation had been used before, the play popularized the phrase "melting pot" as a symbol of that process in American society. It opened in Washington in 1908, where President Theodore Roosevelt is said to have declared it a great play, and then ran in New York for 136 performances.