The term melting pot is the most recognized metaphor used to show that America is a composition of people with multicultural origins melted together within a unified American identity. There are several references to the origins of the term. In 1782, a French immigrant, St. John de Crevecoeur, stated that “individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men” (Berray 142). In 1845, Ralph Waldo Emerson expanded the idea by describing America as “a culturally and racially mixed melting pot” (Berray 142). In 1875, Titus Munson Coan asserted that immigrants’ individualities of religion and race get fused in a “democratic alembic like chips of brass in a melting pot” (Berray 143). However, the term became part of the popular imagination when the play The Melting Pot by Israel Zangwill was staged on Broadway in 1908. The play portrayed America as a crucible where diverse cultures melted together to create a new, uniquely American identity.