A Nation of Immigrants

~The Immigrant Experience 1865-1920~

Objectives:

• Explain the reasons for immigration in the late 1800s.

• Examine the impact of industrialization on the growth of cities and immigration during the late 1800s

• Explain the response to immigrants drawn by industrialization including settlement houses, nativism, the Americanization movement, and legislation restricting immigration.

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.“The New Colossus,” by the nineteenth-century American poet Emma

Lazarus.

1. What does this quote mean?

2. Where have you seen this quote before?

FIRST WAVE OF IMMIGRATION (approximately 1810-1860)

"PUSH" factors-reasons people wanted to move out of their country

-Economic: crop failures in Germany and Ireland in the 1840's (Irish Potato Famine of 1846) ruins farmers who survived on money from small plots of land

-Economic: skilled workers and craftsmen in Europe lose jobs to factories during Industrial Revolution

-Religious freedom: Protestants face religious persecution in Germany

FIRST WAVE OF IMMIGRATION (approximately 1810-1860)

"PULL" factors-reasons U.S. enticed people to move

-Economic: plentiful land to farm

-Economic: plentiful jobs

-Religious freedom: rights guaranteed in Constitution

FIRST WAVE OF IMMIGRATION (approximately 1810-1860)

ROADBLOCKS to immigration from 1810-1860

-Dangerous boat trip

-There were many wars during this time in Europe, so some European governments actually passed laws against emigration so that they wouldn't lose soldiers.

-From 1810-1860, 5 million immigrants come to U.S. (2 million Irish, 1 million German, most others from Europe) Considering there were only 5 million people in America in 1810, this is a LARGE amount of people that emigrated!!!

SECOND WAVE OF IMMIGRATION (approximately 1861-1920)

• -After U.S. Civil War, immigration is UP!

-Reasons immigrants came:

• -Many of the same reasons from the first wave, including economic reasons and to escape religious and political persecution

-U.S. economy, especially in the Northeast, is strong

-Easier voyage: more affordable, shorter trip, more comfortable

SECOND WAVE OF IMMIGRATION (approximately 1861-1920)

Where did new immigrants come from?

-Some still come from Western Europe, but in smaller numbers (England, Ireland, Germany)

-More and more coming from Southern and Eastern Europe (Italy, Greece)

-Also coming from Asia (China, Japan) and settling on west coast of U.S.

-Whereas most immigrants before 1860 came for farming, after 1860 more immigrants come for jobs in cities.

-Overwhelmingly settled in large cities like New York and Boston, or San Francisco on the west coast

-Lived in neighborhoods where their countrymen settled called “Ethnic Enclaves”

-Immigrants were expected to work-built most of infrastructure of cities, built railroad lines, most of the time for less pay because of discrimination.

-Nativist had much dislike for these new immigrants because they would often work for less money, came from “anarchist” countries, had “diseases”, and did not speak English.

Questions to Consider

• Why do you think the Americans ‘processed’ the immigrants before letting them in?

• Do you think that the hopes of the immigrants would be easily achievable?

The Huddled Masses

Arriving

Ellis Island

Processing

Examination

Where to go?

Welcome to America?

Immigration DBQHistorical Context:• Between 1880 and 1925, almost 24 million immigrants arrived in the United

States. These "New Immigrants" were primarily from Southern and Eastern European nations and Asia. These immigrants were inspired to come to America by its reputation as the "Land Of Liberty” and a place of opportunity and equality. Upon arrival these "New Immigrants," fleeing poverty and persecution, faced many difficulties in assimilating into American culture.

Task:• In partners, you will rotate to each table to analyze Documents 1-12 and

complete the chart for each document. Using information from the documents and your knowledge of United States history, you will write an thesis addressing the following statement:

Between 1880 and 1925 American society remained true to its core values of liberty, equality and opportunity regarding immigration issues. Assess the validity of this statement.

Document 1Immigration numbers by country

Source: http://www.ellisisland.org/immexp/wseix_5_3.asp Ellis Island Website

Document 2 THE IMMIGRANT: THE STRANGER AT OUR GATE.

 

EMIGRANT.--Can I come in?UNCLE SAM.--I 'spose you can; there's no law to keep you out.

Source: Fifty Great Cartoons (Chicago: The Ram's Horn Press, 1899)

Document 3

"Then came the foreigner, making his way into the little village, bringing-small blame to him!-not only a wastly lower standard of living, but too often an actual present incapacity even to understand the refinements of life and thought in the community in which he sought a home. Our people had to look upon houses that were mere shells for human habitations, the gate unhung, the shutters flapping or falling, green pools in the yard, babes and young children rolling about half naked or worse, neglected, dirty, unkempt. Was there not in this, sentimental reason strong enough to give a shock to the principle of population?

Source: Francis A. Walker, "Immigration and Degradation," (1891)

Document 4I do most solemnly promise and swear that I will always, to the utmost of my ability, labor, plead and wage a continuous warfare against ignorance and fanaticism; that I will use my utmost power to strike the shackles and chains of blind obedience to the Roman Catholic church from the hampered and bound consciences of a priest-ridden and church-oppressed people. I will use my influence to promote the interest of all Protestants everywhere in the world that I may be; that I will not employ a Roman Catholic in any capacity if I can procure the services of a Protestant. I will not vote for, or counsel others to vote for, any Roman Catholic, but will vote only for a Protestant, so far as may lie in my power. Should there be two Roman Catholics on opposite tickets, I will erase the name on the ticket I vote; that I will at all times endeavor to place the political positions of this government in the hands of Protestants, to the entire exclusion of the Roman Catholic church, of the members thereof, and the mandate of the Pope.

Source: "The Secret Oath of the American Protective Association, October 31, 1893," in Michael Williams, The Shadow of the Pope (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1932), 103–104.

Document 5

Source: San Francisco Gazette 1890. Caption reads "The Chinese must go!"

Document 6

To add to our misery and despair, a bloated aristocracy has sent to China—the greatest and oldest despotism in the world—for a cheap working slave. It rakes the slums of Asia to find the meanest slave on earth and imports him here to meet the free American in the Labor market, and still further widen the breach between the rich and the poor, still further to degrade white Labor. California must be all American or all Chinese. We are resolved that it shall be American, and are prepared to make it so. May we not rely upon your sympathy and assistance?

Source: Dennis Kearney, President, and H. L. Knight, Secretary, “Appeal from California. The Chinese Invasion. Workingmen’s Address,” Indianapolis Times, 28 February 1878.

Document 7

Source: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/browse/ Library of Congress American Memory

Document 8   "..SEC.12. That no Chinese person shall be permitted to enter the United States

by land without producing the proper officer of customs the certificate in this act required of Chinese persons seeking to land from a vessel. And any Chinese person found unlawfully within the United States shall be caused to be removed therefrom to the country from whence he came, by direction of the President of the United States, and at the cost of the United States, after being brought before some justice, judge, or commissioner of a court of the United States and found to be one not lawfully entitled to be or remain in the United States....SEC.14. That hereafter no State court or court of the United States shall admit Chinese to citizenship; and all laws in conflict with this act are hereby repealed. SEC.15. That the words "Chinese laborers," whenever used in this act, shall be construed to mean both skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining."

Source:  Chinese Exclusion Act. May 6, 1882.

Document 9The Settlement [House] then, is an experimental effort to aid in the solution of the social and industrial problems which are engendered by the modern conditions of life in a great city. It insists that these problems are not confined to any one portion of a city. It is an attempt to relieve, at the same time, the overaccumulation at one end of society and the destitution at the other; but it assumes that this overaccumulation and destitution is most sorely felt in the things that pertain to social and educational privileges…

Source: Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House, 1910.

Document 10

Source: Maine Historical Society, Americanization of Immigrants online collection.Notation on reverse reads “Students at Chapman School in Portland line up for a patriotic demonstration, replete with

American flags, early 1920s. Demonstration part of Americanization class. Immigrants or children of immigrants taught about American civic life, American culture, and English.”

Document 11The duty and the opportunity of the National Government and of the local community with regard to the immigrants who have been coming to the United States is clear. It is twofold: (I) to protect the immigrants against fraud and exploitation so that such traditions as they cherish with regard to America will not be lost in their first contact with us; (2) to give them an opportunity to learn the English language and to secure such a working knowledge of our laws and institutions as will enable them to join with us in the work of making the United States a really effective democracy. To do this does not mean that a new kind of service unknown to American traditions should be undertaken in behalf of the immigrant. It does mean, however, that community organizations and institutions shall be established and maintained, not for an imaginary homogeneous Anglo-Saxon population, but for the population as it is.

Source: The Education of the Immigrant article by Grace Abbott, 1917

Document 12In America, everything was free, as we had heard in Russia; the streets were as bright as a synagogue on a holy day. Music was free; we had been serenaded, to our gaping delight, by a brass band of many pieces, soon after our installation on Union Place.Education was free. That subject my father had written about repeatedly, as comprising his chief hope for us children, the essence of American opportunity, the treasure that no thief could touch, nor even misfortune or poverty. It was the one thing that he was able to promise us when he sent for us; surer, safer, than bread or shelter. … The incident impressed me more than anything I had heard in advance of the freedom of education in America. It was a concrete proof--almost the thing itself. One had to experience it to understand it.

Source:  Mary Antin, The Promised Land, 1912 (Jewish immigrant arrived in 1894).

Ms. O’Hara’s Quote of the Day

Remember, remember always, that all of us … are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.

~Franklin D. Roosevelt