Section 1-Immigration

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Click the mouse button or press the Space Bar to display the information. Chapter Objectives I can analyze the circumstances surrounding the great wave of immigration after the Civil War.  I can evaluate how nativism affected immigration policies. Section 1: Immigration

Why It Matters European and Asian immigrants arrived in the United States in great numbers during the late 1800s. Providing cheap labor, they made rapid industrial growth possible. They also helped populate the growing cities. The immigrants’ presence affected both urban politics and labor unions. Reactions to immigrants and to an urban society were reflected in new political organizations and in literature and philosophy.

The Impact Today Industrialization and urbanization permanently influenced American life.  The United States continues to be a magnet for immigrants seeking a better way of life.  The cities of the United States continue to draw new residents in search of opportunity. Click the mouse button or press the Space Bar to display the information.

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(pages 464–467) Europeans Flood Into the United States Click the mouse button or press the Space Bar to display the information. By the late 1800s, most European states made it easy to move to America.  By the 1890s, eastern and southern Europeans made up more than half of all immigrants.  Of the 14 million immigrants who arrived between 1860 and 1900, many were European Jews.

America offered immigrants employment, few immigration restrictions, avoidance of military service, religious freedom, and the chance to move up the social ladder.  Most immigrants took the difficult trip to America in steerage, the least expensive accommodations on a steamship.  The 14-day trip usually ended at Ellis Island, a small island in New York Harbor. Europeans Flood Into the United States (cont.)

Click the mouse button or press the Space Bar to display the information. It served as a processing center for most immigrants arriving on the East coast after  Most immigrants passed through Ellis Island in a day.  However, some faced the possibility of being separated from family and possibly sent back to Europe due to health problems. Europeans Flood Into the United States (cont.) (pages 464–467)

Most immigrants settled in cities.  They lived in neighborhoods that were separated into ethnic groups.  Here they duplicated many of the comforts of their homelands, including language and religion.  Immigrants who learned English, adapted to American culture, had marketable skills or money, or if they settled among members of their own ethnic group tended to adjust well to living in the United States. Europeans Flood Into the United States (cont.)

Asian Immigration to America Severe unemployment, poverty, and famine in China; the discovery of gold in California; the Taiping Rebellion in China; and the demand for railroad workers in the United States led to an increase in Chinese immigration to the United States in the mid-1800s.  In Western cities, Chinese immigrants worked as laborers, servants, skilled tradesmen, and merchants.  Some opened their own laundries.

Between 1900 and 1919, Japanese immigration to the United States drastically increased as Japan began to build an industrial economy and an empire.  In 1910 a barracks was opened on Angel Island in California.  Here, Asian immigrants, mostly young men and boys, waited sometimes for months for the results of immigration hearings. Asian Immigration to America (cont.)

The Resurgence of Nativism The increase in immigration led to nativism, an extreme dislike for foreigners by native-born people and the desire to limit immigration.  Earlier, in the 1840s and 1850s, nativism was directed towards the Irish.  In the early 1900s, it was the Asian, Jews, and eastern Europeans that were the focus of nativism.  Nativism led to the forming of two anti-immigrant groups.

The American Protective Association had 500,000 members by  The party’s founder, Henry Bowers, disliked Catholics and foreigners.  He wanted to stop immigration.  In the 1870s, Denis Kearny, an Irish immigrant, organized the Workingman’s Party of California.  This group wanted to stop Chinese immigration.  Racial violence resulted. The Resurgence of Nativism (cont.)

In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act that barred Chinese immigration for 10 years and prevented the Chinese already in America from becoming citizens.  This act was renewed by Congress in 1892, made permanent in 1902, and not repealed until The Resurgence of Nativism (cont.)