1. Immigration,
U.S. History II

2. A Century of Immigration: 1820 - 1920
5,907,893 Germans
16.4% of all immigrants
25-36% between
4,578,941 Irish
12.7% of all immigrants
35-45% between
4,195,880 Italians
3,000,000 between
2,147,859 Scandinavians

3. Why They Left – Push Factors
Lack of jobs
Agriculture no longer viable
Escaping persecution
Dodging the draft
Irish Tenants Evicted

4. Why They Came – Pull Factors
Wages 2-3 times higher in U.S.
Friends & relatives already here
Greater economic, social, & political freedom
Immigrants on board

5. How They Came – Means Recruitment Padrones Steamships
“Birds of Passage”
HMS Majestic, White Star Line, 1889

6. Cabin vs. Steerage Accommodations

7. Ellis Island, New York

8. Covered Entrance

9. Great Hall

10. Inspection

11. Hearing Room

12. Where Immigrants Settled

13. Urban Immigrants

14. Ethnic Ghettoes Never completely homogenous Dumbbell tenements
Created organizations to preserve culture
Churches
Schools
Benevolent associations
Singing clubs
Mulberry St., Manhattan
Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000

15. Tenement Sweatshop
Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000

16. Nativist Attacks
Nativists distinguished between good “old immigrants” & bad “new immigrants”
“old” immigrants hailed as pioneers who settled as families on the land, assimilated & became citizens
“new” immigrants were single men who worked in factories, lived in slums, & were less intelligent & more degenerate
Immigrants blamed for evils of urban, industrial America
Conservatives claimed they were labor radicals – socialists, anarchists
Unions saw them as strikebreakers
Social workers decried their unsanitary living conditions
Academics claimed they were racially inferior
TR warned of danger of “race suicide”
Anti-immigrant cartoon from The Ram’s Horn, 10/31/1896

17. Immigration Restriction Legislation
Page Act (1875) – prostitutes & convicts excluded from entry
Asian Exclusion:
1882 – Chinese Exclusion Act
1907 – Gentlemen’s Agreement with Japan
1917 – Asiatic Barred Zone created
1924 – all “aliens ineligible to citizenship” excluded
Foran Act (1885) – contract labor outlawed (except professionals)
1891 – federal Immigration Bureau created
Federal inspection centers like Ellis Island built
Courts ruled that immigration decisions were administrative – not subject to due process or judicial review

18. Restrictive Legislation, continued
1882, 1891, 1903 & 1907 acts excluded those with a variety of physical or mental defects
1917 act imposed literacy test on all immigrants
“Emergency” Quota Act (1921) – quotas set at 3% of 1910 census figures for each nationality
Reed – Johnson National Origins Act (1924)
Initial quotas set at 2% of 1890 census figures
In 1929 “national origins” quotas took effect, based on estimates of ethnic heritage of white population