The Rising tide of Immigration

What is an immigrant?

An immigrant is a person who once resided somewhere else and now lives in a different country.

Immigrants at Ellis Islandafter arriving in America

Introduction

Steerage

Introduction

1. Why might they be leaving their homeland?

2. Why might they be going to a new place?

Possible Push Factors:

• Religious persecution

• Political persecution

• Economic limitations of the home country

• Protection from war and revolutions in the home country

• Famine / lack of good farming land

Possible Pull Factors:

• Religious freedom

• Political freedom

• Economic possibilities / abundance of jobs

•Peace

• Family reunification

• Better living conditions

• Abundance of land

• Hope for something better

What are Push/Pull Factors?

Introduction

Immigration in America

We are going to look at two different eras of immigration to the U.S.:

Old Immigration New ImmigrationTime Period: mid 1800s Time Period: late 1800s – early

1900s(Basically during the Gilded Age)

Introduction

1830 to 1860:

Mostly Irish and German

1860 to 1890:still mainly Northern Europeans

(England, Germany, Scandinavia)many came to settle the frontier near growing railroads

“Old Immigration”

Homestead Act of 1862

• 160 acres of public land free

• had to settle and farm the land for 5 years

• thousands moved west (including immigrants)

Oklahoma Land Rush – 1889

• 2 million acres of Creek & Seminole land

• 50,000 settlers

• 1 year later 260,000 in Oklahoma territory

• 1890- millions of acres of Sioux land in SD

“Old Immigration”

“Old Immigration”

“Old Immigration”

“Old Immigration”

“Old Immigration”

Many Americans welcomed these “old immigrants”

3. Why might these “old immigrants” be embraced by most U.S. citizens?

• workers for factories, mines, railroad• farmers for the west• consumers for agricultural and industrial products• men with special abilities and talents• additional manpower for military• easily assimilated in American society

“Old Immigration”

Welcome To AllEarly 1880’s

“Old Immigration”

Transcontinental Railroad

California • Gold Rush 1849 • Agriculture• cut off from rest of the country

Pacific Railroad Act (1862)• Union Pacific from Omaha west• Central Pacific from Sacramento east

Completed in 1869 – Promontory, Utah

Transcontinental Railroad

Irish Immigrants – Union Pacific Railroad workers

Transcontinental Railroad

Chinese Immigrants – Central Pacific workers

Transcontinental Railroad

Transcontinental Railroad

Transcontinental Railroad

Transcontinental Railroad

May 10, 1869 – Promontory, Utah

By the end of the 1800’s four more railroads crossed the country

Transcontinental Railroad

“New Immigration”

1890 to 1920mostly southern and eastern Europeans: Italy, Greece, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Poland

• came in much larger numbers than earlier immigrants• largely poor and illiterate – fleeing European cities• “birds of passage” – stayed short time, worked, and returned• settled mainly in cities near factories NOT frontier• had more difficulty assimilating as they were different from Americans – tried to preserve “Old Country” traditions• largely Roman Catholic or Jewish• native-born Americans feared immigrants would try to “establish” the Catholic church at the expense of Protestantism

What is Nativism?Nativism is a policy of favoring native inhabitants as opposed to immigrants

“New Immigration”

Opposition to “New Immigrants”4. What could be some reasons why people might oppose “new immigrants”?

Reasons to Oppose the New Immigrants:

• with the frontier closed, there was no land for them

• new immigrants competed for jobs that should belong to Americans

• they were harder to “Americanize” and had little education

• they created ghettos (enclaves) and felt no need to learn American ways

• many believed they were “inferior” to Old Immigrants

“New Immigration”

Nativism

: Keep immigrants out!

Immigrants were blamed for such things as:• the corruption of city government• low industrial wages• degradation of life in the cities

“New Immigration”

Discrimination: Irish Immigrants• people were Ireland’s greatest export • poor, uneducated• Roman Catholic (mistrusted)• faced discrimination• stayed in Eastern cities (too poor to go west)• “The Know-Nothings” – smear campaign

• stuck together became politically powerful

“New Immigration”

'Look here, you, everybody else is quiet and peaceable, and you're all the time a-kicking up a row!'"

Caption: "Uncle Sam's Lodging House"Source: PuckDate: June 7, 1882

“New Immigration”

"the raw Irishman in America is a nuisance, his son a curse. They never assimilate; the second generation simply shows an intensification of all the bad qualities of the first. . . .They are a burden and a misery to this country." Further, Irish had corrupted our politics, lowered the standards of domestic service, and waged an "imbecilic and indecent war" against the English government. The time had come to clear the Irishman from Uncle Sam's lodging house, where all races and nationalities, except the Irish, got along with each other!

PuckJune 7, 1882

“New Immigration”

An Irish thug and a Catholic priest carve up the Democratic Party goose that laid the golden eggs.

Thomas Nast – Harper’s Weekly

“New Immigration”

New York Harbor

Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

Point of entry for millions ofEuropean immigrants

Ellis Island

Ellis Island

New York Harbor was the gateway for millions ofimmigrants to the United States

nation's busiest immigration station from 1892 to 1954

12 million immigrants

Ellis Island• Today, over 100 million Americans - one third of the population – can trace their ancestry to the immigrants who first arrived in America at Ellis Island

• Peak year at Ellis Island was 1907, with 1,004,756 immigrants processed

• All-time daily high occurred on April 17, 1907, when 11,747 immigrants arrived

• Those immigrants who were approved spent from two to five hours at Ellis Island

• Arrivals were asked 29 questions including name, occupation, and the amount of money carried

• Those with visible health problems or diseases were sent home or held in the island's hospital facilities for long periods of time

• Some unskilled workers were rejected because they were considered "likely to become a public charge."

5. Why are they sitting in “holding pens”?

6. What might they be feeling as they are waiting?

Ellis Island

7. What is happening in this scene?

8. Is the treatment they are receiving fair or not? Why?

Ellis Island

Ellis Island

Denied admission to the U.S. and sent back to their countries of origin for reasons such as:

- having a chronic contagious disease - criminal background- insanity

"The Island of Tears" or "Heartbreak Island"

Nativism and Discrimination: Chinese Immigrants

Gold rush in California

Building of Transcontinental RR

Chinese Exclusion Act – 1882

The Act excluded Chinese "skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining" from entering the country for ten years under penalty of imprisonment and deportation.

“New Immigration”

“New Immigration”

“New Immigration”

European Immigration 1820-1920Country TotalGermany 5,500,000Ireland 4,400,000

Italy 4,190,000Austria-Hungary 3,700,000

Russia 3,250,000England 2,500,000Sweden 1,000,000Norway 730,000Scotland 570,000France 530,000Greece 350,000

Graphs and Statistics

Interpreting graphs:9. What can we learn about Irish immigration by looking at this graph?

10. Can we make guesses about the “push” and “pull” factors that Irish immigrants may have experienced?

Graphs and Statistics

Chinese immigration to the United States

Interpreting graphs:

11. What can we learn about Chinese immigration by looking at this graph?

Graphs and Statistics

Immigration and Illiteracy

Year of Arrival in the United States

Unable to read or write in any language

1896 83,1961897 44,5801898 44,7731899 61,4681900 95,6731901 120,6451902 165,1051903 189,0081904 172,8561905 239,0911906 269,8231907 343,402

Graphs and Statistics

12. What does this graph tell us about immigration during the “3rd Wave of Immigration” to the United States?

Interpreting graphs:

13. What do these graphs tell us about immigration during the Gilded Age?

14. What might it tell us about immigration today?

Graphs and Statistics

15. What is this political cartoon making new immigrants out to be?

16. Who is the man coming down the gangplank?

17. Who are the men on the dock?

18. Who do the shadows represent?

19. What are the men on the dock trying to tell the arriving immigrant?

20. What is the irony of this cartoon?