Immigration

The United States is a nation of immigrants and their children. From the earliest migrants who walked from Asia over an isthmus at what is now the Bering Strait many thousand years ago, peoples have come to America in waves. The main flow of immigration to the United States in 1870 has come to be known as the “Old Immigration,” and it began just after the Napoleonic Wars. Between 1820 and 1880 more than 10 million immigrants entered the country. More than 90 percent of the newcomers were from northern and western Europe: England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Germany, Holland, and Scandinavia, with Irish and German migrants predominating. The remainder came from eastern and southern Europe, China, Japan, and the Americas. In 1870, for example, out of

387.000  immigrants, 329,000 came from Europe, and of those, 118,000 came from Germany, 104,000 from Great Britain, 57,000 from Ireland, 31,000 from Scandinavia,

9.000  from other northwestern European countries, and a mere 10,000 immigrated to the United States from the remaining central, eastern, and southern European countries. The number of emigrants from Ireland had dropped considerably from 221,000 in 1851, and those from Scandinavia had risen dramatically from the 2,000 to 3,000 that came in the 1850s.

Virtually all of the 1870 immigrants were from rural areas, where most owned little or no land and lived in poverty, and almost all were lured to the United States by cheap land and a dynamic economy. The Irish were among the poorest immigrants and settled mostly in northeastern cities such as Boston and New York City, formed tight-knit communities, and supported the political machines associated with the Democratic Party in those cities. Although a large number of middle-class German intellectuals migrated to America following the failure of the liberal revolutions of 1848, by 1870 the typical German immigrant was a small farmer or skilled artisan seeking improved economic conditions. Many of the German arrivals came with enough money to move to the Midwest, where they purchased land and established farms or opened businesses in cities such as Chicago, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. Those who arrived with skills quickly found work as craftsmen. Like the Irish in the Northeast, those Germans who settled in the cities of the Midwest formed their own ethnic communities and gave their support to the Democrats. Scandinavians tended to settle on farms in Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Nebraska, although many found employment as skilled carpenters. Migrants from Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales) usually carried skills with them and found work in industry. Welsh coal miners, for example, settled in the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania.

Approximately 70 percent of all immigrants arriving in America landed in New York City. Until the early 1890s immigrants at New York were processed at Castle Garden at the foot of Manhattan Island, but in 1892 the federal Bureau of Immigration established Ellis Island in New York harbor as a new point of entry for immigrants. At Ellis Island, federal medical and nonmedical immigration officials enforced the minimal restrictions on immigration and turned back paupers, criminals, polygamists, the mentally deficient, the contagiously ill, and contract laborers. From 1864 to 1885 these laborers—who agreed to a maximum of one year’s work in return for passage to the United States— were admitted, but Congress, which had originally authorized the practice of contract labor, forbade it in 1885. Only about 2 percent of those who wished to enter were turned back at Ellis Island. Officials recorded the names of those who passed, made sure they paid an entry tax, and put them on the ferry that landed them at the lower tip of New York City. As at Ellis Island, federal inspectors operated landing stations in Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore on the east coast, New Orleans in the South, and on Angel Island in San Francisco.

By 1900 sufficient changes among newcomers had occurred to speak of a “New Immigration.” In that year

449.000  persons immigrated to the United States, of whom

425.000  were from Europe. However, compared with 1870, there was a sharp drop in immigrants from northern and western Europe and a spectacular rise in those who came from eastern, central, and southern Europe. Emigrants from Germany fell to 19,000, from Great Britain to 13,000, and from Ireland to 36,000, but almost the same number—a bit more than 31,000—came from Scandinavia. Those from other northwestern European countries fell to 6,000. In contrast, 98,000 came from eastern Europe, 115,000 from central Europe, and 108,000 from southern Europe.

These new immigrants were pushed from their homelands and pulled to the United States. Several forces drove these immigrants from their homes: the undermining of subsistence farming by commercial agriculture; the shift away from household production because of industrialization; the steady growth in population that brought a shortage of available farmland; oppressive taxes; famine and disease; and religious and political persecution. America’s growing economy and its demand for workers held great promise for the new immigrants. With the exception of those from eastern Europe, virtually all of the immigrants in 1900 came to the United States to better their economic position, and some would return to their homelands having earned enough to buy land, houses, or set up businesses. Most of the immigrants from eastern Europe were Jews fleeing persecution (pogroms) in the Russian Empire.

The decision to migrate often occurred through social networks of people linked by kinship, place of residence, friendship, and work experience. These “migration chains,” extending from one’s homeland to specific destinations in America, helped migrants cope with the considerable risks entailed by their long journey. In addition, letters from those who had already migrated often gave glowing reports of the opportunities enjoyed by newcomers and raised the expectations of and excited potential migrants.

New technologies such as the railroad, telegraph, and steamship also added to the appeal of America by making

This cartoon places the blame for "anarchy, socialism, the Mafia, and such kindred evils" on the liberal immigration policy of the time, 1891. (New York Public Library)

Communications and travel cheaper, safer, and quicker. Whereas it once took sailing ships from one to three months to travel across the Atlantic, by the 1880s new steam-powered ships were making the trip in one to two weeks. Major steamship lines such as Cunard, Holland-America, and White Star competed for passengers. Immigrants who chose to pay the cheapest fares were quartered deep in the bowels of the vessel in the filthy, crowded “steerage” section.

Most migrants from central, eastern, and southern Europe were very poor. One-third of the immigrants that came through Ellis Island could afford to go no further than New York City or its environs. Coming from rural backgrounds, most of the “new” immigrants were unskilled mechanically and did backbreaking labor on construction and railroads, as well as in coal mines, steel mills, and factories. Ironically, in the needle trades, where some skills were required, immigrants were exploited in sweat shops. The hardest, dirtiest, lowest paying jobs in industry were known as “foreign” jobs. For most immigrants, the work was harder, the hours longer, and the pay better than in their homeland, and in the last respect America kept its promise.

Although America utilized immigrant brawn, many of its native-born citizens did not welcome the immigrant presence. Immigrants are strangers in a strange land, but the new migrants from central, eastern, and southern Europe were even more strange in—and estranged—from America than the “old” migrants from northern and western Europe. Upon arriving in America, the newcomers’ inability to speak the language and unfamiliarity with American customs led many to seek people who spoke their language, shared their cultural values, and practiced their religion. Ethnic communities emerged in areas where large numbers of immigrants concentrated, and these communities helped immigrants make the transition from their homelands to America. They were places where the newcomers could learn about the traditions of their new homeland while retaining their own cultures.

In America’s cities, new immigrant communities took the form of densely populated ghettos. Overcrowded tenements, poor sanitation, and inadequate health services made many immigrant communities unhealthy places to live. The new immigrants, most of whom were not Protestant in religion, also confronted a brand of NATIVISM that viewed them as a threat to traditional American values and customs. American reformers attempted to remedy the situation in the immigrant communities and assist in the process of assimilation by operating various social and educational programs for the newcomers. The SETTLEMENT HOUSE movement, started in the United States by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr, the cofounders of Hull-House in Chicago (1889), offered an important source of help for immigrants. The success of Hull-House was followed by similar projects in most major American cities, especially New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. The settlement-house workers provided immigrants with medical services, emergency relief, citizenship courses, counseling or vocational training, assistance in getting a job, and lessons in cooking, hygiene, and English. These services were designed not only to improve the living conditions within immigrant communities, but also to provide the newcomers with the means and knowledge to assimilate into American culture and to become good citizens.

The urban immigrant communities also developed a mutually beneficial relationship with the local political “boss.” Many urban political machines, especially Tammany Hall in New York City, relied on the immigrant vote for electoral success, and immigrants felt they could turn to the boss when they needed help, which indeed they often did. In exchange for immigrant votes, the boss would provide jobs, emergency relief, legal assistance, or housing accommodations. Since the Democratic Party dominated much of the urban political landscape, many immigrants became loyal Democratic partisans.

See also American Protective Association; IMMIGRATION RESTRICTIONS; PlUNKITT, GeORGE WASHINGTON; PROGRESSIVISM IN THE 1890S; RlIS, JACOB A.;

Statue oe Liberty.

Further reading: John Bodner, The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985); Oscar Handlin, The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations that Made the American People (Boston: Little, Brown, 1951); Alan M. Kraut, The Huddled Masses: The Immigrant in American Society, 1880-1921 (Arlington Heights, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1982).

—Phillip Papas