During the late 19th century, increasing IMMIGRATION to the United States from southern and eastern Europe—as well as smaller numbers from China and Japan—provoked the rise of NATIVISM and demands for restricting immigration. Nativist and anti-Catholic groups such as the Immigrant Restriction League and the American Protective ASSOCIATION (APA), labor union leaders, and several American intellectuals called on the federal government to rethink its open-door immigration policies and implement a program of more selective immigration.
The movement to restrict the number of immigrants entering the United States had first emerged in the 1870s. The roots of the restrictionist movement were grounded in the social and economic changes taking place in America following the Civil War. These changes had produced a more stratified society where class tensions and labor conflicts abounded. Many Americans saw the new immigrants as the source of the nation’s social and economic problems. Restrictionists argued that the newcomers promoted radical or un-American interests, were mentally and physically inferior, corrupted politics by selling their votes, were prone to crime and poverty, undermined the standard of living of American workers, and posed a threat to traditional American values.
Among the earliest proponents of restrictions on immigration were labor unions, with the bitterest opposition focused on the Chinese of California. The Workingmen’s Party of California blamed unemployment and low wages on Chinese immigration. Supported by labor organizations in the East, western labor leaders lobbied Congress to pass restrictive measures aimed at reducing the number of Chinese immigrants entering the United States. As a result, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which prohibited the immigration of Chinese (except teachers, students, merchants, tourists, and officials) for 10 years. This law was renewed in 1892 and extended indefinitely in 1902. In addition, the influx of Japanese labor in the 1890s eventually led to a series of “gentlemen’s agreements” with Japan beginning in 1900, with Japan agreeing to limit the emigration of unskilled workers bound for the United States. Unions opposed the importation of laborers from Europe as well as from Asia. Both the Knights of Labor and the American Federation OF Labor (AFL) called for the end of recruiting contract laborers overseas. In 1885 Congress passed a contract labor law that prohibited the importing of workers under contract.
Religious bigotry was another source of restrictionist sentiment. Nativist groups in America, of which the APA was most prominent, were fearful of a “Catholic menace” and called for the restriction of emigrants from predominantly Catholic nations. Although the APA as an organization declined after 1896, anti-Catholicism continued to inspire opponents of immigration.
The third major restrictionist group was made up of American intellectuals based primarily in New England. Affected by a loss of status in the new social order emerging in late-19th-century America, they regarded themselves as the guardians of traditional American values. Their nationalist sentiments led them to credit American achievements to Anglo-Saxon superiority and traditions. They also accepted pseudoscientific Social Darwinism, with its belief that the immigrants were mentally and physically inferior and therefore would corrupt America’s superior Anglo-American stock; by barring new immigrants from entering the United States, traditional American values and Anglo-Saxon superiority would be preserved.
Apart from excluding Chinese (1882) and Japanese (1900) laborers, restriction made little headway in the 19th century. Restrictionists embraced literacy tests as the first step toward achieving their goal, and although Congress passed such a measure in 1896, President Grover Cleveland vetoed it. As the 20th century began, more and more migrants sought freedom and opportunity in the United States, and the restrictionist movement continued to gain strength.
See also progressivism in the 1890s.
Further reading: Thomas J. Curren, Xenophobia and Immigration, 1820-1930 (Boston: Twayne, 1975); John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1955).
—Phillip Papas
World History
