Quota Act (1921)

The Quota Act of 1921 was the culmination of 25 years of lobbying for restrictive immigration laws. Through much of the 19th century, the United States had an “open door” immigration policy, which had allowed individuals and families to enter the country with relatively few restrictions. As the economy of the United States became more concentrated in urban areas and focused on industrial production, the volume of migrants steadily increased. The growing number of immigrants in urban centers quickly became an issue of concern and gave raise to a vocal anti-immigrant movement. Although Congress moved to restrict the entry of Asian immigrants, particularly those from China, as early as 1882, it was not able to enact legislation that closed the door to immigrants from Europe prior to World War I. Indeed, with steady improvements in transatlantic transportation, European migrants were able to reach the United States in ever-increasing numbers. In 1882, some 788,922 immigrants entered the United States, and 1,285,349 entered in 1907. Not only did the volume of immigrants steadily increase, but the countries of origin for immigrants dramatically shifted as well. New immigration from southern and eastern Europe predominated.

World War I brought a precipitous drop in the number of immigrants arriving in the United States, but the volume of people seeking entry quickly returned to near prewar levels following the cessation of hostilities in Europe. By 1921, some 800,000 immigrants had sought entry to the United States, and the proportion of southern and eastern Europeans among them remained high. In 1917, Congress had enacted a literacy test in the hope of restricting the entry of immigrants to the United States in the Immigration Act of 1917. Within only a few years, it became clear that this legislation would not have the desired effect. Accordingly, Congress moved to the next step and put into place legislation that limited the number of immigrants eligible to enter based on country of origin and the total number of immigrants that the United States accepted annually. The Quota Act of 1921 limited the annual number of entrants of each admissible nationality to 3 percent of that foreign-born nationality as recorded in the official census of 1910. The intended purpose of this legislation was to control the influx of immigrants. Immigration restriction-ists thought that this legislation would effectively close the door on emigrants from southern and eastern Europe, who had quotas set at less than one-quarter the annual volume of immigration prior to World War I. Under this legislation, Congress continued to allow free emigration from its neighbors in the Western Hemisphere. Between 1907 and 1914, the average annual emigration from countries in northern and western Europe was nearly 177,000 while the same figure for emigrants from countries in southern and eastern Europe slightly exceeded 685,000. With the passage of the 1921 Quota Act, the volume and origins of immigrants to the United States dramatically shifted. Some 198,000 emigrants entered in 1922 from northern and western Europe, while only a little better than 158,000 emigrants from southern and eastern Europe were able to gain entry to the United States.

Further reading: John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925, 2d ed. (New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1988).

—David R. Smith