Immigration In The Late 1800s And Early 1900's

In the eyes of the early American colonists and the founders of the Constitution, the United States was to represent the ideals of acceptance and tolerance to those of all walks of life. When the immigration rush began in the mid-1800's, America proved to be everything but that. The millions of immigrants would soon realize the meaning of hardship and rejection as newcomers, as they attempted to assimilate into American culture. For countless immigrants, the struggle to arrive in America was rivaled only by the struggle to gain acceptance among the existing American population.

Immigration in the United States is a complex demographic activity that has been a major contribution to population growth and cultural change throughout much of the nation's history. The many aspects of immigration have controversy in economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants, settlement patterns, crime, and even voting behavior. Congress has passed many laws that have to do with immigrants especially in the 19th century such as the Naturalization Act of 1870, and the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, or even the Immigration Act of 1903 all to insure specific laws and boundaries set on immigrants. The life of immigrants has been drastically changed throughout the years of 1880-1925 through aspects such as immigrants taking non-immigrants

Americans were unsettled by the overwhelming amount of new immigrants. The new immigrants came in such massive quantities that in 1900 immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe made up as much as 70 percent of all immigrants. This is a dramatic increase considering that in midcentury these immigrants only made up 1 percent of the immigrant population. This overhaul of new immigrants led to severe hostility, bias, and nativism. Nativism is the belief that native-born white Americans were superior to newcomers. Competition for jobs and housing had never been higher in the late 19th century. America was in an economic recession and most immigrants were willing to work for much lower wages than natural born citizens which as a result put them out of work and ultimately housing. This however was only one problem, religion was another. American Protestants were suspicious of Catholicism which was the religion of many new immigrants including the Irish, German, Italian, and Polish. The majority of white Protestants would not hire, vote for, or even work with Catholics or Jewish people. In severe cases Americans would even sign contracts agreeing not to

Many people from all over the world saw America as a place to create a better life for them and their family. America was a place full of many job opportunities, ones that were not available anywhere else in the world. It was in America that people from different nations saw the chance to escape the place they originally lived because of unfair government or as a chance to have money to send back to their family in their homeland. The period after the civil war was an era of tremendous migration from southern and eastern Europe as well as from China, because of all the opportunities that were available here that were not available anywhere else. Migration was also prominent within America when African Americans

In the late 1800s , America became the land of new opportunities and new beginnings and New York City became the first landmark for immigrants. New York City was home to Ellis Island, the area in which migrants were to be handed for freedom to enter the nation. Living in New York City gave work and availability to ports. In time the city gave the chance to outsider's to construct groups with individuals from their nation , they were classified as new and old settlers. Old outsiders included Germans, Irish and, English. The new outsiders incorporated those from Italy, Russia, Poland and Austria-Hungary. In 1875, the New York City populace was a little 1 million individuals contrasted with the 3,5 million it held when the new century

Economically, they filled a significant need for cheap labor in booming American industries. The large numbers of immigrants helped keep labor cost down for Big Business and different groups were often put against each other in competition for the cheapest workers. Politically, different immigrant groups became active members of various labor organizations and unions, pushing to change pro-business laws and establish regulations governing working conditions and wages. And socially, American culture as it is known now was formed by this influx of immigrants. People from all over the planet brought with them not only their labor but also their cultures, helping to contribute to the mosaic that is the American way of life. These immigrants, as shown by the prejudice and discrimination directed towards them, were not always welcome. In economic hard times, immigrants were blamed for job shortages and family hardships, used as scapegoats for larger problems. Nativist movements were directed against the Chinese, Japanese, Italians, and others, especially during the 1880s and 90s. As evidenced by the Chinese Exclusion Act and later legislation that limited immigration from Japan and other regions, this anti-immigrant sentiment went as high up as the nation's capital. This history was simply a repeat of the nativism and hatred directed against the Irish and Germans of the 1840s and 1850s and is similar to that experienced in America today by immigrants from Mexico and Latin America. In the area of immigration, history repeats

With the immigration of Europeans, primarily the Irish, came conflicting views that created tension within the United States and caused Americans to fear change and reform their society. Due to these tensions, a new ideology, nativism, became popular. Nativism, an anti-immigration ideology, emphasized the idea that immigrants were only liked for their ability to serve and listen to what their priests told them to. Also, nativism stated

In recent history, many Americans have had a growing concern for the immigration (both legal and illegal) growth in our country. While the United States of America was settled by European immigrants, the unprecedented growth the late 1800s saw, led to reform on the immigration policy, which once was nonexistent. Based on conditions floods of immigrants caused in the cities of the country, the immigration reform was needed. Not only were the lives of immigrants negatively impacted in the United States, but so were previously settled Americans.

Immigrants have been seeking salvation or just new opportunities in America for hundreds of years. Even Americans originally started off as immigrants. They came to settle in this New World to seek opportunities. These types of immigrants were white, strong, leaders and felt they were superior. In the mid nineteenth century, the “new” immigrants were also welcomed. According to President Grant, these “new” immigrants were the weak, broken, and crippled people who had nowhere else to go. Grant thought these “new” immigrants would ruin the tone of the American life into a more vulgarized tone now that these immigrants are filling up the jails and asylums (Document 4). They mostly came from

The 1840s and 50s experienced a massive escalation in the number of immigrants from Europe especially from Ireland, and Germany, arriving on U.S shores in densely populated urban areas (Arenson, 2011). Most of them afterward became vigorous in domestic politics, much to the aggravation of old-stock, authentic Americans. The consequence was a renaissance in the formation of “nativistic” societies (small, indistinct, anti-foreign and anti-catholic organizations), some which banded together in the early 1850s to form the American Party (Arenson, 2011). Commonly referred to as the “Know-Nothing,” the party rode a wave of racial intolerance as well as racism into the mid-1850s.

In the United States, the cliché of a nation of immigrants is often invoked. Indeed, very few Americans can trace their ancestry to what is now the United States, and the origins of its immigrants have changed many times in American history. Despite the identity of an immigrant nation, changes in the origins of immigrants have often been met with resistance. What began with white, western European settlers fleeing religious persecution morphed into a multicultural nation as immigrants from countries across the globe came to the U.S. in increasing numbers. Like the colonial immigrants before them, these new immigrants sailed to the Americas to gain freedom, flee poverty and

Nativism was a big storm of hatred towards immigrants in the Twentieth Century. Also “By 1855, more than 50,000 men belonged to the ritual-bound organization” (Nativism). In other words, more than 50,000 men were anti catholics and wanted to kill them. This was an act that was targeted against immigrants then it excelled to another multifarious amount of people. Additionally, immigration “served as a catalyst for anti-Semitism in much the same way as it did for anti-Catholic sentiment” (Nativism). This demonstrates how immigration was the reason why this discrimination started. To add, all of these anti discrimination killed many natives and immigrants. On top of all those discrimination, hatred there was another anti black group. In the 1920s there was a KKK Klan against blacks. The “Klan began to lose members following the passage of the Immigration Act (1924), which severely cut back immigration from southern and eastern Europe. By the end of the 1920s, following an era of prosperity for the white middle class, the Klan had only 82,000 members” (Nativism). This clan was powerful enough to stop black immigration and this is all because nativism. For instance, immigration was equally spread, but because of the KKK klan, black immigrants were denied immigration to the

This is a typical 1900's picture of European immigrants arriving in the US. As you can see, they arrived from the ''front door'' because in that time, some countries paid for the immigrants join them and they were excited to start a new life with a good job, offer of inexpensive land and with the promise for a better life. The picture shows half of the people with a happy face and the other half with a face a little bit more scary. The ones with a happy face could not wait to the new opportunity, a chance for change the economic situation that was not so good in their own country, on the other hand, we can see some people with a scary face, because a lot of immigrants in that time were refugees and they didn't have the chance to choose if they

In the early 1900‘s, America was in the middle of an industrial revolution. This revolution caused a wide gap in the economic market, resulting in a few rich people and mostly working class people. Because of this inequality, people began to develop social science and social Darwinism. The new ideas of social science and social Darwinism made many Anglo Saxons believe their superiority was biological. This led to the creation of organizations against immigration from ‘unassimilable’ races. White Europeans looked similar enough to the Anglo Saxons of America and Black people were already accepted in America. However, Asians were considered unassimilable and were not accepted due to the new social ideas. The American Industrial Revolution led

WWI was the cornerstone to implement new laws against immigrants based on the perception of the American Society. In the United States, the nativist movement influenced politicians to pass laws against immigrants before, during, and after WWI. The effects of the war were reflected on a more intense nativist movement. Therefore, it influenced the United States legislators to pass laws aimed to restrict immigration as much as possible. According to Rubin, the nativist movement opposed to any newcomers because they represented jobs taken away from Native Americans (193)