IMMIGRATION

 

 

Interpreting Primary Sources

 

What class of our citizens most strenuously resist the moral restrains of the community....who among our population give unrestricted and unregulated license to the ten thousand drinking places in the city, which are the chief receptacles of drunkenness, debauchery, villainy, and disease?  It is the residuum or dregs of four millions of European immigrants, including paupers, felons, and convicts that have landed at this port within the last twenty years.  

 

--Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the New York Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor, 1867  

 

 

The best reason that could be given for this radical restriction of

immigration is the necessity of protecting our population against

degeneration and saving our national peace and quiet from imported

turbulence and disorder.

 

I cannot believe that we would be protected against these evils by limiting immigration to those who can read and write in any language twenty-five words of our Constitution.  In my opinion it is infinitely more safe to admit a hundred thousand immigrants who, though unable to read and write, seek among us only a home and opportunity to work, than to admit one of those unruly agitators and enemies of governmental control, who can not only read and write but delights in arousing by inflammatory speech the illiterate and peacefully inclined to discontent and tumult.  Violence and disorder do not originate with illiterate laborers. 

 

--President Cleveland's veto of immigration restriction bill   

 

 

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

 

--Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus"

 

 

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism...The one absolutely certain way of bringing the nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.

 

--Theodore Roosevelt, 1915

 

Questions to think about: 

 

1.  What social evils do critics associate with mass immigration?

 

2.  Which is the goal of American immigration--a "melting pot" or cultural pluralism?

 

3.  What kind of immigration policy is most consistent with the nation's needs and ideals?

 

                    

 

INTERPRETING STATISTICS:  IMMIGRANT AMERICA

 

Number of Immigrants

 

1820                       8,385

1830                     23,322

1840                     84,066

1850                   369,980

1860                   153,640

1870                   387,203

1880                   457,257

1890                   455,302

1900                   448,572

1910                1,041,570

1920                   430,001

1930                   241,700

1940                     70,756

1950                   249,187

 

Question to think about:

 

1.  During which period was immigration greatest?

 

2.  Has wartime or depression increased or decreased immigration?

 

 

Impact of Immigration Quotas

 

Average Annual Inflow

 

                                                            Immigrants from            Other Immigrants                                                                                              Northern and

                                                Western Europe

 

1907-1914                                           176,983                       685,531

Quotas under 1921 Act                        198,082                       158,367

Quotas under 1924 Act                        140,999                       20,847

 

Questions to think about:

 

1.  What impact did quotas have upon immigration?

 

2.  Which groups suffered the most restriction?

 

 

Family Characteristics of Major Immigrant Groups, 1909-1914

 

                        Percentage Returning                Males Per 100 Females            Percent Under 14

                        to Europe

Group       

 

Czechs               5                                               133                                       19

English                6                                               136                                       16

Finish                 7                                               181                                         8

Germans             7                                               132                                       18

Greeks             16                                               170                                         4

 

Hebrews            2                                               117                                       25

Hungarians       22                                               141                                       16

Italians              17                                               320                                       12

Poles                13                                               188                                       10

Slovaks            19                                               162                                       12

 

Questions to think about:

 

1.  Which immigrant groups were most likely to leave the United States and return home?

 

2.  Which groups had the most even sex ratio?  the least even?

 

3.  Which groups included the largest number of children?

 

 

Age of Marriage for Women

 

                        15-19               20-24               25-29               45-54

 

German            10                    49                    77                    96

Irish                    2                    18                    46                    85

Italian               29                    74                    93                    99

Japanese          51                    85                    87                    93

 

Polish               15                    66                    89                    99

Russian               7                    55                    90                    99

Urban Blacks   16                    57                    n.a.                   94

Native Whites   13                    53                    77                    91

 

 

Question to think about:

 

1.  Which immigrant groups married earliest? latest?

 

2.  Explain why some groups married earlier than others and why this is significant.

 

 

Child Labor

 

Proportion of Children 10-15 in Labor Force

 

                                    Boston             Philadelphia                  Pittsburgh      

Boys

 native                            7                    20                                20

 2nd generation               8                    24                                20    

 1st generation              19                    39                                30

 Black                          10                    17                                19

 

Girls

 native                            3                    12                                  5

 2nd generation               6                    18                                  8    

 1st generation              13                    39                                18

 Black                            4                    14                                  7

 

Questions to think about:

 

1.  Which groups were most likely to have children in the labor force?

 

2.  Which groups were least likely?