Between 1877-1914, around 10 million immigrants came to the United States from Europe, many from southeastern Europe like Italy and Eastern Europe. They were drawn by economic opportunities and pushed by factors like overpopulation and crop failures in Europe. Most settled in large cities where cultural communities had already formed and jobs were available. However, native-born Americans began to view the new immigrants more negatively due to fears they were taking jobs and social/political tensions. This led to calls for immigration restrictions and the establishment of groups like the Immigration Restriction League that advocated for literacy tests and quotas to limit immigration.

1. Immigration 1877-1914
Give us your tired…….

2. Who First?
• mainly
– English,
– Irish,
– Germanic, Scandinav
ian,
– and others from
northwestern Europe

3. Reasons for “Old Immigration”
• Between 1840-1850, 1.5 million immigrants came to
America.
• Nearly ½ were from Ireland due to the potato famine of
that country.
• From 1846-1860, approximately 1.5 million Irish settled
in port cities such as New York and Boston.
• In the 1840’s, large numbers of Germans immigrated to
escape crop failures, and political persecution. German
Jews were also seeking their freedom. Most German
immigrants settled on farms in the Midwest, and in cities
such as Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and St. Louis.

4. When, how many
• 1815-1860
–5 million
• 1877-1914
–10 Million

6. Who Second….
1. c. 1890-1914---
1. -15 million
immigrants
journeyed to the
United States,
2. many of whom were
Austro-
Hungarian, Turkish,
Lithuanian, Russian,
Jewish, Greek, Italia
n, Romanian

7. The Dillingham Commission
• In 1907, the US Senate, under pressure from the
Immigration Restriction League, formed the
Dillingham Commission
• Commission -a 1880 shift in immigration
patterns corresponded to the rise of festering
social and economic problems in the US
• "inferior" migrants from places in southeastern
Europe were responsible
• Stricter immigration restrictions and literacy test
should be used to limit the poor and uneducated.

8. Cause of immigration
• Fugitives
– Religious, Cultural, Ju
stice
• Economy
– Poor European
– Strong US
• Social Change Europe

9. Societal Change in Europe
• Dramatic population
increase.
• Spread of commercial
agriculture
• Rise of the factory
system
• proliferation of
inexpensive means of
transportation

10. Urban settlement
• Majority settle in
cities
• Immigrant
populations, highest
in the largest cities
(New
York, Boston, Pittsbur
gh, and Chicago).

11. Why Cities?
• No money for land
and expensive
farming equip.
• Rejection of European
landowners traditions
• US farming unique
• Cultural centers
already established
• Too late for free land

12. Reactions of “natives”
• Readily welcomed
early on by WASPs as
cheap labor
• Unions and
Haymarket square
alter opinions

14. EMIGRANT.--Can I come in?
UNCLE SAM.--I 'spose you can;
there's no law to keep you out.

17. Dr. Charles Benedict Davenport
• weaknesses in society were
due to the unnatural
preservation, by the use of
modern medicine, of the
"feeble-minded" and "unfit."
• "the population of the United
States will, rapidly become
darker in
pigmentation, smaller in
stature, more
mercurial, more attached to
music and art, [and] more
given to crimes of
larceny, kidnapping, assault,
murder, rape and sex-

19. Immigration Restriction
League
• Boston
lawyers, professors, and
philanthropists
• demonstrate literacy in some
language
• it would keep out many of
the "new" immigrants from
southern and eastern Europe-
--whom league members
considered inferior beings,

21. • Some questions to
keep in mind:
1. Why did so many
Europeans choose to
migrate to the United
States during the late
nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries?
2. How did immigration
transform American
society and culture?
3. How did Americans
react to immigration?