America

1
Americas Immigration History
2
The Great Migration

• 46 million left their homes.
• 56 came to the U.S.
• From 1880 to 1921, more than 23 million
  immigrants arrived in America.
• Few limits on immigration.

3
Demographics of Immigrants after 1880

• Most immigrants came from Southern and Eastern
  Europe
• Italians, Russians, Polish, Slovaks, Bulgarians,
  Hungarians, Greeks, Armenians
• Young, male, spoke little or no English,
  unskilled, little money or education

4
Why Did They Leave Home?

• Push 1 Lack of Work
• Farmers laid off local farm laborers as their
  jobs could be performed more cheaply and easily
  by machines.
• Craftspeople are unable to compete with factory
  production and need new employment.
• Push 2 Rising Population
• More people competing for fewer resources like
  land, food and jobs.
• Push 3 Political and Religious Persecution
• Jews in Russia

5
The Lure of America

• Newspaper articles, and letters home said America
  was magical with lots of opportunity and
  riches.

6
The Lure of America

• Business owners sent representatives overseas to
  recruit cheap labor.
• Steamship companies were eager for passengers.
• Both began to make marketing flyers to paint
  America as something it was not the streets are
  paved with gold.

7
Leaving the Homeland

• Most families used up all the money they had
  getting to America.
• Steamship fare ran from 65 to 100 per ticket.
• Some had to travel hundreds of miles just to get
  to the coast.

8
The Journey to America

• Immigrants boarded steamships carrying 2,000
  people.
• Trip would take 8-14 days.
• Most immigrants traveled in steerage compartments
  (storage).
• Usually 1 toilet for every 50 -1,000 people.

9
Living Conditions in Steerage

• Diseases spread on ships (smallpox and typhoid)
• Very little food
• Bed of donkeys breakfast
• Very bad odor
• Poor ventilation

10
Cabin Class

• By the early 1900s, some steamships removed
  steerage areas, and replaced them with cabin
  class
• Vast improvement over steerage
• Had cabins, or small rooms, more toilets, dining
  rooms, a lounge.

11
Pick a Section!

• Talk to your neighbor about important ideas from
  todays lecture. Be ready to share with the class!

12
Arrival in America

• The Statue of Liberty (lady liberty)
• Give us 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 up my lamp
  beside the golden door.
• ElIis Island immigrant processing center
• Checked for contagious or life-threatening
  diseases
• Cholera, the plague, and typhoid
• 1st class passengers were briefly questioned, and
  then allowed into America

13
Steerage Class Inspections

• Steerage Class faced very rigorous inspection
  process.
• Each person was given a tag with a number.
• The inspections were designed to weed out
  immigrants they believed might require public
  assistance (mentally ill and the sick).
• Inspections usually took 45 minutes per person,
  and were very intrusive

14
Steerage Class Inspections

• After medical inspections, new arrivals awaited
  an interrogation.
• Wait time for questioning could be anywhere from
  3 hours to one day.
• Questions determined if the immigrant was coming
  to America for a legitimate reason, had a proper
  moral character, and was unlikely to become a
  ward of the state, or a violent revolutionary

15
Leaving Ellis Island

• Most immigrants were allowed entrance to the U.S.
• Only 2 were deported.
• After 1921 however, more and more immigrants were
  deported following stricter immigration laws.
• After the Island
• Make travel plans, go to RR station, exchange ,
  mail letter back home, and/or stay in NY

16

• Talk to your neighbor What was the typical
  immigrants experience at Ellis island?

17
Ethnic Enclaves

• Most immigrants settled in urban areas
• New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia
• Initially stayed with friends/relatives.
• Lived in ethnic communities provided familiar
  customs, food, language, etc.

18
Where did they live?

• Cities were not ready to handle the growing
  population.
• Raw sewage (thats right, POOP!) overflowed into
  streets.
• Housing was scarce.
• Some lived in makeshift shanties built in
  alleyways.

19
Tenement Buildings

• Those lucky enough to find housing lived in a
  tenement building.
• 6-7 floors
• Up to 1,231 people in a 120 room tenement (10
  ppl/room)
• One shared bathroom per floor

20
Where did they work?

• Most immigrants worked industrial jobs.
• Provided lots of cheap labor for business owners.
• Most were unskilled or semiskilled laborers, and
  uneducated.

21
Working Conditions

• Families typically needed 16/week to survive,
  many immigrants were paid 4/week.
• Kids were paid 1.25/week.
• Worked 12-16 hours a day, 6 days/week

22
Improved Standard of Living

• Nowhere there is heaven, everywhere misery, in
  America no good, but still better than in the
  old country.

23
American Nativism

• Nativism is the preference for native born
  Americans.
• Nativists believed that immigrants threatened
  the American way of life.
• Believed immigrants took jobs away from real
  Americans, and are invading America.

24
Push for Immigrant Restrictions

• Nativists lobbied to restrict the number of
  immigrants entering the U.S.
• Called for a literacy test for all newcomers.
• In 1921 Congress passed the Dillingham Bill set
  quotas for the number of immigrants entering the
  U.S. each year.

25
Pick a Section!

• Talk to your neighbor about important ideas from
  todays lecture. Be ready to share with the class!