Day: April 10, 2025

notes for quiz on Friday

| Mr. Toliver

Immigration from Europe after the Civil War exploded. In 1865, the population of the US was 31 million. By 1914, the population was over 98,000,000. In less than 50 years, the population of the US had tripled.
Between 1882 and 1914, approximately 20 million immigrants came to the United States.
By 1900, New York City had as many Irish residents as Dublin, Ireland. It had more Italians than any city outside Rome, Italy and more Poles than any city except Warsaw, Poland.
It had more Jews than any other city in the world, as well as sizable numbers of Slavs, Lithuanians, Chinese, and Scandinavians.

Fleeing crop failure, land and job shortages, rising taxes, and famine, many came to the U. S. because it was perceived as the land of economic opportunity.

Immigrants mainly came to big Northern cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston.
Many black people left the South after the Civil War for better opportunities and because of poor treatment by some whites.

Immigration to the US was also cheap, and there were few limitations on those who could come. It cost as little as $10 to come to America from Europe by ship. Once immigrants got to New York City, most of them went through Ellis Island, where they would be screened to see who was able to stay in the US and who was sent back to their home country.
Ellis Island was an immigration center where it was decided who got to stay and who got returned to their home country.
Here’s a video about Ellis Island:
Immigrants at Ellis Island | History 4:28

Who got sent back to their home countries?
People with diseases like tuberculosis, pneumonia, influenza, cholera, typhoid fever, diphtheria, measles, scarlet fever, and smallpox could be refused.
People with mental or physical defects could be refused entry.
People unable to support themselves were refused entry.
Criminals, anarchists, stowaways, kids under 16 without a sponsor, and people who couldn’t read or write were denied entry.

So people could be denied entry due to
disease,
mental or physical defects,
being unable to support themselves,
or for criminal history
and even political views.

Not all immigrants were welcome. There were riots against Chinese immigrants in California, and even legislation by the federal government, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned Chinese immigration for 10 years, starting in 1882.

Irish, German, and Italian immigrants also faced discrimination in housing and jobs from “nativists”, American-born citizens who resented them coming to America to compete for jobs, housing, and other resources. These immigrants were also paid less for their work than citizens.

Conditions where migrants tended to make their start were poorly built, cramped and prone to diseases like cholera, typhus, and tuberculosis. However, these immigrants also enriched their areas because they built churches, banks, grocery stores, and other stores.

In New York City, Blacks centered in Harlem, Chinese and Asians in Lower Manhattan, Germans in Manhattan, and Italians in Staten Island.
In Philadelphia, Irish, Germans, and British were the predominant immigrant groups. They made up over ⅔ of all foreign-born people, but there were already many foreign born Italians living there as well.
In Boston, the main immigrant groups were German, Italian, and Russian.

****Activity: Where is your family from?
Your homework tonight is to find out where your family is originally from. Ask your parents where your ancestors came from.
Don’t worry if your parents don’t know alot about where they come from. Not all families kept good records, and some people wanted to forget where they came from and just wanted to be Americans.