1. Immigration

Question 1

What were the pull factors for immigrants?

Answer 1

Land available for farming, the USA was booming industrially, many employment opportunities, seen as land of opportunity, land of free, religious freedom

Question 2

What were the push factors for immigrants?

Answer 2

Jews escaping pogroms, poverty, unemployment, overcrowding, persecution ( mainly due to different political or religious views)

Question 3

What is Pogroms

Answer 3

An organized violent attack against an ethnic group, usually jews.

Question 4

What is the ‘Open Door’ policy?

Answer 4

During the late 19th century, mass migration was encouraged by the US government, keen to populate the continent. The policy was designed to make entry into the country as easy as possible.

Question 5

Why did people begin to oppose to mass migration?

Answer 5

Felt that new immigrants would take jobs for very low wages. Thought they were responsible for increase in crime, drunkness and prostitution.

Question 6

Where did old immigrants mostly come from?

Answer 6

Western and Northern Europe

Question 7

Where did new immigrants mostly come from?

Answer 7

Southern and Eastern Europe

Question 8

Where did immigrants tend to live together in cities?

Answer 8

Ghettos

Question 9

What is a ghetto?

Answer 9

Large groups of a certain nationality that would live together in one part of the city.

Question 10

How did WW1 affect the attitudes towards immigrants?

Answer 10

Hostility to immigrants increased. The teaching of German was banned in schools. Americans began to fear entanglement in European affairs.

Question 11

What is a WASP

Answer 11

A white, Anglo-Saxon, Prostent.

Question 12

what was the ideal American citizen perceived to be

Answer 12

A WASP

Question 13

Which department was introduced in order to oversee Americanisation?

Answer 13

The Federal Bureau of Naturalisation

Question 14

What is the Literacy test?

Answer 14

The first measure put in place in 1917 to reduce immigration.
had to take a literacy test, read a small passage in English and pay a $8 fee.
These were problems for people in poverty.

Question 15

What is the Emergency Quota act?

Answer 15

second measure put in place in 1921.
Allowed immigrants in as a proportion of the same nationality who had been living in the USA in 1910. The figure was set at 3%
This reduced immigration from Eastern Europe

Question 16

What is the National Origins act?

Answer 16

1924. reduced figure to 2% of the 1890 census ( there had been a lot of immigration from Northern Europe by 1890, therefore letting in more of these groups to enter.

Question 17

What was the Immigration act?

Answer 17

Final measure put in place to reduce immigration (1929).
restricted immigration to 150,000 per year. there were to be no Asians at all. Northern and Western Europeans allocated 85% of places.

Question 18

What is Xenophobia?

Answer 18

An irrational fear or hatred of foreigners.

Question 19

What was the ‘Red Scare’?

Answer 19

people were convinced immigrants were bringing communist ideas to America after the Bolshevik Revolution.

American tended to see any new political ideas, especially anarchism and radicalism, as branches of communism.

Question 20

What is communism?

Answer 20

A belief that society should be classless, private property abolished, and land and businesses owned collectively.

Question 21

What is anarchism?

Answer 21

Belief in removing all forms of government.

Question 22

How many strikes were there in 1919?

Answer 22

3600

Question 23

What were the strikes?

Answer 23

Protests against poor working conditions and low pay.

Question 24

What did the strike seem to herald to many members of the public?

Answer 24

The beginning of a communist revolution.

Question 25

What is the IWW?

Answer 25

The Industrial Workers of the World.

Question 26

Who led the strike in Seattle?

Answer 26

The IWW

Question 27

What were the consequences of the Seattle General strike?

Answer 27

Resulted in a loss of orders for the shipyard and, in turn unemployment.

Question 28

What was the attitude of the press towards the strikes?

Answer 28

They portrayed the strikes as unpatriotic and anti-American.

Question 29

What were the Palmer Raids?

Answer 29

Many believed there to be a communist takeover plot. In response, the police attacked socialist parades on May Day 1920. Many innocent people were arrested for their views.

Question 30

What provoked the Palmer Raids?

Answer 30

a anarchist bombing on the home of Mitchell Palmer, the Attorney General

Question 31

what were the consequences of the Palmer raids?

Answer 31

6,000 suspected communists were arrested in 36 cities, several hundred Russian Immigrants were deported back to Russia.

Question 32

Examples of Anarchist bombings.

Answer 32

A bomb placed in a church killed 10 people in 1919, in May the same year, letter bombs were posted to 36 well known Americans.

Question 33

Who were Sacco and Vanzetti?

Answer 33

Two Italian labourers, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.

Question 34

What were Sacco and Vanzetti accused of doing?

Answer 34

The murder of Fred Parmenter and a security guard. Both men had been shot by robbers. They were shot at a shoe factory where a lot of money had been stolen.

Question 35

What was the date of the murder and robbery?

Answer 35

15th of April, 1920

Question 36

How were the two attackers described by Parmenter?

Answer 36

Two slim foreigners with olive skin?

Question 37

How long did the Sacco and Vanzetti trial last?

Answer 37

45 days

Question 38

How many Candidates were called to the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti?

Answer 38

875

Question 39

When were Sacco and Vanzetti executed?

Answer 39

24th of August, 1927 by electric chair. They took their case to several higher courts but all attempts failed.

Question 40

What made Sacco and Vanzetti’s case unfair?

Answer 40

The open bias of the judge, Potential rigging of forensic evidence.

Question 41

What evidence was there against Sacco and Vanzetti?

Answer 41

anarchists who hated American capitalism and American system of government.
Vanzetti convicted of robbery, 1919.
Both told lies in their statement.
61 eyewitnesses identified them as the killers.
Forensic evidence matched the pistol to Sacco.

Question 42

What evidence was there defending Sacco and

Vanzetti?

Answer 42

107 confirmed their alibis.- many of these were Italian immigrants with poor English.
Some believed Sacco forensic evidence was rigged.
Several other men confessed to the crime.
The Judge, Webster Thayer, seemed determined to find them guilty.

Question 43

What was the importance of the Sacco and Vanzetti case?

Answer 43

It was reported all over the world and showed intolerance of American society.
Exposed unfairness of American legal system - were convicted on flimsy evidence.
1970, Governor of Massachusetts granted them a formal pardon.