U1 - Immigration USA 1918-1968 Flashcards
America had an ‘open door policy’ towards immigration when?
Before 1920
From 1892, many immigrants were taken where?
Ellis Island before they were allowed to enter the USA
Where did other immigrants sail to that didn’t go to Ellis Island?
- Boston
- Philadelphia
- Baltimore
- Miami
How many of Americans today can trace their roots to Ellis Island
Over 40%
How many people hoped to become Americans at this time?
Over 12 million
What did each immigrant go through before entering America?
A medical exam - These were called ‘six-second physicals’. The doctor marked on a person’s back 1 of 17 chalk marks
What was the second test that immigrants faced before entering America?
Inspectors asked immigrants 29 questions like:
- Have you any money?
- Do you have any relatives in America?
- Do you have a job waiting for you?
Who was denied entry into America?
Criminals and those who were thought to be indentured servants
What happened if the immigrant passed both tests?
They were given a landing card which made them American. They would be transported by ferry to New York
What percentage of people were denied entry after failing the tests?
2% (over a thousand people a month during peak immigration years)
What year did immigration into America peak?
1900s - 8.2 million
Old Immigration
- 1820s - 1880s
- Mostly Protestants from Northern Europe (sweden,
UK, Germany) - Mostly white anglo saxon Protestants (WASPs)
- By 1890 more Irish in New York than Dublin (Catholic)
- Catholic go to church so need to build their own
churches - Seperate schools P v C
New Immigration
- 1880s - 1920s
- Poor and illiterate people from eastern and Southern
Europe (Italy, Spain, Poland, Russia) - Tend to be Jews and Catholics`
What was 1884 Immigration Restriction League?
When America was in danger of being swamped by lesser breeds
What was the Chinese Exclusion Act 1882?
The chinese were banned in 1882
When did the chinese come to America?
1848 - 1849 for the ‘Gold Rush’
When was the Chinese Exclusion Act 1882 repealed?
Not until 1943
What happened in 1917 with Asian Immigrants?
Thye were all barred except for the Japanese and Filipinos
What did ‘The California Alien Land Law of 1913’ prohibit?
“Aliens ineligible for citizenship” (i.e all Asian immigrants) fromowning land or property but permitted 3 year leases.
Who did ‘The California Alien Land Law of 1913’ affect?
Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and Korean immigrant farmers in California
What did the Immigrantion Restriction League (IRL) propose?
A literacy test to be part of the bill
Immigrantion Act 1917
- Barred most Asians
- Introduced a literacy test
- Increased the head tax - more money when arriving
Immigration Act 1921
- 80% from Northern Europe
- Therefore mostly WASPs
- Quota 350,000 a year
immigration Act 1924
- 85% WASPs
- Banned oriental immigration
- Limit now 150,000
- Mexians still needed
What were native immigrants many fears about the immigrants influence on society
- City Slums - Poverty
- Crime - Drunkenness
- Disease - Political influences
By 1850 immigrants made up how much of the population
Almost half and in states such as New York, Chicago, Detroit, and San Francisco
Natives were outnumbered in St Louis by
2 to 1
By 1890, four-fifths of New York was made up of what?
Either immigrants or the descendants of immigrants
When did the flood of immigrants increase?
During WW1 as millions tried to escape the war and economic depression
What did old immigrants worry about the number of immigrants?
Worried that new cultures and religions would threaten the American way of life
Social Fears - City Slums
- New immigrants lived in their own district, continued to speak their own language, own traditions, and customs of their home countries
- Quality of living quickly deteriorated as housing became limited (old moved out new moved in)
- Immigrants that moved to their own area ‘enslaves’ became identified with names such as Little Italy, Irishtown, and Chinatown
Where did the majority of immigrants settle in?
- Boston
- New York
- Chicago
- Philadelphia
Social Fears - Crime
- Immigrants were blamed for social disorder in American society, especially cities
- Stats showed high crime rates with a high number of immigrants and was held as proof of the bad influence of the immigrants on their environments.
- Police turned a blind eye to organised crime as they were paid to
Social Fears - Crime Evidence
Out of the 17,328 people arrested in New York in 1858
- 14,638 were foreigners
- 10,477 of these were Irish
Stats also showed that foreign-born Americans committed the same amount of crime (myth about immigrants)
Social Fears - Disease
- Famine refugees from Ireland became Amercian’s first slum dwellers
- They crowded lofts, cellars, tenements and old warehouses
- In neighbourhoods like Boston’s North End and New York’s five points (areas of high mortality rates and for epidemics)
What did a Boston investigative committee report in 1849 (Social fears - disease)
- That the city’s Irish neighbourhoods that ‘the average age of Irish life in Boston does not exceed 14 years’
Social Fears - Poverty
- Americans had priced themselves on their immunity from Europe’s social ills
- Paupers and beggars had been few
- By 1850, poor relief revealed the foreign born to be heavily over-represented
- In 1849, 2/3 of the paupers in Massachusetts in 1849 were foreigners and mostly Irish
Social Fears - Drunkenness
- Many native Americans despised the lifestyle of certain immigrant groups
- Germans and Italians whose cultural traditions involved large amounts of alcohol
- Offended really religious people of native Americans
- Natives seen immigrants as lower class
Changing Attitudes to Immigration
Prejudice and Racism
The KKK
- Died out in 1870s
- Reformed in Georgia in 1915 under William J Simmons
- 1 out of 8 Americans males between 21-65 were member (at its peak)
- Had to be a WASP (white)
Changing Attitudes to Immigration
Lynching facts about the KKK
- Roughly 460 Black men where lynched in 1920s
- 3 were actually convicted to be involved
- Estimated between 1880-1919, an average 2 black people a week were lynched
- 90% of people lynched were black
- Before 1918, over 50 women were lynched
Changing Attitudes to Immigration
Germans
- Distrusted because of their separate communities
- Loved beer, clothes and wanted to keep their language
- Not trusted because of WW1
- ‘Huns’ : Slang for Germans
- Changed their nae
- Stopped languages in school
Changing Attitudes to Immigration
Irish
- Before 1830 the USA was almost all Protestant
- 1860 1/10 of population were Catholic (3 million)
- They set up catholic churches and schools
- Anti-Catholicism ran deep in nativist US society
- Allegiance to pope irritated the WASPS
- Clashes between P & C in Philadelphia resulted in 20 deaths and 100 injuries
Changing Attitudes to Immigration
Italians
- Described as dirty, beggars and part of crime
- Imposition of Prohibition was aimed at cities like Chicago were there are more financially successful
- Nicknames: Dogos, guineas or greasers
- Thought to be crimes
Changing Attitudes to Immigration
Asians
- Chinese-Americans were called ‘chinks’ ‘coolies’ or mongol peons
- Everything about them were despised
- They were hated more than other groups as they looked different
- White workers blamed the Chinese when unemployment was high
- Outbreaks of anti-Chinese violence in Los Angeles, Denver, Tacoma (west coast) - This lead to the Chinese Exclusion Act
The effects of WW1 and Economic Reasons
- The outbreak of WW1 in 1914
- Need for increased production and the war stimulated a number of old industries e.g. petrol and steal
- Helped created new industries e.g. plastic
- Wheat fields produced food for the warring allies
- Wartime munitions factories supplied the allies throughout the war
- Economic boom created jobs for woman, immigrant workers and blacks who were drawn into urban areas by the opportunity of work
- Immigrants were cheap, unskilled labour during WW1
The effects of WW1 and Economic Reasons
The end of WW1
- Ended in 1918, the munitions factories closed and there was a fall in demand of food
- Sharp decline in industrial production
- There was also large numbers of soldiers returning to the workforce
- Led to high unemployment after WW1
- As a result of competition, a growing hostility towards immigrant of eastern European and Asian origin
The effects of WW1 and Economic Reasons
The end of WW1 - Stats
- From May 1920 to July 1921 automobile production declined by 60% and total industrial production by 30%
- Unemployment rose from 5.2% to 11.7% by 1921
The effects of WW1 and Economic Reasons
Immigrants and Work - Poles, Hungarians, Slovaks, Bohemians and Italians
- Tended to work in the coal mines
The effects of WW1 and Economic Reasons
Immigrants and Work - Slavs and Poles
- Tended to work in the steel mills
The effects of WW1 and Economic Reasons
Immigrants and Work - Greeks
- Preferred working in the textile industry
The effects of WW1 and Economic Reasons
Immigrants and Work - Russian and Polish Jews
- Went to the sewing trades and pushcart markets
The effects of WW1 and Economic Reasons
Immigrants and Work - Female immigrants
- Found work as a domestic servant while others worked in textile mills or urban ‘sweatshop’
The effects of WW1 and Economic Reasons
Immigrants and Work
- Many immigrants were accustomed to long hours, low pay and harsh working conditions
- They often took the jobs that nobody else wanted
- Following the higher unemployment after WW1, competition between WASPs and immigrants increased
The effects of WW1 and Economic Reasons
Immigrants and Work - Stats
- In 1900 the average hourly wage in manufacturing was 21.6 cents and the average work weeks was 59 hours
- Most steelworkers put in a 12 hour day and by 1920s they worked 84 hours per week
The effects of WW1 and Economic Reasons
Immigrants and Work - Stealing Jobs and Lowering Wages
- WASPs believed that they were wither being deprived of work or forced to accept lower wages because of the availability of cheap immigrant and black labour
- Employees could pay immigrant workers less because they were desperate for work and were willing to except lower wages than WASP workers
The effects of WW1 and Economic Reasons
Immigrants and Work - Stealing Jobs and Lowering Wages - Stats
- A report by US Labour Union leaders in 1918 said that in “In 1916 US Labour unions agreed that the basic survival wage for a worker should be $745 a year but the average pay received by Italians and Hungarian immigrant labour was $400 a year”
The effects of WW1 and Economic Reasons
Immigrants and Work - Strike - Breakers
- Following WW1, there were many strikes across the USA as emerging trade unions fought for better wages, shorter working hours and better conditions
- While trade unions were trying to get better working condition for their members by strikes, employees employed immigrant workers to replace the strikers
The effects of WW1 and Economic Reasons
Immigrants and Work - Strikes- Breakers - Stats
- A report by US Labour Union leaders in 1918 said that “Any action taken by our unions to improve conditions and wages for workers has failed beause the bosses employed Italians and Poles to break the strikes”
The effects of WW1 and Economic Reasons
Immigrants and Work - Acceptance of Poor Conditions
- Immigrants who were illiterate were prepared to take on the dirty and dangerous jobs in mines and factories that no one else wanted
- Immigrant woman were willing work 16 hours a day in ‘sweatshop’ conditions in the textile industries (exploitation)
- Workers worked long hours with no holidays
- When trade was bad they laid men off
- If workers were killed or injured their families or them didn’t receive compensation
The effects of WW1 and Economic Reasons
Immigrants and Work - Acceptance or Poor Conditions
- In 1913 there were 25,000 factory fatalities and some 700,000 injuries in factories
The effects of WW1 and Economic Reasons
Immigrants and Work - Housing
- As immigrants crowded into the industrial cities during WW1, they put increasing pressure on the already scare housing situation in the poorer areas
- WASPs did not want this feeling of being ‘swamped’ by immigrants to continue after the war and called for restrictions to immigration laws
Fear of Revolution
The Russian Revolution of 1917
- During the final phase of WW1, a revolution took place in Russia
- Under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin
- The Americans were worried that they’d bring a revolution over by the immigrants
- Tsar Nicholas II and his family were murdered in 1918
Fear of Revolution
The Red Scare
- Over 150,000 anarchists or communists in the USA in 1920 which represented only 0.1% of the overall population of the USA
- Many Americans were terrified of a communist revolution in the USA like that in Russia
- President Wilson had already pushed the anti-immigrant, anti-anarchist Sedition
Fear of Revolution
Strikes
- At the end of WW1 about 9 million people worked in war industries
- 4 million worked in armed forces
- Once the war was over, these people were left without jobs and war industries were left without contracts
- Economic difficulties ad worker unrest increased
Fear of Revolution
Seattle Shipyard Strike 1919
- 21st January 1919 35,000 shipyard workers in Seattle went on strike
- By February 6th 60,000 workers in the Seattle area were on strike
- There was no violence or arrests but were labelled the ‘reds’
- Charges that they were trying to encourage a revolution was levelled against them
Fear of Revolution
Boston Police Strike 1919
- September 9th 1919, the Boston police force went on strike
- A panic that the ‘reds’ were behind the strike took over Britain
- City experienced some looting and vandalism but papers told stories around other countries that there was massive riots, reigns of terror and mobs
- Policemen were called “agents of Lenin”
- September 13th Police Commissioner Edwin Curtis said that the striking policemen would not be allowed to return and would hire a new police force - Ending strike
Why attitudes changed towards immigration by 1918
ISOLATIONISM
- The 1910 census showed that out of the US population of 92 million, 32 million were 1st or 2nd generation immigrants who still had close ties to their countries
- More than 10 million were immigrants from the nations of the central powers
- In 1917, there were around 8 million German Americans living in the USA
