Immigration

1
Immigration

• 1890-1910

2
Old Immigrants

• Protestants
• Northwest Europe
• England, Germany
• Holland
• Scandinavia

3
New Immigrants

• Southern and Eastern Europe
• Czechs
• Russians
• Greeks
• Hungarians
• Poles

4
New Immigrants

• Also
• Arabs
• Armenians
• Chinese
• Japanese
• French Canadians

5
Why did they Come ?

• To escaper persecution
• Poverty
• Racial intolerance (Jews in Russia)
• To work for the railroad
• To work for steamship companies

6
The Voyage

• Voyage across the Atlantic was difficult
• Most traveled below deck/ steerage
• No privacy, poor ventilation,
• Noise
• Cramped quarters disease

7
Ellis Island

• New York harbor
• Screened for physical and mental health
• Mental disorders, serious health defects or
  contagious diseases were turned back
• and deported
• Background check
• Job skill
• Relatives in america

8
Reality in America

• Lived in cities
• Forced to settle for unskilled low paying
  employment
• Substandard housing
• Deteriorating neighborhoods
• Tenements/slums
• Better than where they came from

9
Northeast and Midwest

• Patchwork quilt
• Ethnic neighborhoods
• Spoke same languages
• Followed same customs from the old country
• Religious institutions
• Community centers
• Benevolent to assist immigrants in cases of
  unemployment religious and non-religious

10
Employment for the Immigrant

• Bottom of the labor ladder
• Nationsdirty work
• Mines, sweatshop, construction
• Exhausting and hard
• Poor wages
• Long house
• Unsafe conditions

11
Anti-immigrant feelings

• Nativists argued that the newcomers would never
  fit into American society
• Blamed them for crime, poverty and violence
• Took jobs away from native born American
• Led to rise of union