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Back to Classroom-tested Lesson Plans and Handouts
Immigration
What class of our citizens
most strenuously resist the moral restrains of the community....who
among our population give unrestricted and unregulated license
to the ten thousand drinking places in the city, which are the
chief receptacles of drunkenness, debauchery, villainy, and disease?
It is the residuum or dregs of four millions of European immigrants,
including paupers, felons, and convicts that have landed at this
port within the last twenty years.
Twenty-fourth Annual Report
of the New York Association for the Improvement of the Condition
of the Poor, 1867
The best reason that could
be given for this radical restriction of
immigration is the necessity of protecting our population against
degeneration and saving our national peace and quiet from imported
turbulence and disorder.
I cannot believe that we would be protected against these evils
by limiting immigration to those who can read and write in any
language twenty-five words of our Constitution. In my opinion
it is infinitely more safe to admit a hundred thousand immigrants
who, though unable to read and write, seek among us only a home
and opportunity to work, than to admit one of those unruly agitators
and enemies of governmental control, who can not only read and
write but delights in arousing by inflammatory speech the illiterate
and peacefully inclined to discontent and tumult. Violence and
disorder do not originate with illiterate laborers.
President Cleveland's veto
of immigration restriction bill
Give me 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 my lamp beside the golden door.
Emma Lazarus, "The New
Colossus"
There is no room in this country
for hyphenated Americanism...The one absolutely certain way of
bringing the nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of
its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to
become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.
Theodore Roosevelt, 1915
1. What
social evils do critics associate with mass immigration?
2. Which
is the goal of American immigration--a "melting pot"
or cultural pluralism?
3. What
kind of immigration policy is most consistent with the nation's
needs and ideals?
Immigrant America
|
Number of Immigrants |
|
1820 |
8,385 |
|
1830 |
23,322 |
|
1840 |
84,066 |
|
1850 |
369,980 |
|
1860 |
153,640 |
|
1870 |
387,203 |
|
1880 |
457,257 |
|
1890 |
455,302 |
|
1900 |
448,572 |
|
1910 |
1,041,570 |
|
1920 |
430,001 |
|
1930 |
241,700 |
|
1940 |
70,756 |
|
1950 |
249,187 |
1. During
which period was immigration greatest?
2. Has wartime
or depression increased or decreased immigration?
Impact of Immigration Quotas
|
Average Annual Inflow |
|
|
Immigrants from Northern and Western Europe |
Other Immigrants |
|
1907-1914 |
176,983 |
685,531 |
|
Quotas under 1921 Act |
198,082 |
158,367 |
|
Quotas under 1924 Act |
140,999 |
20,847 |
1. What
impact did quotas have upon immigration?
2. Which
groups suffered the most restriction?
|
Family Characteristics of Major
Immigrant Groups, 1909-1914 |
|
Group |
Percentage Returning to Europe |
Males Per 100 Females |
Percent Under 14 |
|
Czechs |
5 |
133 |
19 % |
|
English |
6 |
136 |
16 % |
|
Finish |
7 |
181 |
8 % |
|
Germans |
7 |
132 |
18 % |
|
Greeks |
16 |
170 |
4 % |
|
Hebrews |
2 |
117 |
25 % |
|
Hungarians |
22 |
141 |
16 % |
|
Italians |
17 |
320 |
12 % |
|
Poles |
13 |
188 |
10 % |
|
Slovaks |
19 |
162 |
12 % |
1. Which
immigrant groups were most likely to leave the United States
and return home?
2. Which
groups had the most even sex ratio? the least even?
3. Which
groups included the largest number of children?
|
Age of Marriage for Women |
|
|
15-19 |
20-24 |
25-29 |
45-54 |
|
German |
10 |
49 |
77 |
96 |
|
Irish |
2 |
18 |
46 |
85 |
|
Italian |
29 |
74 |
93 |
99 |
|
Japanese |
51 |
85 |
87 |
93 |
|
Polish |
15 |
66 |
89 |
99 |
|
Russian |
7 |
55 |
90 |
99 |
|
Urban Blacks |
16 |
57 |
n.a. |
94 |
|
Native Whites |
13 |
53 |
77 |
91 |
1. Which
immigrant groups married earliest? latest?
2. Explain
why some groups married earlier than others and why this is significant.
Child Labor
|
Proportion of Children 10-15
in Labor Force |
|
|
|
Boston |
Philadelphia |
Pittsburgh |
|
Boys |
Native |
7 |
20 |
20 |
|
|
2nd generation |
8 |
24 |
20 |
|
|
1st generation |
19 |
39 |
30 |
|
|
Black |
10 |
17 |
19 |
|
Girls |
Native |
3 |
12 |
5 |
|
|
2nd generation |
6 |
18 |
8 |
|
|
1st generation |
13 |
39 |
18 |
|
|
Black |
4 |
14 |
7 |
1. Which
groups were most likely to have children in the labor force?
2. Which
groups were least likely?
|
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