Immigration and Migration

A Nation of Immigrants•1850 – Pop. 23.2 million•1900 – Pop. 76.2 million•16.2 million immigrants 1850 – 1900•8.8 million between 1901 and 1910

Why?Pushes Pulls

• Poverty of farmers due to mechanization

• Overcrowding and unemployment in cities

• Religious persecution

• Political and religious freedom

• Economic opportunity of the Great Plains

• Industrial jobs• Inexpensive travel

Differences

Old Immigrants (prior to 1880s) New Immigrants (1880 – WWI)

• Northern and Western Europe

• Protestant• Literacy and skills

• Southern and Eastern Europe

• Catholic, Greek/Russian Orthodox, Jewish

• Poor, illiterate• Overcrowding in slums• ¼ contract labor

Immigration Restrictions•1882 – Chinese Exclusion Act•Restrictions on ex-cons and mentally ill•1885 - Outlaw of contract labor•1892 – Ellis Island, NY: medical/physical

exams, entry tax

Ellis Island

Angel Island

Anti-Immigrant Groups•Some Labor Unions•Nativists•Social Darwinists – Germans were

biologically inferior•Depression of 1890s fueled anti-

immigrant hysteria

Social Gospel• 1880s and 90s – clergymen

espousing help for poor• Apply Christ’s teaching to social

problems• Walter Raushenbusch

▫ Christ bore six social sins on the cross “Religious bigotry, the combination of

graft and political power, the corruption of justice, the mob spirit (being "the social group gone mad") and mob action, militarism, and class contempt-- “

"Because the Kingdom of God has been dropped as the primary and comprehensive aim of Christianity, and personal salvation has been substituted for it, therefore men seek to save their own souls and are selfishly indifferent to the evangelization of the world."

▫ Influenced MLK, Bishop Desmond Tutu

Social Darwinism•Herbert Spencer – Natural selection should

be applied to the marketplace▫Wealth in the hands of the “fit” was a benefit

to the human race.▫Help for poor interfered with the laws of

nature and weakens the species