Immigration in America, 1870-1929

Defining Nativism• Nativism:

– the combination of xenophobia with extremenationalism

• Characteristics:– Anti-immigration

– Fears of economic competition from foreign-born workers

– Feelings of racial and/or cultural superiority

– Extreme patriotism

Major Nativist arguments

• Language

• Employment

• Nationalism

• Consumption

• Welfare

• Crime

• Ethnicity

Roots of Nativism• 1850s Know-Nothing Party

• American Protective Association

• 1882-First Immigration Restrictions

-banned poor, criminals, convicts, and “undesirables”

• 1882-Chinese Exclusion Act

The “Old” Immigrants vs.

the “New” Immigrants

Book to read: John Bodnar, The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America

Old Immigrants

New ImmigrantsBetween 1880 and 1914 22 million new immigrants arrive in America

Why did they come?

1. to escape poverty

2. “American Exceptionalism”

3. Religion

Who wanted the “new” immigrants?

• Railroads• Factories• Steamship

lines

The 1911 Triangle Shirt Factory Fire in New York killed hundreds of people – mostly female European immigrants

Immigrant Life in America

Labor Unions• 1869: Knights of

Labor– 1st union to allow African

Americans and Women

• AFL – By 1904 over 1 million

members

• Goals

Union Tactics

• Collective bargaining

• Strikes– Homestead (1892)– Pinkerton Guards

Fears of European Anarchists and Communists

President McKinley’s assassination in 1901, spurred nationwide fears of foreign-born anarchists

World War One & 100% Americanism

• The end of World War I brought great celebrations but also many problems.

• Anti-German Prejudice

A German-American subjected to being “tarred and feathered”

The 1919 Red Scare

• The Palmer Raids

Government-sponsored Nativism

National Origins Act of 1924 set quotas for each country

President Calvin Coolidge signs the National Origins Act

The Rise of the Second Ku Klux Klan

The KKK

The Klan slogan of the 1920s was “Native white, Protestant supremacy.”

The Klan wasn’t solely a phenomenon of the South.

Year Klan members

1920 4,000,000

1924 6,000,000

1930 30,000

1980 5,000

2000 3,000

(left) Population density of people born in Ireland, 1870; these were mostly Catholics

• Most Irish immigrants came to the U.S. poor, settling in either Boston, New York, or Philadelphia.

German Immigrants

German immigrants boarding a ship for America in the late 19th century

• Those with money bought farms in the Midwest.

1890 North Dakota Immigrant Farmers

1900 US photo miners in Hazleton, PA

A group which exemplifies the wide range of American labor. Slovak, Irish, German, and Polish types are represented.

Nativists blaming immigrants for “stealing” jobs from native-born Americans and for being criminals.

Immigrants were also discriminated against for being Catholics.

Famous 1876 editorial cartoon by Thomas Nast showing bishops as crocodiles attacking public schools, with connivance of Irish Catholic politicians.

Cartoons depicted Irish immigrants as ape-like barbarians prone to lawlessness, laziness and drunkenness.

Uncle Sam reprimands, "Look here, you, everybody else is quiet and peaceable, and you're all the time a-kicking up a row!

Populism: The Agrarian Revolt, 1870-1900

1870s in the Midwest, the south, and Texas. Set up cooperative associations.

Succeeded in lobbying for “Granger Laws.”

Rapidly declined by the late 1870s.

Populism: The Grange Movement

Begun in the late 1880s (Texas/Midwest). Replaced the Grange.

More political than the Grange.

Ran candidates for office.

Controlled 8 state legislatures had 47 in Congress during

the 1890s.

The Farmer’s Alliance

Objectives/Questions to Think About

• What is Nativism, and what is its effect on post Civil War America?– What did Nativists fear?

• Identify the differences between “old” and “new” immigration.

• Understand the early examples of domestic terrorism.

• Who immigrated to America in the late 19th century?– Why did they come to this country?