Immigration During Progressive Era Period of Progress or Restrictions?
Today, you will compare and contrast immigrant trends and policies from the Progressive Era. Is it progress or regression?
Should immigrants be allowed to come to this country? Explain. Should the number of immigrants entering be limited? Explain. Should Americans have concerns about new immigrants coming to America? If yes, what might those be?
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, The emptiness of ages in his face, And on his back, the burden of the world. How will the future reckon with this Man? How answer his brute question in that hour When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores? How will it be with kingdoms and with kings With those who shaped him to the thing he is When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world, After the silence of the centuries?
Some Americans need hyphens in their names because only part of them has come over; but when the whole man has come over, heart and thought and all, the hyphen drops of its own weight out of his name. This man was not an Irish-American; he was an Irishman who became an American. Woodrow Wilson (1914)
Old Immigrants vs. New Immigrants 1865 U.S. Population = 31.5 Million 1865 1920 30 Million Immigrants entered the U.S. Most from Europe. 1840 1880 Most from N & W Europe. These were the Old Immigrants. 1880-1920 New Immigrants from E & S Europe (Slavs, Italians, Russians, and many Jews; Culturally different from Old Immigrants & many didn t assimilate well ).
Identifying Pushes and Pulls Complete T-Chart for Pushes/ Pulls List the reasons people came to America and classify them as Pushes/ Pulls
Why did they come? Push Factors Factors that caused them to leave home Wars Famines Lack of Freedom Lack of Opportunity No Jobs or Land Pull Factors Factors that drew them to America Freedom Desire to Own Land Mostly the availability of Jobs
Ellis Island, NYC (1892-1954) By 1900, crossing took 7 days Most traveled in the steerage b/c it was cheaper 12 Million came (2% failed physicals) Most lived in ghettoes Discrimination/ Nativism were common
Immigrants from Asia Angel Island, SF (1910) Most Asians came into here Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 92, & 02 Gentlemen s Agreement with Japan (1907) Webb-Alien Land Law (CA) prevented land ownership by aliens
Chinese Immigration and the Chinese Exclusion Acts 1882 Banned "skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining" from entering the country for ten years and denies Chinese immigrants the path to citizenship. Thousands of Chinese immigrants had worked on the construction of the Trans-Continental Railroad, and these workers were left unemployed when the project was complete. The high rate of unemployment and anti-chinese sentiment led to passage of the law.
The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!, cries she With silent lips. 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-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
The Immigration Act of 1907 Broadened the categories of people banned from immigrating to the U.S. The list excludes imbeciles, feeble-minded people, those with physical or mental disabilities that prevent them from working, tuberculosis victims, children who enter the U.S. without parents, and those who committed crimes of moral turpitude. The Gentleman s Agreement between the U.S. and Japan ends the immigration of Japanese workers. Congress passes the Expatriation Act of 1907 that says women must adopt the citizenship of their husbands. Therefore, women who marry foreigners lose their U.S. citizenship unless their husbands become citizens.
Immigrants from Latin America 1900-1920 more than 10% of Mexico s population came to the U.S. Settled in CA and S.W. U.S. WW I created labor shortage in mines and on farms
Shutting the Golden Door Xenophobia the fear of immigrants Nativism the belief that native-born white Americans were superior to newcomers Emergency Quota Act of 1921 (3% or 1910 Census) Immigration Act of 1924 (2% of 1890 Census) End of WW I in 1918 saw a revival of the KKK
Immigration Act of 1917 Required a literacy test for adult immigrants long imagined as a way of keeping out the racial dregs was one of their most important victories. The 1917 law created: Asiatic Barred Zone that barred immigration from India, Burma, Siam, the Malay States, Arabia, Afghanistan, parts of Russia, and most of the Polynesian Islands (Immigration Act of February 5, 1917 [39 Stat. 874]).
The collapse of the war-boom economy around 1920 created a propitious environment for even greater restriction. In 1921, exclusion was extended to European immigrants, albeit in the form of quotas rather than complete exclusion. The golden door closed. Having acquired its essential contours during the Progressive Era, U.S. immigration and nationality law would not be significantly altered until the post-world War II period.
Nearly 400,000 African-Americans served in A.E.F.! 1.2 Million moved North to the Land of Hope Chicago (meatpacking), Detroit (new auto industry), and to cities in the NE U.S. Push - Activity today The Great Migration (1910-1920)
Langston Hughes
Some are coming on the passenger, Some are coming on the freight, Others will be found walking, For none have time to wait. Excerpt from, "They're Leaving Memphis," published in the Chicago Defender 1
Why did 1,000,000 African Americans migrate from the South to the North from 1915-1930? Steps - Create a hypothesis - Investigate and collect data (3-4) from a number of primary sources (use good sources: newspapers, universities, Library of Congress, gov etc.) - Does your hypothesis stand true, or not? Why or why not? What evidence did you find to support your hypothesis. Was your hypothesis proved inconclusive? Why?
Share Great Migration Hypothesis 1. Dissect Push / Pull factors 2. Discuss Main Idea of your group s thoughts - Consolidate thoughts and ideas + answer these questions What do you think African Americans found when they got to the North? a. In what ways was life was better? b. In what ways was life the same? c. In what ways was life worse?
Langston Hughes Dream Deferred The South What does the poem reveal about life in the South? What does the poem suggest is the solution to life in the South? What does the poem reveal about life in the North?
Big Bill Broonzy When Will I Get To Be Called A Man (1957)
The Great Migration occurred primarily between the two world wars. However, between 1910 and 1970, approximately six and a half million African Americans migrated out of the South. While in 1910, 80 percent of blacks lived in the South, less than half lived there by 1970, with only 25 percent in the rural South. Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia, as well as other Northern cities, were the initial destinations of most migrants. The West later became a major destination. Life in the South was difficult for African Americans for a variety of reasons, including problems associated with sharecropping and the accompanying natural disasters of the late 1910s and '20s; Jim Crow legislation, which resulted in segregated public facilities, transportation, and schools; and violence, symbolized by the Ku Klux Klan and most graphically displayed in public lynchings.
The North was viewed as the promised land, an idea perpetuated by the need for factory workers and the fact that pay in such factories was typically as much as three times more than what blacks made working the land in the South. While segregation was not legalized in the North, as it was in the South, blacks experienced prejudice and racism in the North, commonly known as "de facto segregation." Life in the North presented its own challenges for blacks, including poor living conditions and harsh, often dangerous work environments.
Great Migration Art by Jacob Lawrence Migration Series and the Legacy of Jim Crow
The Great Migration History Brief Paintings and Poem
Crash Course