Immigrants faced difficult conditions when they first arrived in America. Many lived in crowded tenement housing in ethnic neighborhoods of large cities. They worked long hours in dangerous factories and mines for low wages due to limited English skills and education. Life was especially hard for children, who often had to work to support their families. While immigrants sought opportunity, many native-born Americans viewed them with fear and resentment due to differences in language, religion, and customs.
2. Objective
•By the end of the lesson, SWBAT
describe what life was like for
immigrants when they first came to
America.
3. Immigration
Push factors are factors that force a person to move.
•They can include famine, war, disease, lack of jobs, over
population and drought
4. Immigration
Pull factors are factors that encourage a person to come
to a new place.
•They can include freedom, family, technology, better jobs, better
education.
5. Historical Immigration Patterns
• Immigration to the United States has had periods of boom and bust.
These were caused by events that occurred both in America and in
other countries.
When? What Happened? Why?
1840s
Arrival of thousands of Irish
settlers
Irish potato crop fails; facing
starvation, many Irish move
to America and other
countries
1905-
1914
Massive immigration from
Eastern Europe to the
Canadian West
The U.S Government
wanted to settle the open
lands of the West; offered
free land and other
incentives to immigrants
6. Historical Immigration Patterns
When? What Happened? Why?
1915-
1919
Little immigration
World War I and worldwide
influenza epidemic
1930 –
1945
Little immigration
Worldwide economic
depression and World War II
1947-
1960
Many Italians come to the
United States
World War II devastated
Italy; Italians searched for
economic opportunities in
the U.S
7. Historical Immigration Patterns
When? What Happened? Why?
1956
Many Hungarians come to
America
Hungarian revolt against the
Russians failed; refugees
fled to America to avoid
punishment
1980 –
1997
Arrival of thousands of Hong
Kong Chinese
Residents of Hong Kong
sought political stability
before China took control
of Hong Kong in 1997
1980 -
2003
Many people from
Afghanistan come to
America
Immigrants seek a safe
haven from conflicts that
engulfed their country
8. •Immigrants came to America from all
over the world!
•In the early 1900s, most immigrants came
to America from Europe or Asia.
9. Coming to America
•Passage to the United States from Europe was an
expense few immigrant families could afford.
•Families would often save enough money to send
just one or two family members to America. These
members were expected to work and save to
bring over the rest of the family.
•Most poor immigrants traveled in the ship
steerage area. Passage in the Steerage area
involved living with a diverse group under
crowded, unhealthy, living conditions.
11. Ship Steerage
Cheap but Dangerous
• “The trip was not a dry one. Water seeped into the steerage through holes that were
supposed to be for ventilation. Most passengers were sea sick the first few days out and
only in rough weather afterwards. It was impossible to come on deck in bad weather. The
hatches would be battened down and passengers in steerage would have to remain below
in the dark and rocking ship. There was on average one toilet for every hundred
passengers. Frequently the toilet was on deck, where they could not be reached in rough
weather. Because of the close quarters in which they lived, passengers often suffered from
illnesses like trench mouth, body ulcers, and lice. Conditions were frightful. Immigrant
ships were recognized by the smell.”
12. 1815-1880: First Wave of
Immigration
“Old immigrants” - 15 million Most were from
North and
Western Europe
and China.
• settled in Eastern
Cities, Midwest and
West
13. 1880-1914: Second Wave of
Immigration
• “New Immigrants” - 15 million
• most from Eastern and Southern Europe
• settled in cities (Phila., NY, Boston, Chicago))
15. Where was the first stop for
immigrants?
•The immigrants from Europe came to
Ellis Island in New York.
• The immigrants from Asia came to Angel Island in California and
other places on the West Coast.
17. Immigrant Experience During
Processing
Immigrants were processed as quickly as possible. They provided personal
information to immigration officials, received medical exams and
categorized for admission, deportation, or quarantine based on the
results.
With the huge numbers of immigrants, inspectors had just minutes to
complete the process and many immigrants had their last names
changed by the inspectors because they didn’t have the time or patience
to struggle with the foreign spellings.
Families were sometimes separated. One parent or a child could be denied
admission forcing heart breaking decisions on a family.
18. Angel Island
The immigrants from Asia came to Angel Island in California and
other places on the West Coast.
19. An Immigrant Story from Angel Island
"We ate vegetables twice a day and some very rough rice, very hard to
swallow. I was a growing boy and hungry."
"There were birds outside the wire fence. My hands were small enough
I could grab their necks and kill them. We used rice to attract the
birds to us. We cleaned the birds in a toilet. Another boy had gotten
some matches, somehow. Someone else had a knife. We gathered
branches and we got newspaper and rolled it like wood to make a
fire. We barbecued birds that way, when the guards weren't around.
It was the only tasty thing we could get." Lester Tom Lee
Stories and Photographs by LYDIA LUM, copyright 1998
20. Life in America
•Life in America was really hard for
immigrants.
•Many of them were really poor, and had to
live in bad conditions.
•Many immigrants lived in Tenement
Housing
21. Tenement Housing-
As more and more people began crowding into America's cities, including thousands of newly
arrived immigrants seeking a better life than the one they had left behind. In New York City--
where the population doubled every decade from 1800 to 1880--buildings that had once been
single-family dwellings were increasingly divided into multiple living spaces to accommodate this
growing population. Known as tenements, these narrow, low-rise apartment buildings--many of
them concentrated in the city's Lower East Side neighborhood--were all too often cramped,
poorly lit and lacked indoor plumbing and proper ventilation. By 1900, some 2.3 million people (a
full two-thirds of New York City's population) were living in tenement housing.
23. Neighborhoods
•Many times immigrants would live with people
that spoke the same language, and had the same
cultural background as themselves.
•For example, if you were Italian, you would have
most likely moved to an area called “Little Italy.”
•If you were Chinese, you would have most likely
moved to an area called “China Town”
24. Neighborhoods
•This is a modern map of
New York, but there are
still areas called
Chinatown and Little
Italy - the areas where
the Italians and Chinese
would have settled at the
turn of the century.
26. Jobs for Immigrants
•Because many immigrants did not speak
English, and were not that well educated,
they had to find low paying jobs that did not
require a lot skills.
•Many immigrants got jobs in factories,
coal mines, farms, and as maids.
28. Jobs for Immigrants
•Often, immigrants were paid lower wages then
people that were born in America.
•Often, immigrant were forced to work in really
very poor, unsafe conditions. Long hours and
crowded factories or work houses with low safety
standards.
•Finally, many children born in immigrant families
had to work in factories to earn money for their
family so they could buy supplies to survive. Child
labor laws did not exist back then.
30. Nativism
• Nativism is the belief that native-born white Americans were superior to
immigrants.
• Nativism was rooted in the fear and resentment some Americans felt toward
immigrants.
-- Immigrant languages, religions, and customs seemed strange.
-- Immigrants often competed for jobs. Desperate for jobs, they accepted the
most dangerous jobs and low wages.
• Nativist pressured congress for laws limiting immigration.