Owen Daugherty

Mr. Widenhofer
APUSH
19 January, 2018
Immigration LEQ

The year 1880 marked a change in the immigrants coming to the US and a change in

where the majority of the American people lived. This was a time of rapid urbanization, and

here, for the first time in the country's history, agriculture no longer dominated the national

occupation scale. This time of urbanization led to advancements in cities like skyscrapers being

built and electric trolleys being made as modes of transportation. There were also negative

effects from this like insufficient waste disposal, higher crime rates, and very tight living spaces.

One of the reasons for the large amount of people moving to urban areas was the flow of new

immigrants into the US. These immigrants had similar experiences to the old immigrants in their

reasons for coming to America and the nativist reactions received in the country, but their

experiences were also different from the old immigrants based on their country of origin, literacy

rates, and wealth. Therefore, the argument is only partially valid.

The new immigrants had many similar experiences like the old immigrants. One of these

was their reasons for coming to America. Europe was filling up fast and running out of jobs, but

America had a fairly plentiful amount of jobs. This combined with the fact that the US allowed

for social mobility instead of being tied to a social class based on family helped the decisions of

old and new immigrants. Both groups also saw America as a land of freedom and opportunity.

Another similar experience that the two groups had was they had a powerful voting block due to

the large amounts of immigrants coming to the country. Tammany Hall gave jobs to the Irish

(old immigrants) and most of the new immigrants in exchange for the immigrants' votes. This,

along with other factors, encouraged nativist groups like the Know-Nothing Party and the
American protective Association (APA) to gain traction throughout the country. These groups

wanted strict immigration laws and were anti-Catholic, directly targeting the Irish of the old

immigrants and most of the new immigrants.

The new and old immigrants also had some different experiences. Two of these

differences were country of origin and time of migration. The new immigrants came from

southern and eastern Europe after 1880 while the old immigrants came from western and

northern Europe before 1880. This also had an effect on the immigrants’ literacy rates. The old

immigrants were used speaking English, so they could read and write in English. The new

immigrants had no experiences with English, and some of them were not even literate in their

native languages. This affected the social lives of many new immigrants, and they began to form

areas of “Little Italys” and “Little Polands”to associate with people of their nationality. Another

difference between the immigrants was their wealth. The new immigrants were dirt poor and

could not travel and expand very far into America. The old immigrants, although they were not

rich, had at least some money which allowed them to buy farms and expand into western

America while the new immigrants were stuck in east coast cities, mines, and mills. The only

new immigrant exception to this were the Jews forced out of Russia who had enough experience

to start small businesses. Throughout America’s history, the US was very open to all

immigration with the exception of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. This changed I n the early

1920s after World War I. Many people from southern and eastern Europe, where the new

immigrants came from, were looking to flee the war-torn continent. The United States prohibited

many of these people from entering the nation with the Emergency Quota Act in 1921 that was

later updated with the Immigration Act in 1924, which allowed only 2% of a country’s

nationality living in America come to the United States. This was done in fear that new ideas
taking over the easter world like communism, socialism, and anarchism would make their way

into the country. These laws began another change in immigration to the United States b having

a rather quick effect, as 1931 marked the first time that US emigration was greater than US

immigration. This was drastically different from what was occurring with the new immigrants of

the 1880s.

The new and old immigrants had both similar and different experiences. These

similarities consisted of their reasons for coming to America, forming powerful voting blocks

affiliated with Tammany Hall, and experiencing friction with nativist groups against immigration

and Catholicism. The differences consisted of the part of Europe they came from, their different

levels of literacy that affected their social and political life, and the amount of wealth that had

coming to America that affected which jobs they could obtain and where in America they could

travel to.