Immigration in America: 19th Century to the Present Day

Introduction: Immigrants and the Making of America

The millions of immigrants who have come to America over the past four hundred years have made America what it is today. The immigrants who made America their home came to find new lives and livelihoods, and their hard work benefited not only themselves and their families, but their adopted country as well. The role that immigrants played in America's development is central to understanding the nation itself — a process "fundamental to its pre-national origins, its [growth from an] Atlantic outpost to a world power, particularly in terms of its economic growth. Immigration has made the United States of America" (Diner, 2008).

This paper examines some of the major turning points in American immigrant history beginning in the 19th century and continuing to the present. It also explores the patterns of settlement among different broad groups of immigrants during this period. Finally, the paper discusses how immigrants have changed American culture — from a society dominated by a white Protestant majority to the current state in which whites constitute just one of several major ethnic groups (Diner, 1983).

19th-Century Immigration: Settlement Patterns and Early Waves

Diner (2008) notes that the first and longest era of settlers coming to the New World stretched from the 17th century through the early 19th century. Immigrants during this time came from a variety of places, including France, Poland, and the Netherlands. By the early 19th century, however, the immigrant population consisted mainly of people from the British Isles. Settlements were concentrated along the Eastern coast, while the vast western lands were still inhabited by Native American peoples (Takaki, 2008). For the immigrants who would arrive in the mid- and late-19th century, these earlier settlers were already regarded as "old" immigrants (Takaki, 2008).

By 1820, mass migration to America had officially begun (Diner, 2008). This period of mass migration lasted roughly until 1880. Over the course of those approximately sixty years, around 15 million immigrants came to the United States. Many chose to settle in the Midwest and the Northeast, where they could own land and pursue agriculture. Others moved to large cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore (Diner, 2008).

Immigrants who came to the New World during the 19th century tended to cluster with fellow countrymen. The Midwest was a common destination for Europeans from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Bohemia, "and various regions of what in 1871 would become Germany" (Diner, 2008). With its rich farmland, the Midwest "became home to tight-knit, relatively homogeneous communities of immigrants" from these Northern European countries.

Irish, German, and Scandinavian Immigrants

Diner (2008) notes that the 19th century also witnessed the first large-scale arrival of Catholic immigrants to the largely Protestant United States. Irish men and women inspired the nation's first serious episode of nativism — a movement that combined antipathy toward immigrants in general with fear of Catholicism and aversion to the Irish specifically. Particularly in the decades just before the Civil War (1861–1865), this nativism spawned a powerful political movement and even a political party, the Know Nothings.

Many immigrants had left their home countries in order to practice their religion freely, yet even in America they encountered prejudice. The Irish faced harassment rooted in their Catholic faith in an almost entirely Protestant country. They were met with signs reading "No Irish," and as crime rates rose in cities where the Irish population grew, they were routinely blamed, regardless of evidence (Gjerde, 1998). The only jobs they could often secure were those requiring difficult manual labor that no one else wanted. They worked on railroads across the United States, much like the Chinese laborers of the same era. Those who traveled with railroad companies tended to remain near New York or around the Great Lakes region, though some made their way to San Francisco or New Orleans (Gjerde, 1998). The Irish were protected by the Constitution, but the journey to equality remained an arduous one.

Gjerde (1998) notes that nearly one-third of immigrants who arrived in America between 1820 and 1870 were German. Unlike the Irish, many Germans arrived with enough capital to travel directly to the Midwest and purchase farmland. Germans had faced religious harassment in their home country, but additional factors driving emigration included the failed revolution of 1848, a growing population and increasing competition for resources, and the belief that America offered greater opportunities and a better quality of life (Takaki, 2008).

Scandinavians had their own compelling reasons for mass migration. Chief among them were economic hardships in their home countries. The Norwegians, like the Germans, saw their populations expand and recognized that resources were insufficient for everyone (Takaki, 2008). Between 1825 and 1914, approximately 750,000 Norwegians immigrated to the United States (Takaki, 2008). Approximately 350,000 Finnish immigrants also arrived during the 19th century (Takaki, 2008). Most Finnish settlers chose states like Minnesota and Michigan and the broader northern tier of the country, drawn by a climate and landscape that resembled their homeland (Gjerde, 1998).

Conclusion: The Ongoing Role of Immigrants in American Society

There are many Americans who, though knowing that this is a country built by and of immigrants, still feel anxiety about immigration. Some hope that differences in ethnicity, race, and culture will teach people to become more tolerant, but others feel that those differences simply act as barriers, pushing the nation toward a fragmented collection of divided peoples.