1. Objectives
Identify the reasons immigration to the United States increased in the late 1800s.
Describe the difficulties immigrants faced adjusting to their new lives.
Discuss how immigrants assimilated and contributed to American life.
Describe efforts to limit immigration.

2. Terms and People
steerage – large ship compartment that usually held cattle
assimilation – process of becoming part of another culture
anarchist – person who opposes all forms of government

3. How were the experiences of immigrants both positive and negative?
As the nation changed during the late 1800s and early 1900s, so, too, did its population.
Immigrants faced many challenges in their new home, but they also contributed greatly to the economy and culture of America.

4. Twenty-five million immigrants entered the United States between 1865 and 1915.

5. Some factors pushed immigrants from their homelands.
Shrinking farmland
Religious persecution
Political revolution
Immigrants

6. Other factors pulled immigrants toward the United States.
New jobs
Cheap land
Democracy and liberty
Immigrants

7. For many different reasons, immigrants from around the world poured into the country.
Most came from Europe, especially southern and eastern Europe.
Few spoke English and many had never known democracy.

8. For most immigrants, the long ocean crossing was difficult and dangerous.
Ships were overcrowded, and people were jammed into cramped steerage compartments below deck.
Disease and rough seas made many sick.

9. Immigrants arriving from Asia entered through Angel Island near San Francisco.
Europeans entered through Ellis Island, near New York City.

10. Once admitted to the United States, most immigrants settled in cities.
Ethnic neighborhoods flourished, helping immigrants assimilate.
Immigrants also shared their culture. Foods like bagels and spaghetti became mainstream.

11. Many immigrants valued education, hoping that the next generation would be better off.

12. Immigrants came to America looking for jobs—and they found them.
Construction
workers
Garment
workers
Steelworkers
Jobs
Miners
Meatpackers
Railroad
workers

13. Immigrants soon became essential to the growing economy.
Andrew Carnegie
Scottish
Steel industry
Alexander Graham Bell
Telephone industry
Samuel Goldwyn
Jewish
Motion picture industry
Louis Mayer
Arturo Toscanini
Italian
Orchestra conductor
Leo Baekeland
Belgian
Plastics industry

14. Despite such success stories, however, increased immigration led to a wave of nativism.
Immigrants can’t assimilate.
Immigrants take away jobs.
Immigrants promote violence and anarchy.
Nativist
arguments

15. Act excluding those who cannot read
Such feelings led to new laws limiting immigration.
This Act excluded Chinese people solely based on their race.
1882
Chinese Exclusion Act
1917
Act excluding those who cannot read
their own language
This act kept most of the world’s poor from immigrating.

16. Section Review
QuickTake Quiz
Know It, Show It Quiz 16