James Lincoln Collier - A Century of Immigration: 1820 - 1924

T HE D RAMA OF A MERICAN H ISTORY

A CENTURY of IMMIGRATION

18201924

Christopher Collier

James Lincoln Collier

ACKNOWLEDGMENT: The authors wish to thank Bruce M. Stave, Professor of History, University of Connecticut, for his careful reading of the text of this volume of The Drama of American History and his thoughtful and useful comments. The work has been much improved by Professor Stave's notes. The authors are deeply in his debt, but, of course, assume full responsibility for the substance of the work, including any errors that may appear.

New York was the principal port of entry for European immigration, and in 1855 the state set up a reception center at Castle Garden on the tip of Manhattan where new arrivals spent a few hours or a day bathing, eating, and answering questions of officials who also provided information about jobs, lodgings, and money changing. In 1890 the U.S. government took over those functions and established a more elaborate center on Ellis Island in New York Harbor in sight of the Statue of Liberty with its inscription: "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." By the time it was closed in 1954, over 16 million people had come to the United States through Ellis Island. Today it is a museum of immigration history.

Photo research by James Lincoln Collier.

COVER PHOTO: Museum of the City of New York

PICTURE CREDITS: The photographs in this book are used by permission and through the courtesy of:

Chapter I: Jamestown-Yorktown Educational Trust : military drill. Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska : caravan at the Platte River. Museum of the City of New York : New York in the 1700s.

Chapter II: Museum of the City of New York : worker in a hovel. Corbis-Bettmann : peasant cottage in County Antrim, mob outside a workhouse. New York Public Library : James Curley and John Fitzgerald.

Chapter III: Museum of the City of New York : typical farm, Castle Garden, passengers dancing on the S.S. Patricia . Corbis-Bettmann : Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ludwig van Beethoven, revolutionaries in Berlin. New York Public Library : Christmas tree decorations.

Chapter IV: Museum of the City of New York : elevated train, Little Italy, the Mission School. Corbis-Bettmann : Polish Jews. New York Public Library : Italian farmers.

Chapter V: Corbis-Bettmann : medieval massacre of Jews, Polish shtetl, Russian pogrom, Orchard Street market. New York Public Library : "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "Tin Roof Blues."

Chapter VI: Corbis-Bettmann : "alien anarchist" cartoon, John F. Kennedy & Dwight D. Eisenhower. New York Public Library : anti-Catholic cartoon, World War I propaganda. Library of Congress : Chinese laborers. Independence National Historic Park : signing of the Declaration of Independence, James Madison, signatures on the Declaration of Independence.

2000 Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright holders.

First ebook edition 2012 by AudioGO. All Rights Reserved.

Trade ISBN 978-1-62064-519-2

Library ISBN 978-0-7927-9575-9

A CENTURY of IMMIGRATION

18201924

C ONTENTS

P REFACE

OVER MANY YEARS of both teaching and writing for students at all levels, from grammar school to graduate school, it has been borne in on us that many, if not most, American history textbooks suffer from trying to include everything of any moment in the history of the nation. Students become lost in a swamp of factual information, and as a consequence lose track of how those facts fit together and why they are significant and relevant to the world today.

In this series, our effort has been to strip the vast amount of available detail down to a central core. Our aim is to draw in bold strokes, providing enough information, but no more than is necessary, to bring out the basic themes of the American story, and what they mean to us now. We believe that it is surely more important for students to grasp the underlying concepts and ideas that emerge from the movement of history, than to memorize an array of facts and figures.

The difference between this series and many standard texts lies in what has been left out. We are convinced that students will better remember the important themes if they are not buried under a heap of names, dates, and places.

In this sense, our primary goal is what might be called citizenship education. We think it is critically important for America as a nation and Americans as individuals to understand the origins and workings of the public institutions that are central to American society. We have asked ourselves again and again what is most important for citizens of our democracy to know so they can most effectively make the system work for them and the nation. For this reason, we have focused on political and institutional history, leaving social and cultural history less well developed.

This series is divided into volumes that move chronologically through the American story. Each is built around a single topic, such as the Pilgrims, the Constitutional Convention, or immigration. Each volume has been written so that it can stand alone, for students who wish to research a given topic. As a consequence, in many cases material from previous volumes is repeated, usually in abbreviated form, to set the topic in its historical context. That is to say, students of the Constitutional Convention must be given some idea of relations with England, and why the Revolution was fought, even though the material was covered in detail in a previous volume. Readers should find that each volume tells an entire story that can be read with or without reference to other volumes.

Despite our belief that it is of the first importance to outline sharply basic concepts and generalizations, we have not neglected the great dramas of American history. The stories that will hold the attention of students are here, and we believe they will help the concepts they illustrate to stick in their minds. We think, for example, that knowing of Abraham Baldwin's brave and dramatic decision to vote with the small states at the Constitutional Convention will bring alive the Connecticut Compromise, out of which grew the American Senate.

Each of these volumes has been read by esteemed specialists in its particular topic; we have benefited from their comments.

C HAPTER I: A N ATION OF I MMIGRANTS

IT IS A truism to say that the United States is a nation of immigrants. The first English settlers, the ones who came in the 1600s, were, in a sense, immigrants. Just like millions of later immigrants, they had come to America to escape from autocratic governments, to find religious freedom, and to develop a more prosperous and satisfying life than they had had at home. It is true that some of the early arrivals, to Georgia, for instance, were petty criminals, beggars, and orphans sent by a British government who wanted to get rid of them. But the majoritynot counting kidnapped Africans brought as slaveswere ordinary people who hoped to find in the New World comfortable livings, perhaps even riches, that they could not get in the British Isles.