A Congressman Denounces Immigration Quotas as "Un-American"
Immigration and Migration
Restrictions on immigration, largely aimed at would-be migrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, gained considerable popular support during the 1920s. Anti-immigrant sentiment culminated in the Quota Act of 1921, which effectively reduced immigration from those areas to a quarter of pre-World War I levels, and in the even more restrictive Immigration Act of 1924. Although the later bill passed the Senate with only six dissenting votes, not everyone was persuaded. Robert H. Clancy, a congressman from Detroit, defended the Jewish, Italian, and Polish immigrants that comprised much of his constituency and denounced the quota provisions of the bill as "un-American." In a speech before Congress on April 8, 1924, Clancy traces the history of anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. and reminds his fellow congressmen that all Americans are of foreign origin.
Robert H. Clancy
Speech by Robert H. Clancy, 8 April 1924, <em>Congressional Record, </em>68th Congress, 1st Session (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1924), vol. 65, 59295932.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1924
1862, 1865
English
Speech
Modern America (1914-1929)
"The Balloon Man"
As this photograph of a Jewish balloon man on Dupont Street shows, there were many non-Chinese peddlers in San Francisco's Chinatown. Chinatown was a popular tourist destination in the late 19th century, and many peddlers sold novelty goods to tourists. While tensions were high between Chinese, Irish, and Italians in California, there was less conflict between Chinese and Jews.
Arthur Genthe
Arnold Genthe, "The Balloon Man," photograph, California Historical Society FN-02278; available from <em>Calisphere</em>, http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb8q2nb2w8/
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1895 - 1906
Used by permission of the <a href="http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/collections/permissions.html" target="_blank">California Historical Society</a>.
English
Photograph
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
Female Garment Workers Labor in a New York City Tenement
Work
Concentrated in New York City, the garment industry developed side by side with the sweatshop system of labor. Sweatshops employed a handful of workers, almost all of whom were immigrant Jewish or Italian women. They were supervised by contractors of their own nationality, mostly men, who got materials on credit from manufacturers, bought sewing machines on installment plans, and rented lofts or tenement apartments for factories. As this circa 1900 photograph shows, women and men in sweatshop "factories" worked in cramped conditions that lacked basic safety measures.
Unknown
From Ric Burns and James Sanders, eds., <em>New York: An Illustrated History</em> (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 280.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1900 (Circa)
English
Photograph
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
"Tenement, New York City, 1910"
Immigration and Migration
This photograph by Lewis Hine was taken in a New York City tenement in 1910. Hine was a documentary photographer who frequently turned his lens to the plight of immigrants, workers, and the poor. This family group, perhaps among the approximately two and a half million Italians who arrived in New York in the years 1890-1910, lives in squalid and cramped conditions typical of New York tenement buildings at the turn of the century.
Lewis W. Hine
Lewis W. Hine, "Tenement, New York City, 1910," black and white photograph, 1910; in Walter Rosenblum et al., <em>America & Lewis W. Hine: Photographs 1904-1940</em> (New York: The Brooklyn Museum with Aperture, 1977).
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1910
English
Photograph
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
Map of Block 160, 1902
Immigration and Migration
This is a map of Block 160 in New York City's Five Points neighborhood 1902. Public opinion of the Five Points neighborhood was highly negative and filled with bias. The population of New York had ballooned by the mid-nineteenth century causing a housing shortage, so the Five Points consisted mainly of tenement housing and apartments mixed with commercial and industrial interests. While outsiders viewed it to be a site for debauchery and degenerates, Five Points was a working-class neighborhood filled with both skilled and unskilled laborers. Five Points was home to various populations over the decades, including African Americans, Irish, eastern European Jewish, German, and Italian immigrants.
G.W. Bromley & Co
G.W. Bromley & Co., "Map of Block 160, Bromley 1902," in <em>Tales of Five Points: Working-Class Life in Nineteenth-Century New York</em>, Vol. 1, ed. Rebecca Yamin (West Chester: John Milner Associates, Inc., 2000), 134.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1902
English
Map
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
"Character of Present Immigration"
Immigration and Migration
These extracts from the report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration were reprinted and circulated by the Immigration Restriction League, a Boston-based organization that favored stronger restrictions on immigration at the turn of the twentieth century. In it the Commissioner-General echoes the sentiments of many anti-immigration efforts of the time, noting the prevalence of immigration from Italy and Eastern Europe (although denying any ethnic prejudice against these groups), their concentration in eastern cities, and characterizing them as undesirable.
Immigration Restriction League
Immigration Restriction League, "Character of Present Immigration," <em>Extracts from the Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration for the Year Ending June 30, 1903,</em> American Memory, Library of Congress, http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/gilded/people/text9/text9link.htm.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1903
1622
English
Government Document
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
A "Red Scare" Leads to Backlash Against Immigrants
Immigration and Migration
After World War I a "Red Scare" broke out as anxieties about political extremists and radicals led to widespread demonization and political persecution of leftists and immigrants. A series of high-profile events from the late-nineteenth century on, such as the Haymarket Square bombing and the assassination of President McKinley by Leon Czolgosz, had cemented the connection of radical politics and violence in the public mind, with the image of the "anarchist" in particular becoming synonymous with the bomb-throwing terrorist. Since many of the leading exponents of anarchism, as well the defendants in the notorious Sacco and Vanzetti case and President McKinley's assassin were Italian, Russian, or Eastern European, these groups in particular were stigmatized as the stereotypical "anarchists," bent on violent revolution and the destruction of America's institutions. This stereotype, suggested by the bomb-wielding, dark-featured "European Anarchist" of the cartoon, became a leading justification for the passage of quota laws which severely limited immigration from Italy, Russia, and other regions of Southern and Eastern Europe.
James P. Alley
James P. Alley, "Come Unto Me, Ye Opprest!", <em>Memphis Commercial Appeal</em>, 5 July 1919.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1919
English
Cartoon
Modern America (1914-1929)
<em>Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars</em> (Excerpt)
Immigration and Migration
This excerpt from Elizabeth Ewen's <em>Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars</em> describes the economic relationships of working-class immigrant families at the turn of the century. The female head of the family played an important economic role, often being the recipient of pay envelopes from an entire family of workers, which may have included husbands and children as well as boarders. However, as Ewen notes, this arrangement was not without its tensions.
Elizabeth Ewen
Elizabeth Ewen, <em>Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars: Life and Culture on the Lower East Side 1890-1925</em> (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1985).
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1985
1996
English
Book
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
Background Essay on Late 19th and Early 20th Century Immigration
Immigration and Migration
This summary of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century immigration describes the "new immigration" that originated from Southern and Eastern Europe. The essay also outlines American responses to the new wave of immigration, including some of the laws designed to restrict immigration that were adopted between 1880 and 1910.
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, 2008.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
2008
Copyright American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
<div><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License</a>.</div>
English
Article/Essay
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)