Pioneers of the Century of Immigration (CH. 6)-- Summary Notes and Key Passages

  Chapter 6 emphasizes the groups of the “old” immigrants, those coming from north-western Europe prior to the 1880s whereas those coming after the 1880s came from southern and eastern Europe and had a much harder time assimilating. Despite this description, the Irish, Germans and Scandinavians face a dilemma when trying to fall into this category because they are from north-western Europe but come in large groups after the 1880s. It’s interesting to note that between 1860 and 1920, the U.S. grew immensely from 30 million to 105 million people and many of the demographics of people changed as well. Much of this change was reliant upon immigrants. As methods of transportation became greater and cheaper, more and more immigrants were able to embark on a journey to the U.S.

  The first group, the Irish, mainly attribute their heavy emigration rates to the Potato Famine. However, the Irish emigration happened in three distinct stages: Prefamine Migration (until 1844), The Famine Years (1845-1855)  and Irish Immigration (1860-1930). Throughout this entire stretch, the Irish immigrants never dropped below a third of all immigrants. This in turn, accounted for the depopulation of Ireland.  The prefamine years draw mainly from those of Catholic descent and were a heavily male group. The majority of these immigrants settled in large cities, especially those of the northeast. They also were hugely instrumental in the building of many public work projects such as the Erie Canal and railways and urban tasks. They are also noted as being one of the first groups to practice chain migration on a large scale. The Irish were often discriminated against and took many unskilled jobs. During the Famine Years, the case of migration from Ireland was slightly different. Because of high land rents, Irish farmers resorted to the potato as a staple crop which was highly susceptible to disease. Because of the potato blight, the population of Ireland became undernourished and caused outbreaks of epidemic diseases. These years accounted for the largest population on record leaving Ireland. Once again, the Irish immigrants took low wrung jobs and would often compete with blacks for work—most being laborers and servants. In the post Famine years, Irish immigrants still came in bulk, but often went unnoticed because they often settled in areas where there were already large Irish populations. On an interesting note, this era is different because more females entered the U.S. than males—most of these women being young and single. The bulk of immigrants were also young. The Irish continued to be concentrated in certain areas of work, such as police and firemen and laundry work. There was also large Irish control over trade unions. This Irish Americans were also heavily involved with politics, were largely democrats and gave their votes to the political bosses.

                Germans were a much more diverse group of immigrants—they spoke a foreign language, came from three distinct religious groups and had a much more widespread distribution in the United States. In addition, they were more likely to migrate in a family group. Due to the fact that Germany did not exist as country until after 1871, it become difficult to distinguish who is actually a German and who was from a neighboring country. They movement of Germans into the U.S. was largely affected by the business cycle in the U.S.—meaning that the economy and political status were the biggest factors. Germans were much less likely to settle in cities than were the Irish. Germans also tended to live in communities within their ethnicity and took up more skilled jobs. Women were also less likely to be in the workforce. Because of their tendency to live in German communities, they would often only converse in their native tongue and in some cases the fourth or fifth generation would still use German as their primary language. The majority of Germans also took up jobs as farmers. As far as religions go, they can be divided up into Protestants, Catholics and Jews. Jews were the only group that congregated in more urban areas. It is likely that many more Jews came from Germany, but we go off records kept by synagogues. The Germans greatly fought to educate their children at German language schools—in many cases the schools would not teach English at all. The prevalence of German language education ended when World War I struck. Although they fought to keep their culture alive, in most cases Germans as distinct group is no longer relevant today.

                Within the Scandinavian migration, the immigrants came from the countries of Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The Scandinavian groups predominantly settled in rural areas in the Midwest. Unlike the other groups, there was often a distinction between the Scandinavian groups. In the case of Sweden, the majority of immigrants were middle class individuals who came as passengers on Swedish Iron Ore ships. Most of them came in family groups. They were mostly motivated by economic factors, which stemmed from the expanding population and lack of suitable land for agriculture. They were predominantly farmers, but also became a large portion of the population in such cities as Chicago. The Swedes were often times associated with the Republican Party because of their support of the temperance movement and Prohibition. In the case of the Norwegians, there was huge pressure to migrate because of the lack of available land for farming. The majority of its rural population was left without land to farm on. Religious reasons also played a role in migration, although not as important. In most cases, they settled in rural areas, however, there was a large population of them in Brooklyn. They too became a large Republican group. In the case of the Danish, we know the most about their social background because of police records. They took into account: year and month of departure, sex, traveling alone or in a group, occupation, age, place of last residence and destination. The earliest large group of Danes came as Mormons seeking the Great Salt Lake city. In this case, the migration of the Danish was family oriented. But most Danes came for economic reasons and were often from a young age group. Because so few females immigrated, the job market for these females was much improved. Many of people came were unmarried men and women. Unlike other Scandinavians, the Danish were not specifically concentrated in areas and would often marry outside of their group. Most ended up in the Midwest—such as Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

 

Important facts and figures:

·         “In an era in which almost everything changed, the incidence of foreign born, citizen and alien, in our population remained a constant one in seven” (125).

·         “Ireland suffered a massive loss of population: The census of 1841 found about 8.2 million Irish; that of 1851, about 6.6 million. That loss of 1.6 million persons in a decade—more than 17 percent of the population—can be attributed, in large part, to the famine” (126-127).

·         “The fact of the matter was that few Catholic Irish were well prepared for either urban or rural success in America: almost none had trades to ply and few had much more than the rudiments of an education” (132).

·         “The potato blight was unavoidable; but the Great Famine, in the words of Professor Kerby Miller, was ‘largely the result of Ireland’s colonial status and grossly inequitable social system” (134). –In other words, part of the push from Ireland was inherently political in nature.

·         “Between them, Germans and Irish were almost seven out of ten foreign born in the former year, 69.8 percent, and more than four out of ten in the latter, 41.4 percent” (146).

·         “Between 1860 and 1890 about two-fifths of the German- born lived in cities of twenty-five thousand or more, a figure considerably higher than that of native-born Americans” (149).

·         “There were about eight hundred German newspapers in the 1880s, at which time about four out of five foreign-language papers in the United States were German” (162).

·         “As table 6.7 shows, a little more than half of the 2.15 million Scandinavians were Swedes, almost a third Norwegians and a seventh Danes” (164).

·         “The U.S. Census for 1910 shows nearly a fifth of all Swedish immigrants in Minnesota, just over a sixth in Illinois, and about a fourteenth in New York, with 43.3 percent in just those three states” (168).

·         “Although Norway is not one of Europe’s smaller nations—its 125,000 square miles make it slightly larger than New Mexico—only about 3 or 4 percent of its land was tillable. The population grew 50 percent between 1801 and 1845, when it reached 1.3 million” (173).

·         “Even more highly concentrated than the Swedes, 57.3 percent of the Norwegian –born persons in the United States resided in three states: a sixth in Wisconsin, a quarter in Minnesota, and an eighth in North Dakota, according to the 1910 census” (173).

·         “In Denmark, the emigration of ninety-six thousand adult men and of sixty thousand women caused the already predominantly female sex ration to increase” (179).

·         “Over the whole period, 1868-1900, only four Danish immigrants out of ten were in family groups; the other six were unmarried men and women at roughly a two-to-one male ratio” (180).

Questions:

 

1)      What were the predominate differences between the Irish settlers and the German settlers?

2)      In what ways were the Irish settlers involved in politics?

3)      Where did the Scandinavian immigrants primarily settle?

4)      Why was it so difficult to distinguish between Germans and those people from their neighboring countries?

5)      Describe the concept of the “Ethnic Escalator”.