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”.