Between 1850-1914, 40 million people emigrated to the United States of America. For most the journey was hard and consisted of two weeks in the cheapest class of travel with little or no privacy. There was also no guarantee that they would be allowed in!
Immigrants arriving at Ellis Island in 1902. From
Wikipedia.
Why did people migrate to America?
- Overcrowding in Europe
- Lack of Opportunity
- Unemployment
- Persecution
- America offered escape from these.
Who were the Americans?
Immigration had made the USA a very mixed society.
America was like ‘a melting pot’.
The idea was that the immigrants lost their old identity and became AMERICANS!
Old Immigrants. These were the first European settlers from Britain, Germany
and Scandinavia. Their descendants tended to hold the best jobs, the most
money and political power- WASPs.
Native American Indians. These people originally lived across the whole
of the continent. Between 1850-90 they were forced off their land.
By 1917 many Indians lived in reservations across America.
Black Americans. In the C18th and C19th millions of Africans were brought
to America to work as slaves. By 1920 there were 11 million Black people
living in America.
Southern and Eastern Europeans. In the late C19th most new immigrants
came from Russia, Poland and Italy. Many were Jews and Catholics.
Hispanics
Asians
History of the United States in the Twentieth Century
America in the 1920s and 1930s
USA at the start of the 20th Century – Causes of the Economic Boom – Impact of Economic Growth in the 1920’s – Agriculture in the 1920’s – The “Roaring” Twenties – Prohibition – Ku Klux Klan in the 20’s – Causes of the Wall Street Crash – Consequences of the Wall Street Crash – The Great Depression – The New Deal – Opposition to the New Deal – Evaluation of the New Deal
The United States c1945-1971
The Red Scare – Impact of the Second World War on Civil Rights – Civil Rights in 1950 – Brown v Topeka Board of Education – Little Rock High School – Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Protest – Martin Luther King Jnr – Nation of Islam and Malcolm X – The Black Panthers – Ku Klux Klan in the 1960’s – March on Washington – USA: Civil Rights Acts in the 1960s – Immigration Act of 1965 – Chicano movement and Civil Rights for Hispanic Americans – College Sit In’s and Student Protests – Women’s Rights – Native Americans and Civil Rights
Related Links
Ellis Island Immigration Centre. The Wikipedia entry for the Ellis Island migrant centre.
Immigration to America. Eyewitness history’s account of immigration into the United
States in the early 20th century.