loc.govAn 1880 drawing of immigrants arriving at Castle Garden, New York
MAURICE JOYCE: As the years passed, fewer people were moving to America for a better job. Most were coming now for any job at all. Work was hard to find in any of the cities in Europe.
A British lawmaker told parliament in eighteen seventy that Englishmen were leaving their country, not because they wanted to, but because they had to. They could not find work at home. He said that even as he spoke, hundreds were dying of hunger in London and other British cities. They were victims of the new revolution in agriculture and industry.
Small family farms were disappearing. In their places rose large modern farms that could produce much more. New machines took the place of men. And millions of farmers had to look for other work. Some found it in the factories. Industry was growing quickly -- but not quickly enough to give jobs to all the farmers out of work.
LEO SCULLY: In the next ten years, millions of people made the move from Britain, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries. But then, as industry in those countries grew larger, and more jobs opened, the flood of immigration began to slow.
The immigrants now were coming from southern and eastern Europe. Anti-Jewish feeling swept Russia and Poland. Violence against Jews caused many of them to move to America.
In the late eighteen eighties, cholera spread through much of southern Italy. Fear of the disease led many families to leave for the United States.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25