American History: Immigrants from Europe Seek a Better Life in a New Land
12 May 2010
Horse-drawn wagons and electric trolley cars share the streets in 1897 Philadelphia during a time of revolutionary change in transportation and industry
Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English.
In our last program, we told you the story of the Statue of Liberty. It was given to the United States by the people of France. Lady Liberty holds a bright torch high over the harbor of New York City. Millions of immigrants coming to America passed the statue as ships carried them to the immigration processing center on Ellis Island.
This week in our series, Leo Scully and Maurice Joyce tell the story of immigration in the United States during the eighteen hundreds.
LEO SCULLY: American life was changing. And it was changing quickly. Before eighteen sixty, the United States had an agricultural economy. After eighteen sixty, the country began to change from an agricultural to an industrial economy.
In eighteen sixty, American shops and factories produced less than two thousand million dollars' worth of goods. Thirty years later, in eighteen ninety, American factories produced ten thousand million dollars' worth. By then, more than five million persons were working in factories and mines. Another three million had jobs in the building industries and transportation.
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