The Role Of Immigrants In The 19th Century

Immigrants have been a staple of American society throughout United States History. This is most notably seen during the late 19th century and into the 20th Century. Roughly 15 million immigrant rushed into America during these years and the influx of immigrants helped America create new ideas about the types of people Immigrants might have been. Immigration was not a new concept but the waves of people coming from so many different places was an entirely new thought to the people already living in America. America became a breeding ground for new ideas, concepts, and reform.
Nativism is the concept that those born in the country are better than those who migrated there. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, this idealism became a huge part of
For some, it meant escaping persecution, and for others, it meant running from the lack of opportunity, however, a majority of people came due to the allure of work. This work was promised by special recruiting agents even though when the immigrants arrived there was very little work to find causing some to venture further inland to farm but the majority stayed in the cities working in industrial factories.As more and more immigrants fell onto United States soil more and more citizens demanded reform, this lead to several things happening at once. In California many Chinese were coming over and leaving their families for a better life, just as the Irish and Germans had, the only difference being that eventually in 1884 an Act was introduced and resulted in the Chinese no longer being allowed to migrate, this Act named the Chinese Exclusion Act. Many citizens felt that more was needed so in the same year the Immigration Act was put in place and this stated that no one could enter the country if they were convicts, “lunatics”, or likely to become a burden to the state. Many others were also included in this act and to enforce these restrictions the Bureau of Immigration was established in 1891 to make sure the rules were kept. 1982 was when Immigrants were greeted by Ellis Island rather than Castle Garden. One downfall of Ellis Island became the language barriers, as Immigrants
Many tenements were very small while housing multiple families and people at once, and until 1905 they often did not have a bathroom. On top of being uncomfortably small when called in to build the tenements contractors would use very cheap materials and usually the buildings were a foot away from one another causing the cost of living there to be very high in regard to well being. Luckily in 1901 after years of complaints, the government finally passed the Tenement House Law which set strict guidelines that would be enforced. These guidelines meant that there would be fire escapes, light, and a clean environment. After the law was passed more than 200,00 new apartments were built over the course of 15 years. Hull House also helped to improve these situations for incoming immigrants. The workers of Hull House kept their doors open to immigrants who could not stay in the tenement housing. Hull House also did a brilliant job of giving immigrant mothers a place to bring their children and teens. A major project that those in Hull House worked hard on was to map out and showcase how those in poor Chicago areas lived, along with the federal Bureau of Labor, Hull House went door to door throughout each neighborhood and asked questions about their ethnicity and their income. This map was intended to spark people’s motivation to help