Which group made up the majority of immigrants coming to the US between 1890 and 1920?

Immigrants arriving from Old World, ca. 1890

Photograph shows a male immigrant standing in front of the door with all his possessions.

The arrival of European immigrants introduced an ethnic diversity through the eastern parts of the united states as immigrants came in waves native Americans and native American citizens would soon notice distinct differences in ethnicities and age groups among the population of European immigrant waves particularly the new VS the old immigration. The so-called “old immigration” described the group European immigrants who “came mainly from Northern and Central Europe (Germany and England) in early 1800 particularly between 1820 and 1890 they were mostly protestant”[6] and they came in groups of families they were highly skilled, older in age, and had moderate amount of money in addition, they were quick to assimilate with the American citizens their main reason for coming was to seek settlement and escape the poverty and food scarcity due to droughts . As for the New immigrants, they were younger mostly male dominant “they came from Eastern and Southern Europe from countries like Italy, Poland, Greece, Russia they came in search of Economic opportunities”[7] but most of them never intended to become American citizen they were working in the US just earn enough to send money back to their familiar which gave them the name “ Birds of Passage”[8]. The new wave of immigrants was either catholic, orthodox, or Jewish they came impoverished, unskilled, and illiterate also most of the immigrants from the new wave came separately as a form of smaller groups or individuals like a father and son or single men who were looking for jobs.    

Old Immigrants VS New Immigrants

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Immigrants arriving at Constitution Wharf in Boston. From Ballou’s Pictorial, October 31, 1857.

During the nineteenth century, Boston evolved from a bustling port town to a booming industrial city. Through landfill and annexations, the city’s footprint grew dramatically, from 1.5 to more than 40 square miles, while its population increased more than eight fold from 1820-1880. As shoe and textile factories sprouted up across Massachusetts, railroad building accelerated, connecting Boston to towns across the region and markets further west. At the same time, the city’s burgeoning port and maritime commerce sent local traders and missionaries across the globe, fostering contacts abroad that migrants would follow back to Boston. By 1880, the Census counted more than 114,000 immigrants in the city—nearly a third of its population.

The Irish made up the majority of immigrants in this period, particularly during the famine years of the 1840s and 1850s when they comprised more than 90 percent of the city’s foreign-born residents. Germans, Canadians, and those from England and Scotland came in smaller numbers. Many newcomers initially settled in the North End and Fort Hill (near the present financial district), as older Yankee residents moved out. By mid century, however, Irish and other immigrants were fanning out to the South and West Ends and to nearby settlements in Charlestown, East Boston, Cambridge and Lynn.

For many new arrivals, Boston proved to be a temporary destination and jumping-off point for jobs in outlying mill towns or work building railroads, canals, and other construction projects. Within the Boston area, immigrant men worked as day laborers and skilled tradesmen, while women found work in domestic service and sewing. Immigrant mothers also worked in their own homes, taking in boarders and laundry to earn income for their families. During the Civil War, trans-Atlantic immigration was disrupted and continued to decline during the 1860s. It soon rebounded, but by the 1880s the sources of that migration began to shift. (Continue reading on Second Wave Immigration, 1880-1921)

S.S. Canopic lands in Boston, 1920. Photo by Leslie Jones, courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Boston’s industrial economy matured and expanded across the region. New manufacturing plants were built along the city’s main railroad lines, and new subway and streetcar lines fueled the building of homes and factories in adjoining suburbs. The city of Boston itself continued to grow, more than doubling its population between 1880 and 1920. Immigrants made up nearly 40 percent of those residents in the 1910s—the city’s peak immigration decade.

Industrial development in North America and Western Europe had ripple effects on local economies across the globe. As cheaper manufactured goods displaced local crafts, artisan livelihoods suffered in places like Ireland, the Mediterranean, and Eastern Europe. Overpopulation, agricultural crises, heavy taxation, and political and religious repression added to the pressures that drove many to leave. With so many countries now sending emigrants abroad, Boston’s foreign-born population gradually shifted. Although the Irish continued to be the city’s largest foreign-born group, Canadians, Russian Jews, and Italians all formed large communities by the early twentieth century. Smaller streams of migrants also came from China, Portugal, Poland, Lithuania, the Ottoman Empire, and the West Indies.

Newer immigrants took up residence in the city’s immigrant quarters in the North, South, and West Ends as many earlier Irish settlers left. Some of the latter, along with the native and German-born working class, relocated to outlying neighborhoods such as South Boston, Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, Dorchester, East Boston, and Charlestown. Social workers referred to these areas as “the zone of emergence”—places where skilled white immigrant workers and their families were settling alongside other ethnic groups and aspiring to middle-class standards of living. By the 1910s, newer immigrant groups would also begin moving to these areas as well as to fast-growing industrial suburbs such as East Cambridge, Chelsea, Somerville, Watertown, Malden, Quincy, Waltham, and Framingham.

As in the first wave, many second wave male immigrants worked as day laborers on the streets, docks, and railroads. Moreover, construction work building new roads, bridges, subways, and streetcar lines was especially important in this period. Irish women continued to work in domestic service, but were gradually replaced by newcomers from Eastern Europe and black migrants from the South. Overwhelmingly, though, second wave immigrants—both men and women—found jobs in local factories making shoes, garments, textiles, rubber goods, chemicals, candy, and other products. The reorganization and mechanization of such industries meant that higher-paid skilled workers could be replaced by unskilled immigrant workers earning significantly lower wages. The hours were long, and working conditions were often grueling and hazardous. To avoid the factory regime, some immigrants worked as peddlers, selling produce or dry goods on the streets. The most successful earned enough to start their own groceries or other retail businesses, and immigrant entrepreneurship thus became a common path of upward mobility. (Continue reading on the Restriction Era, 1924-1965)

Where did the majority of immigrants come from between 1880 and 1920?

Where did most immigrants to the United States come from by 1890?

What was the largest immigrant group during the 1920s?

Why did most of the immigrants who came to America between 1890 and 1920 settle in cities?