Transcript When Monopoly Wasn`t a Game

When
Wasn’t a Game:
Immigration
Irish Immigration
1830
From 1820 -1860,
.9 million Irish
arrived after the
Potato famine struck.
Most went to cities such as
Boston, Philadelphia and New
York, mill towns in
Massachusetts, and railroad or
canal construction sites along
the east coast.
Protestant owners of textile
mills hired the new low-wage
workers; other Irish Catholic
women took jobs as maids.
Large numbers of unemployed
Irish Catholics lived in squalid
conditions in the new city slums.
NATIVISM Targeting the Irish
Prejudice against Irish Catholics reached a peak in the mid-1850s when the
Know-Nothing Party tried to oust Catholics from public office.
drinking, fighting, ignoring their children, and gambling in crowded poorhouses
were widespread images of Irish in America.
German Immigration 1830
From 1840-1880 Germans were the
largest group of immigrants,
many political refugees from
the revolution of 1848 in the
German states.
The cities of Milwaukee, Cincinnati,
St. Louis, Chicago, New York and
Baltimore were favored
destinations of German
Immigrants. Milwaukee was
known as the “German Athens.”
Half of the Germans established
farms in the Midwest from Ohio
to the Plains states.
German Americans established the
first kindergartens in the US,
introduced the Christmas tree,
originated foods such as hot
dogs and hamburgers, and also
dominated beer brewing.
SCANDINAVIAN IMMIGRATION 1830
SWEDEN
After the Civil War, 1.3 million
Swedes immigrated to the US
to escape religious
persecution, social
conservatism, and class
snobbery. The American
Midwest was praised as an
earthly paradise of religious
and political freedom and
undreamed of opportunities.
Most immigrants became classic
pioneers, clearing and
cultivating the prairies of the
Great Plains.
SCANDINAVIAN IMMIGRATION 1830
NORWAY
Norwegian immigration began out
of religious persecution,
especially for Quakers.
Early Norwegian settlements
were in Pennsylvania and
Illinois, but moved westward
into Wisconsin, Iowa,
Minnesota, and the Dakotas.
The majority of Norwegian
Farming settlements developed
in the “Homestead Act
Triangle,” between the
Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.
SCANDINAVIAN IMMIGRATION 1830
DENMARK
Danish immigrants were farmers and
unskilled laborers, displaced by the
industrial revolution and large
farms in Denmark.
Most Danes settled in the farming
regions of Wisconsin, Iowa,
Minnesota, Nebraska, and the
Dakotas. Skilled in dairy farming,
Danish Americans became the major
producers of dairy products in the
Midwest, including the famed
Wisconsin cheeses.
Many Danes became Mormons and by the
1860s half of the Danish immigrants
were headed to Utah.
A Scandinavian melting pot existed
in urban areas among
Norwegians, Swedes, and Danes.
CHINESE IMMIGRATION 1830
Immigration of Chinese laborers began
after the Opium Wars. By 1848, the
numbers increased due to the
California Gold Rush. By 1880,
105,000 immigrants were living on the
West Coast.
Contributions of Chinese Americans:
Building Transcontinental Railroad
Chinese American Food
Introducing East Asian culture
(religion, martial arts)
Most Chinese immigrants were young
males with low education levels, who
left their wives and children behind.
Most intended on staying in America
only temporarily.
The Chinese immigrants neither spoke or
understood English, nor were
familiar with western culture. Many
experienced culture shock in what to
them was a strange country.
Assimilation was also difficult
because the men were unable to
return to China if their Cue (long
braid) had been cut.
Nativism Targeting the Chinese
The Chinese experienced racism from
European Americans from the
outset of their arrival. Racism
Included everything from job
discrimination to violence. Racism
increased continuously to the turn
of the century, and prevented the
Chinese from assimilating into
mainstream American society.
Most Chinese men did not bring their
wives or families to America because
they too would have been subjected
to the same racial violence and
discrimination the men had faced.
Chinese Laborers were banned from
Immigration in 1882 due to job
competition.
In 1888, All Chinese were banned from
immigrating. The ban was not lifted
until 1943. Chinese immigration
continued to be heavily restricted.
IMMIGRATION THROUGH
ELLIS ISLAND
Ellis Island was the principal
federal immigration station in
the United States from 1892
to 1954.
More than 12 million
immigrants were processed
here. It is estimated that over
40 percent of all citizens can
trace their ancestry to those
who came through Ellis
Island.
In its early years, when the
greatest number of immigrants
entered the country, Ellis
Island mirrored the nation's
After passage of immigration
laws in the 1920s, Ellis
Island was used more for
"assembly, detainment, and
deporting aliens," and
symbolized a closing door.
Immigrants were required to
pass a series of medical and
legal inspections before
they could enter America.
The actual experience of going
through inspection or
detainment on Ellis Island
was often nerve wracking.
Those who did not pass these
inspections were returned
to their country of origin on
the boats that brought them
here.
Even though only 2 percent of
those coming to America
were turned away at Ellis
Island, that translated to
over 250,000 people whose
hopes and dreams turned to
tears.
MEDICAL INSPECTION
Women Patients:
Many immigrant women were
frightened by the clinical routine
followed on Ellis Island. For a
woman who had never been touched
by a man other than her husband,
being examined by a male doctor
could be a traumatic experience. In
1914 two women doctors were
appointed to the medical staff,
Trachoma: Trachoma, a highly
contagious eye infection that could
cause blindness, was a common
disease in southeastern Europe but
relatively unknown in the United
States. it appeared as inflammations
on the inner eyelid. Doctors checked
for the disease by raising the eyelid
with either their fingers, a hairpin, or
a buttonhook--a painful, but quick
procedure. Since trachoma is
difficult to cure, sufferers were
generally isolated and sent back to
their ports of embarkation.
MENTAL TESTING
Some immigrants were marked with an
"X" during a line inspection and
were sent to mental examination
rooms for further questioning.
During this primary examination,
doctors first asked the
immigrants to answer a few
questions about themselves, and
then to solve simple arithmetic
problems, or count backward
from 20 to 1, or complete a
puzzle.
Out of the immigrants held for this
"weeding out" session, some
would be detained for a
secondary session of more
extensive testing.
They asked questions. "How much is
two and one? How much is two and
two?"
In 1985, a women who Immigrated
from Poland in 1917 recalled:
“One young girl, also from our city,
went and they asked her, "How do
you wash stairs, from the top or
from the bottom?" She say, "I don't
go to America to wash stairs."
Can you draw a diamond?
Doctors found that this test, which
required immigrants to copy
geometric shapes, was useful only in
the examination of immigrants who
knew how to write or were used to
holding a pencil.
In addition to using standard tests, Ellis
Island doctors devised many of their
own tests to help diagnose mental
defects. Puzzles and mimicry tests
were favored because they did not
have to be explained to an immigrant
through an interpreter; nor did an
immigrant have to know how to read
or write in order to solve them.
Literacy Test:
Nativists had been trying to impose a
literacy test since the 1880s as a
means of restricting immigration. They
finally succeeded with the
Immigration Act of 1917,
passed over President Woodrow
Wilson's veto. This law required all
immigrants, 16 years or older to read
a 40-word passage in their native
language.
After the medical inspection, each
immigrant filed up to the inspector's
desk for his or her legal examination,
an experience that was often
compared to the Day of Judgment.
To determine an immigrant's social,
economic, and moral fitness,
inspectors asked rapid-fire series of
questions, such as: Are you married or
single? What is your occupation? How
much money do you have? Have you
ever been convicted of a crime?
The interrogation was over in a matter
of minutes after which an immigrant
was either permitted to enter the
United States or detained for a legal
hearing.
Manifest Sheets:
In 1893, the United States required
steamship companies to record in
manifests the vital statistics of all
passengers.
The manifest sheets listed the names of
the passengers and their answers to a
series of questions regarding
nationality, marital status,
destination, occupation and other
personal information.
When a ship arrived in New York, the
manifests were turned over to Ellis
Island Inspectors and used as a basis
for cross-examining each immigrant.
LEGAL INSPECTION
Political Language: Cartoons