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World War I impact on the United States
WW 1 impact on american society
World War I impact on the United States
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Throughout the twentieth century the United States did not maintain an open and equal policy of immigration and citizenship. Additionally, immigrants generally did not integrate easily into American Society. Several instances of discriminatory ideology and action can atest to this conclusion. With fear of internal subversion as a basis for government action during World War 1, many immigrants found themselves in the crosshairs even after the war. Afterwards, Urban domination over the nation's political and cultural life and sharply rising economic disparity drove rural Americans in vile, reactionary directions. When the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, almost a third of Americans were either first or second-generation …show more content…
After the war, large scale immigration resumed (800000 immigrants arrived in 1921) at a time when factory labors were no longer needed (Roark 606). Positions were filled by returning veterans, as well as the migrating african and mexican minorities. Union leaders feared that immigrants would undercut their efforts to organize american workers. Additionally, rural America's protestants were disturbed that most of the immigrants were Catholic or Jewish. So in 1921, congress responded by severely restricting immigration (Roark 606). The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants to no more than 161,000 a year, and also established a limit from each European nation. This act clearly revealed the racist undertone of nativist ideology. Since America in the eyes of some became the “garbage can and the dumping ground of the world” , quotas were manipulated to ensure entry only to “good” immigrants from western Europe. This act virtually reversed the trend of immigration from southern and eastern europe, which use to account for 75 percent of immigration (class notes). This push for “good” immigrants and the exclusion of other immigrants is a racist ideology held even by thirtieth president of the united states “There are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside for any sentimental reason. Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend. The Nordics propagate themselves successfully. With other races, the outcome shows deterioration on both sides” (Whose Country Is This). This aversion to immigration on the basis that the immigrants dilute America is one that resonated with many Americans “There can be nothing so dangerous as for us to allow the undesirable foreign element to poison our civilization and thereby threaten the safety of the institutions that our forefathers have established for us” (Debating
During the 1900’s, it was common for people to immigrate to America. They saw it as a land of freedom and opportunity. Some thought that this was a great way for the US’ economy to boom, but some thought otherwise. With the shortage of jobs, many believed that the immigrants were stealing their precious jobs. Because of the competition over jobs, immigrants became the new public enemy to many.
These immigrants were coined the “new immigrants” and were composed of 23.5 million people, mainly from Southern, Central and Eastern Europe with other immigrants from Japan (LeMay 14-15). Many Jewish people immigrated from the Ukraine and Poland due to political unrest in Russia (Vigdor 36). From the other side of Europe “the largest single country-of-origin group of the early twentieth century, Italians, constituted the largest cohort of “job-seeking” migrants” (Vigdor 36). With the nativist mindset from the previous period many felt that these new immigrants were inferior and therefore unable to assimilate into society, leading to an intense xenophobic mindset (LeMay 21). Other immigrant groups fell into cultural roles such as Japanese immigrants becoming fruit and vegetable farmers and Mexican immigrants working in factories (Gerber 84). Immigrants as an entire group sent home millions of dollars from their work in the United States (Gerber 79). However, as a lot of the available land from the early 1800’s was taken, many more workers became birds of passage as opposed to permanent immigrants (Gerber 82). This period began with the start of some restrictions, as called for the end of the Open-Door Cycle (LeMay 6). The Chinese Exclusion Act was created as a response to the Open Door Cycle in hopes of controlling increasing numbers of Chinese immigrants looking for land
The United States had an open door policy on immigration from the nations beginning until 1921. During that time, between 1790 and 1920, the population grew by 102 million. That’s about one million new immigrants each year for 130 years. Most of these immigrants were from European countries. In 1921 Congress passed the Quota Act which put a cap of 360,000 new immigrants per year. Congress did this because the public was concerned about the number of new immigrants and how it would affect the country. This act also favored immigrants from England, Germany, France, and Scandinavia over those from Asia, Africa, and southern Europe.
In the eyes of the early American colonists and the founders of the Constitution, the United States was to represent the ideals of acceptance and tolerance to those of all walks of life. When the immigration rush began in the mid-1800's, America proved to be everything but that. The millions of immigrants would soon realize the meaning of hardship and rejection as newcomers, as they attempted to assimilate into American culture. For countless immigrants, the struggle to arrive in America was rivaled only by the struggle to gain acceptance among the existing American population.
In the early 1920's, many generational Americans had moderately racist views on the "new immigrants," those being predominantly from Southern and Eastern Europe. Americans showed hatred for different races, incompatibility with religion, fear of race mixing, and fear of a revolution from other races. At the time, people believed the Nordic race was supreme.
Immediately following the turn of the century, immigration into the United States began to increase, which led to the creation of many laws restricting the individuals who could be permitted into the country. “The Immigration Act of 1917 was a law passed by Congress on February 5, 1917 that restricted the immigration of 'undesirables’ and required eight-dollar entrance fee and a literacy test for those under the age of sixteen” (Tucker 1). This act created limitations on who would be permitted to enter the United States, making it more difficult for individuals to come start new lives. “Those who were uneducated, poor, or disabled were discriminated against, for the sake of keeping America “pure”. The Immigration Act of 1917 also excluded immigrants from many Asian countries (the “Asiatic Barred Zone”), and was followed by the Immigration Act of 1924, which added Japan to the zone, and limited the number of immigrants permitted in a given year to 2% of the number of residents from that same country residing in the United States” (“Milestones: 1921-1936” 2; Marcus 1). Those within the Asiatic Barred Zone were not permitted to immigrate into the United States, while those in other countries faced quota limitations that restricted the number of persons who could immigrate each year. This two percent quota caused a great decrease in ...
The political machine was supported by continuing immigration from 1800 to 1920, when more than eighteen million European immigrants flooded into the Untied States in search of economic opportunity and political and religious freedom. At first they came from Northern and Central Europe and then largely from Eastern and Southern Europe. (New Colossus , Pg. 1) New York alone reported that by June 30, 1899 immigrant arrivals from the Russian Empire were around 90,787. Arrivals, from the same year, from all countries of persons of German race were 29,682 and Hebrew arrivals were 60,764. (Changing the Character of Immigration, Pg. 1) Unfortunately, with such a large influx in population during a short amount of time and other variables such as immigrants being unable to speak English, inadequate affordable urban housing, and insufficient jobs a large amount of immigrants ended up in growing slums without the feeling of security or knowledge of how to find help, if there was any, from an unrepresentative government. These factors transformed incoming immigrants into easy prey for patronage from the political machine and sustained it by giving their votes. In the 1930’s mass immigration had stopped and representative government had begun, leading to a decline in patronage needed by then integrated immigrants and a decline in votes for the machine.
During the late 1500’s to the 1700’s, America had no written policy on immigration. Settlers came from around the globe with high hopes of riches and prosperity in the new land. It wasn’t until 1790 did the U.S. attempt to unify the States on who could become a U.S. citizen. Under the Naturalization Act, “free white persons” of “good moral character” could become citizens after two years of residence in the country. Of course this law had no implications on who could actually become a U.S. citizen. So the U.S. decided to start monitoring who was coming into America by the use of the Steerage Act of 1819. It was designed to continually report all immigration by the use of passenger manifests. These manifests were to be turned into the local Collector of Customs, then the Secretary of the State and finally reported to Congress. By 1875 the U.S. had finally implemented exclusion laws and centralized a control for immigration. These laws limited specific people the U.S. deemed “Undesirable”. This mainly consisted of criminals, prostitutes and Chinese contract laborers. This lasted until 1891 when the United States created a comprehensive national immigration law called the Immigration Act. This law created a Bureau of Immigration under the Treasury Department, allowed for deportation of illegal aliens and added polygamists and contagious diseases to the list of people who could not enter (cite). Over the next 100 years, the immigration policy became less biased of ethnicity and instead focused more on how many were entering the U.S. per year.
Fear is a great motivator in man. In the 1920s, immigrants were coming over to the United States in mass quantities. Most of these immigrants were from Southern or Eastern Europe, parts of Asia and Mexico. Because these groups differed in culture, race, and religion from the majority of White Americans, as the immigrant population increased, so did hostility and displeasure towards them. Italians made up 11.8%, or 550,460 immigrants between the years of 1920 and 1930 (Historical Statistics, 456). These people received an extraordinary amount of dislike as they differed from white America in so many ways. When people began immigrating to America at the rate of five thousand people a day after World War I, people started taking their opinions into the political arena as well as the social one. 1921 saw the first legislation passed in Congress that enacted immigration quotas. The first quota reduced the number of immigrants to 3% of their total population in the country based in the 1910 census. Xenophobia and hatred towards immigrants continued to increase in the following years, cumulating in the National Origins Act of 1924, or as it is commonly know, the Johnson Act. This act further restricted immigration to 2% of their United States population bases on the census of 1890. These acts both passed with an overwhelming majority voting for them. During this time, many social movements were taking place in America, such as the labor movement, the temperance movement, and the reactionary movements of many white protestant groups, and all were looking for public support. Often, these groups would try to unify people around a central idea in order to gain this backing...
Historical Background: Colonial America and The United States that followed were created by repeated waves of immigration. Those immigrants came from every part of the globe, but particularly from England, France, Germany, and Western Europe. The descendants of this first wave of immigrants would view later immigrants from Italy, Poland, and Russia with a great deal of suspicion and uncertainty. This is not surprising as our country’s uncertainty about immigrants is reflected in our policies. For instance, there were no numerical restrictions or central regulation on immigration until one hundred years after our nation’s founding. When they were finally introduced they were created with bias against would be immigrants from certain countries. Among the first on that list were Chinese laborers followed by immigrants from the Asian Pacific (Ewing, 2012). These restrictions were first adopted in 1921, and were in favor of European immigrants. They would later be followed by national quotas that placed restrictions on immigrants based on existing proportions of the population. A shortage in laborers brought on by World War II would result in lifting those restrictions. This eventually led to a growth in immigration and a change in the origin of those arriving from Europe to Latin America and Asia. As the number immigrants from these countries began to grow, so did the concern about the number of them who were illegal (Ewing, 2012). Resulting policies issued to address those concerns would arguably lead to a resurgence of the problem that they were intended to correct.
With the country's vast natural resources, abundance of land, and endless opportunities, there seemed to be more than enough room for everyone. The gates were open to any that wished to enter. However, as the years progressed, America became less like a frontier and began to settle down. Not long after the United States found a relatively stable economy and government, the issue of restricting immigration arose. Many American citizens, although immigrants themselves, began to see newcomers as a problem. Fear for the stability of the economy, of the spreading of diseases, and of foreign culture disrupting American ideals were among some of the concerns. Prejudices also developed as a result of legal citizens seeing themselves as better than the average immigrant. Fortunately, these fears did not develop into anything more substantial than minor regulations until the beginning of the twentieth century. Strict laws were soon put into effect, some more severe than others, in an attempt to stop or at least slow the number of immigrants coming to America. Even today, refugees and immigrants are put through tremendous hassles, some never making it past the legal barriers. There is a serious problem with these laws, however. From the...
The United States of America is the best place for immigration. The history proved that the United States was the dream land, the place of chances. That started when Europeans escaped form their countries because there were no jobs and no safe places to live. America became the best choice for people who were looking for political asylum, jobs, or freedom, but after a few generations something changed the Americans look to immigrants as strangers and they forgot where they are from because America is multicultural place and immigration movement should be understandable, but this is not the case. Governments should develop good laws for immigrants by giving rights to immigrants to stay in America, to protect them, and to allow people who deserve to come to America.
In response to the World War I for the following years from the flow of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. Congress of United States passed a law to limit immigrations, which named Immigration Act of 1924 or the Johnson-Reed Act. The Immigration Act of 1924 was an Act use to limit the big number of immigration entry to the United States. The Immigration Act of 1924 only provided two percent immigration visas from 1980s national census. Asians were not allowed to immigrate to the United States.
1921 560,971 immigrants came to our borders and passed through Ellis Island. In the same year the U.S. Congress passed the first Immigration Quota Law. The total number of immigrants that were allowed entry was set at nearly 358,000. The Immigration Act of 1924 further restricted immigration, and reduced the annual quota to approximately 164,000. This marked the end of mass immigration to America. The Immigration Act also provided for the examination and qualification of immigrants at U.S. consulates overseas.” (1)
Nativism or anti-immigrant sentiment grew rapidly in the 1920’s. This is mainly because of the huge number of immigrants who were entering the United States at the time. The growing nativism was caused by a feeling amongst some people that immigrants were taking opportunities meant ...