Analysis Of Strangers In The Land

Strangers in the Land, written by John Higham, is a book about the history of nativism and immigration policy. This book roughly takes place through the years of 1865-1920. World War I happened during this time and that had a significant effect on American’s views on immigration. This was a time of economic crisis and chaos in America. The main goal of Strangers in the Land is to give evidence that nativism spreads throughout all of the United States history and is exasperated by crisis that happens in our own country. He wants us to see that America went through a big change of mind about immigration over the years. Another one of his objectives is to show people through his book that this is one of the most important time periods in the

In the 1860’s, when the book begins, America is taking in a great deal of immigrants. America did not realize at this time that it was a natural and necessary course that the country was having to go through. The dominant group did not understand why this was having to happen in America because they thought that immigrant would cause a problem in the country. During the 1870’s and 1880’s, there was no feeling of threat posed by the immigrants on Americans that would make them feel like there was going to be a problem in the nation at all. The labor unions had originally allowed only the immigration of contract laborers, but by 1896 the American Federation of Labor had followed Gompers in his aggression to immigration, and American workers continued to stand against free immigration until the restriction movement finally succeeded. Even though Progressives and Socialists had a strong democratic placement, they changed their minds and began to support immigration because they did not want their jobs or lives to be interrupted by excessive immigration. In the early 1900’s, the South and the West favored free immigration because they were curious to increase their population. The South and the West voted against the literacy test whose purpose

Immigration and labor unions are one of the biggest parts of United States history in my opinion. The abolishing of slavery led to immigration and freedom in America for foreigners and equality would shortly follow. Strangers in the Land helps me realize the struggle that immigrants and foreigners had to go through to become a citizen of the United States. They had to fight hard to earn their freedom and rights as a citizen. Immigrants and foreigners have a different experience in America than someone who is American and born in the United States. I think this book was a great eye opener to the struggle immigrants had to go through. It has made me earn a whole new respect for them and I look at them differently now, but in a good way. I would use this book as a reference to someone who is still not sure about having immigrants and foreigners in the United