Welcome to Homework Help. Whether you're studying for the AP U.S. History exam or any other exam that your teacher is inflicting upon you, we've got you covered. Today, we will be discussing immigration during the first half of the 1800s, as well as American perspectives on those immigrants.
Immigration was just as controversial in the 1800s as it is today. Following the War of 1812, Europeans began immigrating to the United States in increasing numbers. For most of the 1800s, there were few restrictions on immigration and rules of citizenship were lenient, requiring only five years of residency and a charge to learn English and adopt American customs. The federal government did not keep track of immigrant numbers until 1819, but when they did, they counted just over 140,000 newcomers during the entire decade of the 1820s and less than 600,000 during the decade of the 1830s. This changed dramatically after 1840. The Great Potato Famine in Ireland caused more than half of Ireland's population to immigrate to the United States between 1845 and 1852. At the same time, Central Europe was also hit by declining wheat and rye harvests, which contributed to strong political tensions under their oppressive governments and by political revolutions in 1848. So, along with the Irish, nearly a million Germans also fled their homelands and immigrated to the United States during the 1850s.
Over 10 years, the Irish and Germans added nearly 3 million newcomers to America, which was almost three times more than all the immigrants combined during the 40 years prior. While both German and Irish alike immigrated to America, their experiences were vastly different. The Irish were mostly poor with few skills.
so they tended to live in cities near the ports where they landed such as New York and Boston. Many Irish took on manual labor jobs to help build canals and urban construction projects along the northeastern seaboard. By contrast, Germans left for political reasons and generally had more money and skills as they immigrated to America. Most settled in Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, and Illinois.
By the 1850s, more than 25% of the population in these northern states was foreign-born. Rather than taking on difficult manual laborer jobs as the Irish did, Germans became farmers and miners throughout the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys, and skilled artisans including brewers, clockmakers, stained-glass artisans, and other craftsmen settled cities like Milwaukee, St. Louis, Chicago, Baltimore, and Cincinnati. As more and more immigrants spilled into America, there developed an anti-immigrant sentiment known as nativism among some Americans.
Nativism was influenced by a few things. The dominant religion throughout America was Protestantism, and the influx of Roman Catholics, many of them Irish, fueled the rise of anti-Catholic feelings among some Protestants. This played an important role in nativism and stirred up anti-immigrant feelings in general. Moreover, Nativists associated the Irish and German immigrants with drinking alcohol, illiteracy, and urban problems including crime.
The most significant impact of nativist ideology was its impact on the political parties at the time. Anti-Catholic sentiment attracted some to the American Party, also known as the Know-Nothing Party, because members claimed to know nothing except American values. One of the major party platforms was anti-immigration.
The rise of the Know Nothing Party helped Northern Republicans break the Democrat voter base, which had previously attracted urban immigrants with their Jacksonian-style democracy aimed at the common man. Though they were unsuccessful, nativists began seeking more stringent definitions of citizenship, usually calling for longer periods of residency, up to 15 years, and restrictions on holding public office. Nativism and anti-Catholicism became a major item in national and local politics in the 1850s, which influenced increasing calls to limit immigration following the Civil War.
It is important to note that this was not the dominant view for most Americans. The rates of immigration continued to increase throughout the 1850s, and then doubled again after the Civil War. From the perspective of the immigrants, the United States remained the land of opportunity. We hope that you enjoyed this episode.
Make sure to check back next week for more homework help.