How Did Immigration Affect America

There is a popular misconception that, between the time of Columbus and the late 1800s, when the mass immigration began, there were no Italians in America. In point of fact, Italians were coming to these shores hundreds of years before the immigration depot at Ellis Island was built. The very name America is attributed to Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, whose voyages to Brazil and the West Indies established the existence of a second super continent, the New World. As early as 1507, European mapmakers were beginning to call the continent America, the feminine derivation of Americus, Latin for Amerigo. In 1610, Italian vignerons, or winegrowers, were sailing to America with Captain John Smith. One of the American South’s oldest and most
The expansion of output was the result of greater mechanization, improvements in transportation, more scientific forms of production and a large increase in available acreage. These brought an imbalance of supply and demand, driving prices downward. It was no longer necessary to rely on a large number of uneducated and unskilled hands in agriculture. Between 1890 and 1930, four major migratory movements altered the location and the color of the population of the United States. By 1890, with the native population forced onto reservations, Americans had settled as far west as California. The rapid agricultural and industrial growth following the Civil War created an increased demand for labor. This was accompanied by the movement of Americans out of farms and small towns, which spurred the northward movement of blacks and whites from the rural South. But the primary source of new labor was from overseas: European and Asiatic immigrants. The result was the over-crowding of America’s largest
By 1912, 40 percent of New York’s population was foreign born; Boston’s was 36 percent. Ellis Island, alternately known as “the golden door” and “the isle of tears,” became the gateway to the United States. As the Statue of Liberty welcomed the “tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” the American dream either began or died at Ellis Island. Between 1905 and 1907, at the peak of one of the greatest mass movements in history, more than three million people from forty different countries crossed the Atlantic. They came to America seeking freedom from famine, poverty and persecution. They were the homesteaders, the railroaders and the factory workers. Each wave of immigrants struggled to gain a foothold in the land of freedom and be called “true Americans.” They and their children became the story of the United States. On April 17, 1907, the most active day in Ellis Island history, 11,745 aliens were