19th+Century+Perspective

19th Century Perspective

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/immigration-statistics.htm ^19th century immigration statistics. ( In case you didn't get that from the link )



__**Naturalization Legislation of the 19th Century**__

The only major piece of legislation in regards to naturalization in the 1800s was passed on April 14, 1802. This piece of legislation directed the clerk of the court to record the entry of all aliens into the United States. Information that was to be collected by the clerk included the immigrant applicant's name, birthplace, age, and country of origin, and their intended settling place in the U.S. He also granted each immigrant a certificate that could be shown to the court as evidence of time of arrival in the United States. With this act began the first official in-depth record taking involving foreign nationals.

__**German Immigration in the 19th Century**__  ·  German-Americans represent the largest group of immigrants arriving in the United States in all but three of the years between 1854 and 1894.  ·  Before the end of the century more than 5 million Germans had arrived and in the twentieth century another 2 million came. Sparse and inadequate harvests, high rents and prices, and the corruptive and pollutant effects of the industrial revolution led to widespread poverty and suffering in Germany, lwhich led in turn to widespread immigration. The first to immigrate, after determining that the conditions in America were greater and fairer than those in Germany, wrote back to their family and friends encouraging them to follow, thus perpetuating immigration. Another cause of immigration from Germany was a book, published in 1829 by Gottfried Duden. His book, __Report of a Journey to the Western States of North America__, provided an extremely appealing account of German immigrant life in America. The book described bountiful harvests, American social and intellectual freedom, and a democratic government of the people. Thousands of Germans were drawn to America as a result of reading this book. Political and governmental turmoil in Germany persuaded many more to leave. One German immigrant, after settling and prospering as an innkeeper in Wisconsin, had this to say on immigration, ""I would prefer the civilized, cultured, Germany to America if it were still in its former orderly condition, but as it has turned out recently, and with the threatening prospect for the future of religion and politics, I prefer America. Here I can live a more quiet, and undisturbed life."

The 1801 England census shows that 10,501,000 people lived in England at the time, which was almost twice as many people as there was food. Henceforth, scientifically enhanced farming increased the general output however; it also increased the number of the unemployed. Machines were doing most of the labor and extra workers were not necessary, and to keep an income, many people emigrated to different countries, such as Australia, Canada , and the United States. Many people who emigrated to the US from Great Britain kept to their original career. There were many British farmers in America indicated by a census taken in 1890 showing that 90,000 US farmers and over 100,000 farm laborers were from England. There were also businessmen, inventors, shopkeepers, factory workers, miners, and many unemployeed searching for a new life in the New World. Trade unions in England assisted in paying for British citizens to emigrate to the US, believeing that reducing the number of workers would allow them to increase the wages of those still remaining. The Iron Founder' Union paid for over 800 men to emigrate to the states. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAEengland.htm
 * __British Immigration in the 19th Century__**

IRISH IMMIGRATION...

At the beginning of the 19th century the dominant industry of Ireland was agriculture. Large areas of this land was under the control of landowners living in England. Much of this land was rented to small farmers who, because of a lack of capital, farmed with antiquated implements and used backward methods.

The average wage for farm labourers in Ireland was eight pence a day. This was only a fifth of what could be obtained in the United States and those without land began to seriously consider emigrating to the New World.

In 1816 around 6,000 Irish people sailed for America. Within two years this figure had doubled. Early arrivals were recruited to build canals. In 1818 over 3,000 Irish labourers were employed on the Erie Canal. By 1826 around 5,000 were working on four separate canal projects. One journalist commented: "There are several kinds of power working at the fabric of the republic - water-power, steam-power and Irish-power. The last works hardest of all."

In October 1845 a serious blight began among the Irish potatoes, ruining about three-quarters of the country's crop. This was a disaster as over four million people in Ireland depended on the potato as their chief food. The blight returned in 18 46 and over the next year an estimated 350,000 people died of starvation and an outbreak of [|typhus] that ravaged a weaken population. Despite good potato crops over the next four years, people continued to die and in 1851 the Census Commissioners estimated that nearly a million people had died during the [|Irish Famine]. The British administration and absentee landlords were blamed for this catastrophe by the Irish people.

The [|Irish Famine] stimulated a desire to emigrate. The figures for this period show a dramatic increase in Irish people arriving in the United States: 92,484 in 1846, 196,224 in 1847, 173,744 in 1848, 204,771 in 1849, and 206,041 in 1850. By the end of 1854 nearly two million people - about a quarter of the population - had emigrated to the United States in ten years.


 * __ A census carried out in 1850 revealed that there were 961,719 people in the United States that had been born in Ireland __**. At this time they mainly lived in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Illinois, Ohio and New Jersey. The Irish Emigrant Society tried to persuade immigrants to move to the interior but the vast majority were poverty-stricken and had no money for transport or to buy land. They therefore tended to settle close to the port where they disembarked.