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1607-1820 The people who first built up the United States were the Colonists between the years 16O7 to 1776. They came from the Northern, Western and Central Europe - especially from Spain, France and Britain.
Since 1800 the immigrants were called the "Old" immigrants because the immigrants eight decades later were named the "New" immigrants. The "Old" immigrants were also of Germanic descent. After 1619 Africans were brought as slaves to the United States until 1808. Europe's population doubled in the century after 1750, and the Industrial Revolution caused widespread unemployment for craftsmen and gave only periodic work to others.
1820-1840 An ever increasing amount of people left Europe to get a new chance in the new land America. These pie-charts show that 80% of all immigrants from 1820-1840 came from Europe, mainly from Ireland, Germany and Britain. About 14% immigrated from Asia and around 6% from the Western Hemisphere. The rapidly expanding country looked now like the first picture on your sheet. The black part shows the thirteen original states of the United States. The grey part shows the new states by 1820. The big part on top shows the United States territories, land that is owned by the federal United States government, but not divided into states. The rest is owned by Spain and Britain. While the government was acquiring neighbouring land from colonial powers, most of the Indians were pushed west of the Mississippi.
1840-1860 In 1843 the first iron-hulled steamship, which was called the Great Britain crossed the Atlantic and most of the immigration was from Northern and Western Europe to the Northern United States. The Irish came to the cities as a result of the potato famine of 1845 to 1849. They were followed by Germans and Scandinavians who wanted the farmlands of the Midwest.
The immigrants in this period were mostly Europeans accounting for 94% of all immigration.
1860-1880 Between 1860 and 1880 nearly 200,000 Chinese labourers came to the West, largely to build the railroads. The Central and Union Pacific linked the two coasts in 1869. During this period 85% immigrated from Europe especially from Germany and 15% from the Western Hemisphere and Asia.
1880-1900 Since 1880 the immigrants were called the "New" immigrants because most of them were now coming from Southern and Eastern Europe. Especially Italians, Poles and Czechs, as well as Jews from throughout Europe, came in large numbers. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first federal attempt to limit immigration by nationality. The government banned the Chinese people to come to America.
Ellis Island was established as the primary immigrant processing centre in New York. The next picture on your sheet shows the concentration of the foreign born population in the United States. In this period the most immigrants still came from Germany, Britain, Ireland but now many Italians, Austria-Hungarians and Russians arrived in America with a few from the Western Hemisphere and from Asia.
1900-1920 The years between 1900 and 1920 were called the peak years, because in the first 10 years 8.8 million people immigrated to the United States. The dominated immigrants in that period were Italians. The Immigration Act of 1917 excluded all Asians except people from the Philippines. The Act also required literacy.
1920-1940 The National Origins Act of 1924 established quotas for each country outside the Western Hemisphere. It was particularly prejudiced against Eastern and Southern Europeans because they were the main culture in the United States. Wall Street's crash and the Great Depression brought immigration down to the lowest level in 100 years. Between 1920 and 1930 the most immigrants came from Canada, Germany, Italy and Mexico. This period marked the start of the Mexican influx.
1940-1960 From the turn of the century most immigrants and their children became Americanised in the year 1940 and the foreign born population decreased. In 1942 Japanese Americans were detained in relocation centres. In 1948 the United States government began to admit war refugees, followed by victims of the Korean conflict and the Hungarian revolt. In 1952 the McCarran-Walter Act allowed small numbers of Asians to immigrate again. Most immigrants in this period came again from Germany, Canada, Mexico and Britain.
From 1953 till 1955 2.2 million Mexicans were forced to leave the United States in Operation Wetback. The Mexicans had to swim back across a river. They were wet when they got back. That's how the operation got the name Wetback.
1960-1980 In 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law an immigration act that modified the McCarran-Walter Act, replacing the nationality-based system with hemispheric ceilings. Immigration from India, Korea, the Philippines and other Asian nations soared. President Johnson designated Ellis Island a national monument. The Refugee Act of 1980 provided for the admission of refugees of special humanitarian concern to the United States. Most immigrants between 1960 and 1980 were Mexicans and people from the West-Indies.
1980-1990 Between 1980 and 1990 immigration from Asia and Latin America increased. Illegal immigration also rose from a number of countries. In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act gave many illegal aliens a chance to become legal residents. Approximately 1.7 million illegal aliens wanted legal status by May 1989. The dominating immigrants in that period were Mexicans and Filipinos.
The following diagrams on your paper show that America's current population is made up of immigrants or their children from every country in the world and as you can see, most immigrants to the United States were Germans.
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