Transcript The Great Migration

The Great Migration
By,
Tom, Mack, Ricardo, Trudy, Matt, and Caitlyn
• 19th century- Birthrates and death rates declined, which
was caused by the medical revolution and increased
standards of living
• From 1800-1900 the population more than doubled
• Majority of immigrants went to North and South
America, New Zealand, Australia, and Siberia
• Areas of European settlement
• By 1914, Europeans were 38% of the total population
• Increase in population was the primary drive behind
Western expansion
• Typical pattern was for emigration to increase 20 years
after a population boom
Pressure of Population
• The number of men and women who left Europe
increased rapidly before WWI
• Growing number of Europeans was the driving force for
the emigration
• Not enough land
• Hunger
• Overpopulation
• Imperialism was a driving force behind Western
Expansion
• Imperialism created more colonies due to political
ambitions
• More colonies Many immigrants migrated to colonies
• Preference given to British Immigrants in the British
Empire (India, South Africa, etc.)
The Great Migration
and Imperialism
• Pressure of population growth gave people reason to find
a less populated place
• Less births however drastically lower death rates
• Nationally drive to occupy and expand their colonial
empires
• Especially Britain, nations drove to occupy their holdings
and explored regions
• Gain benefits through agricultural expansion
• Blacks in America, Italians in Argentina, Indians in India
• Agriculture: huge expansion tool!
Why the Great Migration
Happened
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Argentina
Brazil
Australia, New Zealand
Canada
Asiatic Russia
United States
Where They Went
• Types of Migrants
• Younger generation, usually not married
• Ordinary peasants or traditional worker
• Old ways of life threatened
• Search for more beneficial lands
• Ex. German peasants
• Held down by Friedrich List’s “dwarf economy”
• Tiny landholdings and declining craft industries
European Migrants
• The general European migrants wanted to keep or
improve their social status
• Above poverty, but below “living it up”
• People would migrate in large family chains
• The European migrant was more of the migrant rather
than immigrant
• Tended to never settle down in new lands
• Work hard for benefits, then return home
• Ex. “swallows:” Italian farmers migrate back and forth between
Italy and Argentina for harvest seasons
• hard life yet very profitable
• Did not always migrate to new continents
• More common to easily move to nearby European countries
• Depending on the nationality, different Europeans became
either migrants or immigrants
• Balkans had more land and job offerings, more likely for
people to return
• Ireland had little available land, most immigrated away from
the country
• Generally European migration depended on agriculture
• How to get more land cheaper and produce more crops for
more money
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China, Japan, India, Philippines
Response to rural hardship
3 million Asians moved abroad by 1920
Plantations or gold mines in the New World, southern
Asia, Africa, and Australia
•
- Replaced or supplemented blacks after the
suppression of the slave trade
• Chinese laborers recruited in Cuba as field hands (1840s)
Asian Immigrants
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Fled gold mines and plantations to ASAP to find better
trade and towns
Great white walls
- discriminatory laws designed to stop Asian
immigration in America and Australia (1880s)
“whites only”
- western dominance
- Australian, Canadian, and U.S. citizens had higher
average incomes than people in Great Britain by 1913
Asian Immigrants (cont.)
• Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
• A 10 year act that suspended Chinese worker immigration
to the US that actually lasted till 1943
• Breeding ground for discrimination again Chinese
• Goal: to stop Chinese immigration so that men who were
not new immigrants could find work too
• The Chinese took jobs with very low pay and treatment
Restrictions on
Immigration
• Emergency Quota Act
• Passed in 1921 and was a “turning point” in American
immigration
• Put a numerical limit on immigration numbers and used a
quota system to do that
• Changed restriction to 3% of the population from that same
nation per the 1910 census
• Slowed immigration of Eastern and Southern Europe
• Immmigration Act of 1924
• “revised” edition of the Emergency Quota Act
• Limited the number from 3% down to 2% per the 1890
census
• Aimed towards limiting Southern and Eastern Europeans as
well as Middle Easters, East Asians, and Asian Indians
• Goal: to keep the “ideal of American homogenity”
• Removed under the Immigration and Nationality Act of
1965
There are tens of thousands of poems
on these walls
They are all cries of suffering
and sadness
The day I am rid of this prison and
become successful
I must remember that this chapter
once existed
I must be frugal in my daily
needs
Needless extravagance usually
leads to ruin
All my compatriots should
remember China
Once you have made some small gains,
you should return
home early
Written by one from Heungshan (An anonymous Chinese
immigrant in the 1800s)
“Poem from Angel Island”
• "American Immigration Past and Present." SCORE
History/Social Science. Web. 05 Mar. 2012.
<http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/activity/immigration/>.
• "Digital History." Digital History. Web. 05 Mar. 2012.
<http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm
?HHID=419>.
• "Home." Our Documents -. Web. 05 Mar. 2012.
<http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true>.
• "US Immigration History." Rapid Immigration. Web. 05 Mar.
2012.
<http://www.rapidimmigration.com/1_eng_immigration_histor
y.html>.
Bibliography