Immigration in the Gilded Age: Change or Continuity?
Author(s): Roger Daniels
Source: OAH Magazine of History, Vol. 13, No. 4, The Gilded Age (Summer, 1999), pp. 21-25
Published by: Organization of American Historians
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Roger Daniels
Immigration
in
the
Gilded
or
Change
Continuity?
at the beginning
he United States Immigration Commission,
of itswell-known 1911 report, stigmatized the so-called "new
TI
Europe,
Italians,
largely
came
who
immigrants"?persons
and
Jews,
southern
from
follows:
Poles?as
the nineteenth
came
who
dominated
The
old
immigration
no
intention
take
rarily
is very
to America
of
labor in this country
the
greater
wages
being
paid
one
of
one
of
for
of
residence,
to tempo
Scandinavians.
joined
(1).
"new
immigrants,
To
(2).
corruptible
be
sure,
were
incompetent"
of American
easily
in
continuously
it is necessary
question,
and
a
their
and
origins,
changing
to look
To
pattern?
at the numbers
to examine
the
answer
that
of persons
involved
matrix
in which
sociocultural
immigrants
moved.
During
1901?11.7
the Gilded Age?defined here as the period from 1871 to
million persons are recorded as immigrating to the
United
States
(3). That
is considerably
more
immigrated to the British North American
States
in the
seventeenth,
eighteenth,
and
than
the number
that
colonies and the United
the
first
seven
decades
migration;
of
of
the
during
been
cent
of
all
by
and Chinese
percent,
in the
but
1890s
even
is that
Canadians,
immigrants.
did
the
accounted
"new"
incidence
above,
national
eighteenth
of
just barely
for
except
decades and were
southern
whose
Europe
1
Table
insignificant.
for
nation/region
the
three
immigrants represented 90 per
mostly
from
Quebec,
amajority.
outnumber
the
is rarely
What
up
"old,"
noticed
in
of foreign-born
percentage
immigrants?the
made
of the total. Only
for 1.7 percent
immigrants
European
they were
then
and
statistically
immigration
European
named
groups
eastern
from
had
presence
the
Gilded-Age decades (5).
Those 10.6 million European
6.7
immigration
changed during the Gilded Age?as it has changed during our entire
history and as it is changing today. Was Gilded-Age immigration
strikingly different from that which preceded it, or was it another
variation
The
century.
to come in the Gilded-Age
immigrants
by
previous
politically
the nature
All
continued
Africans,
industrial
The distinction had long been made by nativists and others. As
could
early as 1888 Lord Bryce in The American Commonwealth
that
of the new
years
seventeenth-century
shows
sneer
fourteen
century large numbers of Africans (4) and Germans came; in the
period between the 1820s and the Civil War, Germans and Catholic
Irish predominated, along with a smaller but still substantial number
apparently
their
changing
in coming
advantage
largely
of whom
proportion
of permanently
their only purpose
essentially
immigration
a considerable
individuals,
have
new
The
permanence.
was
movement
but fewer than the 12.9 million
century combined,
in the first
and ethnic composition of the immigrant population did change in
the Gilded Age, as it has changed throughout our history. Britons
eastern
and
Age:
the population?was remarkably constant throughout the Gilded Age
and the decades that frame it. The percentage of foreigners in the
country did not vary significantly in any of the censuses between 1860
and 1920, a period justly characterized as one of rapid change in
almost every other aspect of American
those
censuses
recorded
population,
while
the
14.0,
14.7,
13.6,
perceived
13.3,
that
the amount
the
foreign-born
censuses
and
of
life. Both the first and last of
14.7,
in between
respectively.
was
immigration
O AH Magazine
of History
as
13.2
report
Yet
percent
of
the
of
percentages
contemporaries
overwhelming.
These
Summer 1999
21
Daniels/Immigration
to describe
dichotomy
1
Table
tors
Immigration:
European
Major Sources, 187M900
Total
1890s
second
is shorthand
tractive
factors
nation.
718,182
436,871
548,043
243,016
1,946,112
Germany
Ireland
Britain
Scandinavia
Western
Europe
1,452,970
655,482
807,357
656,494
505,152
388,416
271,538
371,512
3,572,303
1,536,618
2,676,304
1,480,769
(economic
72.969
stria-Hungary
1,626,938
1,271,022
7,055,033
Russia
Europe
505,290
8 countries
Europe,
all
of Commerce,
of
part
that were
be
been
by historians
repeated
who
have
in
persisted
"floods,"
to be
a specialist
such
tends
language
as the ancestors
than
But
to stigmatize
of us
all
the
consists
some
with
a
2. Why
at home
tant
factor
where
22
did
most
advantage
tion
they
history
I suggest
that students
to organize
a fragment
of the
in which
course,
use what
information.
for discussion.
These
to make
Russian
Empires
of
southern
for many,
O AH Magazine
those
especially
Students
of
who
immigration
of History
they get here?
networks
Europe,
places
trans
gready
influ
and
cheaper
secure
transpor
transport
came
immigrants
of
development
with
Oceanic
of European
percent
the development
of networks
of part-time
States employed by the European
dramati
changed
late as 1856 more
to America
sail.
by
could
a combination
immigrant
ticket
in the United
agents
the trade. A
lines that dominated
in Detroit
to bring over a relative
who wanted
living
in the ethnic
and
go to a store or a saloon
community
purchase
would
from Europe, with
subjects
Germans,
of
the Austro
ticket
a Hamburg-Amerika
from
Line
agent
provide
while
Hamburg
rail
to Hamburg,
transportation
for a ship,
waiting
from New York toDetroit While
was
similar
to what
had
been
in
accommodations
trans-Atlantic
and
passage,
rail travel
the technology was new, the end result
going
on
at least
since
the Great
Migration
of Puritans to New England in the seventeenth century.
4* Where did they settle?
they leave?
military
did
railroads?and
calcula
forces.
Less than twenty years later (1873) more than 95 percent came on
steamships. The chief transport innovation in the Gilded Age was
or friend
predominated.
compulsory
a neat
thatwould be delivered to the relative/friend in Krakow. Such a ticket
Europe.
and
through
multiplied.
propelled
comparative
As
immigration.
The
in American
economic/
migrants
history,
perceived
was
the major
force,
persecu
propulsive
although
(including
lived.
and
Italians,
were
immigrants
3. How
Polish
questions,
if not
exclusive. Many
possible
fares?spread
95
not
factors, and it is not
most
cally in the years just before the Gilded Age. As
than
(7).
were
by both
to seaports
tation
hopes
realistic
11,746,190
I call
below.
reproduced
eastern
Scandinavians,
and
As with
social
toward
Irish,
Hungarian
tell only
did
shift
steady
of
rather
"other,"
are, can
immigrants come from?
immigrants came overwhelmingly
1. Where
Gilded-Age
British,
are
answers,
possible
have
use
the habitual
as the
immigration
as a way
paradigm"
of a set of questions
"immigrant
that
not
does
(6).
In my American
story.
immigrant
one emphasis
is group comparison,
paradigm
One
immigrants
as they
important
"streams."
to understand
in semiotics
numbers,
and
"torrents,"
hopes,
always
mutually
Gilded-Age
cheaper
factors
10,008,741
10,562,761
(Washington,
enced
immi
of
the factors
sure,
The
using what I call hydraulic metaphors to describe the immigration
process. Immigrants are described as coming to the United States
in "waves,"
their
not
portation
have
perceptions
attrac
pull
1:106-07.
1975),
DC:GovernmentPrintingOffice,
of the UnitedSfafes
HistoricalStatistics
with
part
experiences,
were
tion
Source: U.S. Department
authori
the
were
factors
grants'
161,496
All countries
the
tions of the destination. While
2,953,708
countries
per
dissatisfaction
connotes
Pull
push
To
Europe,
desti
general
war,
with
ties, or other
757,856
96,720
1,846,610
the
dislocation,
at
the
be
may
trouble
crises,
1,019,395
1,014,961
651,893
213,282
51,806
926,116
12.970
180,982
{Poland
Southern/eastern
592,707
353,719
307,309
55,759
39,284
Italy
the
for
secution) or personal (familial
division of land or other family
life).
Au
while
about
Push
to
applies
at home
conditions
1880s
1870s
Ration/region
to emi
term
first
The
grate.
the fac
persons
impelling
service)
was
were
a minority
often
use
Summer 1999
an
While
varied,
settlement
an
increasing
patterns
percentage
of
Gilded-Age
in urban
settled
impor
the census began listing the foreign-born
group
have
been
than
the
a "push-pull"
more
population
likely
to live
at
large.
in cities?and
Regionally,
groups
immigrant
centers.
Ever
since
separately in 1850, they
especially
immigrants
in large
cities?
favored
the
Daniels/Immigration
and
northeastern
north
central
states?and
the western
1890,
by
shunning the South (8). Ethnic groups had their own
Irish
and Canadians favored New England, Italians and
patterns:
states?while
the middle
Russians
and
states,
Adantic
Germans
states,
the west
Scandinavians
north
east north
the
states
central
the Gilded
(9).
Age
lowest
These
"we who
phrase,
ments
built
time
not
just
industrialism,
the
men
who
children were much more
were
who
those
employ
Carl
who
the
extol
of workers,
role
that
worked.
It
women
Immigrant
and
likely to be in the labor force than those
native-born.
still
with
a minority,
attracted
resources.
significant
Even
most
often
western
free arable
with
who
those
came
land, which
was rapidly disappearing, the costs of establishing a farm were far
immigrants. Even
beyond the means of all but a few Gilded-Age
from
had
been
that
groups
immigrants
predominantly agricultural in
the decades
around
industrial
such
mid-century,
the
toward
employment
close
6. How did they live?
Most Gilded-Age
immigrants,
ethnic
There
could
they
familiar
town
in both
enclaves
speak
and
rituals,
country
own
recreate
generally
of
the
found
whenever
they
worship
languages,
a version
Jews.
One
of the great
clashes
To
be
sure,
Protestant
many
immigrants
seen
as one
of
"foreigners"
of
the
foregoing
Each
versus
describe
as Butte,
even
But,
as
as well
Montana,
cities.
without
in New
the
York,
rigidity
names
somewhat
rather
different
than
Americans
seems
policy
shows
to
wanted
grossly
the
an entirely
lessen
era?so
colonial
to create
familiar
could.
they
such
other
of
remarked
seventeenth-century
like
old
immigrants:
English
so
had
in the
a
that
serious
before
developed
Exclusion Act was the hinge on which
The Chinese
turned.
policy
a few
Within
with
a
pay
once
America's
years
was
category
certain physical and mental
and
polygamists.
None
out.
Chinese
more
the creation
(The
of
The
these
in, not
of the
immigration
out.
station
labor
include
unre
criminal
not
Mormons,
comprised
other
persons
than
still to
policy was
was
symbolized
by
This
on Ellis
was
persons
those with
kept many
them
keep
to
of government
purpose
general
and
contract
enter,
widened
target
immigration
free
in a number of ways.
disabilities,
latter
provisions
people
to
fee
small
the barred
and
Muslims.)
bring
to
had
Immigrants
records,
cultures were largely doomed to failure. As the poet Stephen Vincent
Benet
even
immigration
much
of
some
While
in California.
them
with
to maintain
and
surroundings
continuity
examination
pattern.
movement
political
an
But
different
and
regulate
Thus,
present.
to predominate.
underpopulated
or anti-immigrant
nativist
to
protagonists,
change
lived in
Europeans
developed
and Little Italy.
Kleindeutschland
7. In what ways did their culture change or stay the same?
Attempts
at
Exclusion Act of 1882, which did not bar all Chinese immigrants but
laborers (14). At the time there were only about
only Chinese
Chinese
of all kinds in the United States, the majority of
125,000
segregation,
with
for
enclaves
and
Boston,
of Chinese
that were
processes
work long before theGilded Age began and that have continued, with
forbidden,
in places
up
sprang
the
supported
"Americans."
"answers"
as the Chinese
Chinatowns
the use
concerned
of cultures
of Sunday leisure inwhich the "continental Sunday" of play collided
with the "English Sunday" of prayer, often enforced by blue laws.
Similar struggles concerned the use of Protestant bibles in public
stricted immigration policy had been modified
East,
Bud
Japanese
Similarly,
into songs like "Buddha Loves Me,
had left. The Chinese were confined in parts of cities that came
as early as 1857 (10). In the Gilded Age,
to be called Chinatowns
moved
an
calls
mostly
the world
of
Jay Dolan
in the Gilded Age did theAmerican government
the Civil War?only
begin to restrict free immigration (12).
Restriction began with an ineffective 1875 statute aimed at
Chinese women (13). The first effective statute was the Chinese
century.
like their predecessors,
and
their
as the Swedes,
a workers'
very much
what
America,
Conservative
and
immigration
The agricultural sector, which had once included a majority of
immigrants,
Reform
I Know."
This
and
amassed.
became
underwent
too,
that,
although
Church
"English Sunday" and bible reading, but the struggle was generally
achieve
immigrant
entrepreneurs
religion,
Catholic
in nineteenth-century
church
schools.
Wittke's
likeAndrew Carnegie ought to spend at
the wealth
created
industrial
in historian
and
America,"
immigrant
hazardous
were,
considering
who
native-born,
was
workers
of industrial moguls
a little
least
and most
paying,
unsung
was
exception
Roman
dhists adapted Protestant hymns
immigrants worked at industrial jobs, usually at the unskilled
skills and training could
level, although workers with mechanical
start higher up the employment ladder. Most immigrants had to take
the hardest,
changes.
The
among
an era of expanding
was
most
ment.
great
"immigrant fortress." While most Jewish synagogues still held their
main services on Saturdays, Sunday and Sabbath schools developed
central
5. What did theydo?
Because
The
Island,
which
opened
in 1892.
In the previous year Congress had created the first
immigration bureaucracy headed by a superintendent of immigration
who
supervised
twenty-seven
subordinates.
By
1906
his
successor
had a staff of 1,600(15).
They planted England with a stubborn trust.
But the cleft dust was never English dust (11).
This
often
bureaucracy,
headed
by
former
trade-union
officials
such as Terrence V. Powderly, was imbued from the beginning with
Language
rarely
persisted
more
than
a generation
and a half. Some food preferences continued
but most
environment
immigrant
and
culture
the desire
succumbed
of
children
or a generation
for as long or longer,
to the omnipotent
to "be American."
American
a strong
animus
Chinese,
Age.
against
immigrants.
Apart
from
the barring
nativists did not win other major victories
Their
most
effective
organization,
the
elite
of most
in the Gilded
Immigration
Restriction League, founded by Harvard graduates in 1894, managed
OAH Magazine
of History
Summer 1999
23
Daniels/Immigration
1980; and the present era, as yet nameless, which David Reimers
describes as a "turn against immigration" (17).
"They told us that
America
the streets
in
Endnotes
1.United States Immigration Commission, Reports of the Immigra
tion Commission
(Washington, DC: Government
Printing
Office, 1991), 1:24.
2. James Bryce, The American Commonwealth,
2 vols. (New York:
were
paved with gold. When
we got here we saw
that
MacMillan,
1889), 2:473.
3. U.S. Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United
States (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1975),
1:106. This volume is the source for all subsequent statistics not
otherwise ascribed. Except for the Chinese after 1882, illegal
immigration was statistically insignificant in theGilded Age, but
at all.
paved
they weren't
Then
they told us that we
had to pave
them!"
many
immigrants
The
recorded.
4. Some
object
persons,
using
the
to get its pet bill, a literacy test for immigrants, through Congress in
1897. But President Grover Cleveland vetoed the bill. A congres
sional blockage apparendy stage-managed byWilliam McKinley's
administration killed similar legislation. The literacy testwas vetoed
byWilliam Howard Taft in 1913, byWoodrow
veto in 1917
enacted over a second Wilson
What conclusions are to be drawn from
seems tome that both continuity and change
it
is
to
time
Eastern
Italians,
in
America
European
who
our
emulate
our
earliest
of
have
most
of
free
have
has
grants
colonial
who
appropriate
in the appropriate
have
era,
of
come
the
system
agricultural
some
in what
of
speak
the
are
that,
kind
the
been
the
would
immigrants
place
as those
industrial
and
era,
call
"post-industrial
era,
immi
of
the
those
An
America."
other schema, for the era of restriction that began in 1882, would be
to
of
an
speak
severe
restriction,
24
era
of
OAH Magazine
restriction,
increasing
19244952;
an
of History
era
of
1882-1924;
relaxing
restriction,
Summer 1999
an
era
1952
of
of Europeans
is all but
of
Jamaica's
even
Indians,
in an oven
hatched
to
objects
came
who
universal.
For
Afro-West
those
cannot
be
as
example,
Indian
on
born
a bread."
called
3 February 1950, as cited in Howard
Crossing:
and
Immigrants
the
League
island,
Jamaica
Johnson,
in Caribbean
Minorities
Times,
ed., After
the
Creole
Society (Totowa, NJ: F. Cass, 1988).
7. An Italian-American folk saying goes something like this: "They
told us that inAmerica the streets were paved with gold. When
8. The
regional
saw
that
to pave
index
of
they weren't
immigrants
1870
Northeastern
North Central
Southern
paved
at all. Then
they
told
them!"
born population/percentage
who
so did
one
no
should not be called Jamaicans "in the same way that a chicken
we
of persecu
all enslaved
almost
but
immigrants,
not
simply
significant.
were
who
large number
strangers
that Asian
had
a minority
not
insisted
that we
call
were
borders
more
servants.
of
stigmatization
got here
from
the
for
the Organizer-General
us
persons
that
has
of
6. The
we
and
as
counted
indentured
we
and the rest of the world.
of nomenclature
era and
to
Africans,
Latin
Should
changed,
changed
immigrant but the nature of both America
A more
and
been
some
fleeing
conditions
came
century
Asians
and
themselves,
political
What
immigration.
the
immigration?
were
who
first
who
late nineteenth
call
immigrants
to better
and
others
Association
Language
not.
Iwould
argue
I hope
persons
transportation
sources
the
to
contemporary
to America
been
in
we
in the Modern
history,
to come
As
dominate
immigrants"?
wanted
them
are
and
Poles,
Jews,
what
which
suggests
dichotomy
can only
cause
confusion.
If
today
numbers
colleagues
"post-new
tion.
use
significant
immigrants,"
Americans
them
"old-new"
Its continued
otherwise.
"new
the
discard
(16).
this brief summary? It
have prevailed and that
to considering
land
was
5. For this period the immigration statistics are based on a fiscal year
ending 30 June, so the table really covers 1 July 1870 to 30 June
1901. For Gilded-Age data this makes little difference, but in
1914, for example (really 1 July 1913 to 30 June 1914), itmasks
the effects ofWorld War I on immigration.
in 1915, and
Wilson
border
being
term
semi-free
the
crossing
Canadian
(that
is, percentage
of
foreign
of population) was as follows:
1890
1.51.5
1.3
1.3
0.2
0.2
1.5
0.7
Western
Source: David Ward, Cities and Immigrants: A Geography of
Change in Modern America (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1971), Table 2-3, 60.
9. Ibid., Tables 2-5 and 2-6, 67, 72.
10. The first use recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary comes
from the Butte Record of Oroville inCalifornia's "mother lode"
country for 31 January 1857, which told its readers in a story about
a New
Year's
celebration
that
"Chinatown
was
wild
with
joy."
Daniels/Immigration
Doran,
Doubleday,
12. For
antebellum
first Ellis Island immigration facility on 14 June 1897, or were
deliberately discarded during the Eisenhower administration.
Benet, John Brown s Body (Garden City, NY:
11. Stephen Vincent
"Invocation."
1928),
see Tyler
nativism,
Gregory
16.
Nativism
Anbinder,
and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of
the 1850s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). The
prohibition against the importation of slaves in 1809 is the first
federal restriction of immigration, but it did not bar the
of
immigration
either
14. The
ban
has
been
remitted
on Chinese
for another
laborers,
ten years
in 1892,
on
initially
made
extended to all alien Chinese
a wartime
Chinese
ally,
the fifteen
exclusion
were
condition
for
of
ten years,
was
Rutgers
University
nativist
mass
Restriction
Immigration
Ancestors
M.
Press,
and
The
Reimers,
For
1988).
see Donald
organization,
attle: University
17. David
see
League,
(Cam
Immigrants
American
ofWashington
Unwelcome
information
L Kinzer,
Protective
on
An
the
largest
in
Episode
Association
(Se
Press, 1964).
Strangers:
and the Turn Against Immigration
University Press, 1998).
renewed
in 1902,
the
Solomon,
Anti-Catholicism:
emigration."
"permanent"
Miller
bridge: Harvard University Press, 1956). The classic work on
nativism is John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of
American Nativism, 18604925,
2nd ed. (New Brunswick, NJ:
13. One
sentence
on
information
Barbara
or Afro-Caribbeans.
free Africans
important new account isGeorge Anthony Peffer, If They
Don tBring Their Women Here: Chinese Female Immigration
Before Exclusion (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999).
The 1875 law, called the Page Act, also barred "criminals whose
For
American
Identity
(New York: Columbia
and
in 1924. In 1943, as a gesture to
statutes
or parts
of statutes
dealing
with
repealed.
15. It is not possible to pinpoint the growth in the 1890s. Many of
the records either burned in the disastrous fire that destroyed the
Entry gate at El Iis Island. (An Immigrant Nation:
U.S. Regulation
Roger Daniels is the Charles Phelps Taft Professor of History at the
University of Cincinnati. His latest book isNot Like Us: Immigrants
in America, 1890-1924 (1997).
and Minorities
of Immigration,
1798-1991
[Wash ington, DC :U .S.Department
OAH Magazine
of History
of Justice, 1991 ].)
Summer 1999
25