History of US immigration thread
I'm a Brit but I am really interested in the era of late 1800's early 1900's immigration to the US (Probably because of films making it look romantic) how did the US go about attracting Europeans to immigrate? Did they buy posters/advertisements in newspaper saying "We're trying to fill our country up, come on over" or what?
Also how did people mostly immigrate, individually or family groups, groups of friends? From a modern perspective it seems pretty crazy to get on a boat to go to a brand new country you don't speak the language, have never seen before, maybe don't know anybody etc especially from a modern perspective were people check out whereever they go on google maps beforehand.
Anyone have any interesting facts on the this topic? Discuss.
They were offered free land to farm
Fun Fact: my great grandpa immigrated from Italy when he was a young boy in the early 1900s and brought this swiss harmonica with him that i now have.
pls add to history books
>>1408119
Pretty cool
The Land of Freedom and Opportunity is a powerful draw. We didn't have to "attract" immigrants.
>Did they buy posters/advertisements in newspaper saying "We're trying to fill our country up, come on over" or what?
no. they didn't go to america because USA attracted them. they left europe because you treated them like shit.
>>1408432
it is! he brought it back to europe in WWI and his son (my grandfather) brought it through WWII. it was missing for like 30 years until my grandmother died and they found it. my mom hadn't seen it since the 50s or 60s
>>1407979
I don't think we explicitly advertised for immigration. It's just that continental Europe was poor and shitty and if you were born poor there you were destined to stay so forever. We did advertise for in country migration to certain states and such though.
>>1407979
I bet the descendants of that illegal immigrant votes trump
Many factories would send recruiters to Europe to find workers.
Why were Irish people bullied so much?
>>1409918
>be anglo
>invade roman brittania and turn it into a shit hole
>never produce anything of worth while ruling britain
>years later French Normans give you your language, architecture, and state
>many of your monarchs were actually French
>your military gets defeated by the French on numerous occasions and your military also has never won a war against another major european power without the help of a coalition
>realize you and your people are shit, but you can never let anyone else know that
>suddenly you see an irishman, and you get a brilliant idea
>"if we all say that irish are literally niggers, then europe will forget that us anglos are literally niggers!"
And thus, the Irish got shat on.
>>1409954
Anglos are pretty shit, but the Irish are even shittier
I don't remember who it was, but i had someone from my family that immigrated to the US in the early 1900's. He took a piece of paper with a name and an address of the person that was going to receive him.
He arrived in New York and approached a police officer to ask him for insctructions. That police officer after reading the paper look at him and asked in our language: "Hey, does your father name is anon?"
So yeah there's a possibility that i have family i never knew living in the US, because later nobody knows what happened to him.
>>1409969
How are the irish shitier? Afterwards all those irish immigrants in USA that got rich financed the Irish war of indepedance.
That's pretty based
>>1408554
The amount of history that can be found in one small item is crazy. Nice story man.
>>1410028
Exactly, they're no better than Jews funding Israel.
>>1410297
Thanks bruv! It's one of my favorite stories to tell, when the rare opportunity presents itself. When I tell all the detail, and embellishments, it's a pretty good stRoy. Depending on where I'm living sometimes the harmonica is out displayed with some other stuff so it makes for a conversation piece. Can't play it anymore though, corroded too much. It's not totally in-tune with itself anyway and def not in tune with anything else.
>>1407979
> German stow away
We need to build a wall and make Germany pay for it
>>1407979
The US opened its doors too piss-poor Europeans in order to get a large, cheap work force. There was also the helpful incentive of anybody being able to climb the social ladder and become rich.
>>1409749
Wow, really makes u think
>>1410698
>make Germany pay for it
WW2 happened last time we tried making the Germans pay for something
>>1407979
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty-Eighters
>Carl Schurz in 1860. A participant of the 1848 revolution in Germany, he immigrated to the United States and became a US senator.
>>1408119
My family has a spinning wheel they've had passed through the family since the 1600's. (Though the spindle's gone.) Not pic related (since it's at mah's house).
Not a lotta good stories to go with a spinning wheel though. Don't think it's actually been used in over a hundred years. No idea why we keep passing the thing around and fixing it up.
>>1407979
Here is a documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZQl6XBo64M
>>1410892
You should keep passing it down, it's great to have a link to your past and a tradition even if it is as random as a spinning wheel.
>>1407979
word of mouf
its ludicrous to think that the unwashed masses lived isolated from eachother
they all gossiped and kept close contacts with one another, the church was gossip central and shipyards deployed propagandists throughout the country to recruit loosers
all of europe was gossiping about the new world
they all knew where that one reject 30 years ago disappeared to and made his fortunes selling creampie and hotdogs
like 30% went back to europe
>>1415292
source
>>1410819
Pretty interesting
