Immigrants of 1800: Impact on American Society and Culture

Running head: IMMIGRANTS OF 1800.
IMMIGRANTS OF 1800
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1IMMIGRANTS OF 1800
In the late 1800, people in several different parts of the world had decided to leave
their homes in order to immigrate to America. About 25 million immigrants were there who
arrived in the United States in between the year 1870 and 19001. This arrival of millions and
millions of migrants from the other countries with just a few decades laid a great impact on
the cultural and economic development of United States. This paper is going to elaborate on
the same. It is going to discuss about the immigration in the late 1800s and would shed light
upon the difficulties that were faced by the immigrants. It would also assess the fact of the
way in which the immigrants used to adjust their life in United States of America.
Furthermore, it would compare and contrast the “melting pot” and “salad bowl”.
The immigrants entered into the United States by means of several different ports.
The ones from the Europe came from East Coast facilities and the ones from Asia entered
from the West Coast centres. About 70% of the total immigrants entered into America
through the New York City that came to be regarded as the “Golden Door”2. All through the
late 1800s, most of the immigrants who arrived in New York have entered at the Castle
Garden depot near the tip of Manhattan. Furthermore, in the year 189, the federal government
opened a new immigration processing centre on the Ellis Island in the harbour of New York.
Once the immigrants were settled, they looked for work but there were never
sufficient jobs in America and the employers used to took the advantage of these immigrants.
They were paid less wages than the rest other workers and the women were always
considered to be less than the men. With the same, the then social tensions were also a part of
the experience of the immigrants3. There were many immigrants who were often stereotypes
and were discriminated against. Also, many of them used to undergo from physical and
1 Baseler, Marilyn C. Asylum for mankind: America, 1607–1800. Cornell University Press, 2018.
2 Jansen, Katherine L. "Indispensable Immigrants: The Wine Porters of Northern Italy and their Saint, 1200-
1800 by Lester K. Little." The Catholic Historical Review 103, no. 3 (2017): 561-562.
3 Salvatore, Ricardo D., and Carlos Aguirre. "Colonies of settlement or places of banishment and torment? Penal
colonies and convict labour in Latin America, c. 1800–1940." Global convict labour (2015): 273.

2IMMIGRANTS OF 1800
verbal abuse as they were “different”. However, it is also to note that while a large scale
immigrants had created many social tensions, they also produced a new vitality or importance
in the cities as well as in the states in which the immigrants were settled4. The immigrants to
the United States made several valuable contribution to the dramatic industrial growth of
America in between the year 1865 to 1921. The Chinese workers played a major role in
building the Transcontinental Railroad. Those immigrants worked in steel mills and textile
industries present in the North east. With the same, there were several immigrants who
worked in the clothing industry in New York. Immigrants from Italy, Poles, Slavs used to
work in the coal mines in the Eastern part of United States. It is to note that these immigrants
often worked for very low pay and at the same time, they endured very dangerous working
condition in order to help in building the industrial strength of the nation. Furthermore, the
immigrants were often meeting with several challenges upon their arrival which they never
anticipated. All those difficulties range from navigating the legal complications to the
understanding of the difficult and complex transportation system of America, while securing
the employment and the living arrangements as well as battling with the culture shock,
depression, despair and psychological distress. One of the other formidable difficulties that
the refuges and the immigrants faced after arriving United States is the language barrier 5.
More often than not, immigrants reached the United States with a less-than-fluent grasp of
English, and refugees often arrive with even less English experience. Also, as per Alba and
Foner, the English language training, the quality of the instruction was very poor and at the
same time, there were not many classes available for all the refugees in the United States6.
This language barrier caused huge problems and made the simple interactions seem like
4 Russo, John Paul. "When They Were Few: Italians in America, 1800–1850." In The Routledge History of
Italian Americans, pp. 54-68. Routledge, 2017.
5 Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. Black Reconstruction in America: Toward a history of the part which
black folk played in the attempt to reconstruct democracy in America, 1860-1880. Routledge, 2017.
6 Alba, Richard, and Nancy Foner. Strangers no more: Immigration and the challenges of integration in North
America and Western Europe. Princeton University Press, 2015.