Before 1820 even with immigration America’s white population was largely homogeneous In 1790 the United States took a census It showed that 8 out of 10 Americans not counting Native Americans or black slaves in the South had English or Scottish ancestors The other 20 percent of white Americans were mostly German and Dutch This population was 98 percent Protestant an important clue to U S citizens overall values and emerging attitudes toward the waves of people who arrived later After the Revolution the first great surge of immigrants to the United States arrived between 1820 and 1860 Almost every one of these people came from Ireland England Germany Sweden Norway and Denmark These are neighboring countries in Europe and the inflow of people did not change the primarily Anglo-Protestant make-up of America even though many Irish and German immigrants were Catholic Early colonists left England hoping to find new opportunities in America 6
At this time in the United States plans to construct hundreds of miles of roads and canals and thousands of miles of railroads had created an urgent demand for laborers Immigration increased from about 129,000 people during the 1820s to 2,814,554 during the 1850s more than a 20-fold increase The U S population grew from 23 2 million in 1850 to 31 5 million in 1860 with immigrants making up a third of the additional people Nearly half of those arriving in the 1840s and 1850s were Irish and more than a quarter were German Chinese laborers working on the transcontinental railroad used explosives to blast through the mountains of the American west The transcontinental railroad was built by the hands of European and Chinese immigrants from 1863 to 1869 7
The nationality of Immigrants typically spent their long sea voyage in a dark cargo hold immigrants shifted dramatically between 1880 and 1890 By the turn of the century most people were coming from Italy Russia Spain Poland Austria Hungary and Balkan countries such as Greece Romania and Yugoslavia Part of this change had to do with the introduction of steam-powered ships Immigrants typically traveled in the cargo compartment or hold of a ship delivering trade goods Only northern and western European countries had large-scale trade relationships with the United States during the era of wind-driven sailing ships These ships took bulky agricultural cargoes to Europe and returned with smaller cargoes of manufactured goods so there was extra space for people in the hold THE APPALLING CONDITIONS ON BOARD Early immigrants had to bring their own food and some were near starvation or had died before the ship arrived in America Each person had a shelf to sleep on about 3-feet 9-meter wide by 6-feet 1 83-meter long stacked only 2-feet 61-meter apart Poor ventilation and bad drinking water caused many deaths from disease In 1847 about 40,000 people 20 percent of those making the trip died during the voyage 8
When steamships became common voyages between Europe and America took only 10 days compared with the 30 to 90-day journey on a sailing ship Now ships could be devoted solely to carrying passengers and the passage became affordable for peasants from poorer regions In 1882 87 percent of immigrants to the United States were from northern and western Europe Only 25 years later in 1907 81 percent of immigrants came from eastern and southern Europe By the early 1900s steamships had replaced sailing ships for ocean voyages 9
