Allison Keeling

Mr. Widenhofer
AP United States History
Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Long Essay

In the 19th century, urbanization began to sweep across the nation. Cities had nearly

tripled because of factories and industrialization. There also began a shift from the once

agrigarian nation to a more industrialized one. This was due to the fact that people were drawn to

accessible jobs. This factor also drew in people from other countries as well. Most immigrants

both old and new moved to the cities. The statement that the experience of new immigrants

compared to the old was little different is partially correct because there were many differences,

like the origin of the immigrants, the literacy rate, and the ideas that were being brought over.

There were some similarities as well.

The Old and the New immigrants had experienced very similar things when they came to

the U.S. They both experienced Nativism and discrimination against them. An example of this

would be in the Old, there were signs posted on store fronts saying “No Irish Need Apply”

because they would work for lower wages causing natives to lose their jobs. A similar situation

occurred with the Italians; they were discriminated against for employment. The immigrant

groups were also used as political blocks. Immigrants all left their home nations for some of the

same reasons like social mobility, political oppression, and job opportunities. Many countries, at

this time, had social classes that were based on their parent’s social class, and America allowed

them to get out of that. Immigrants in both tended to settle together; an example of this would be

Little Italy in New York, and the all-German town in western Pennsylvania.

The Old and New immigrants experienced some of the same things, but they had a lot of

differences too. In regards to Nativism and discrimination, they were targeted by different
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groups. The Old were targeted by the Know-Nothing Party, who was an actual political party

that hated Catholics and immigrants. The APA targeted the New, and they were not a political

party, but they were a group that attempted to sway people to vote non-Catholic. The immigrants

also differed in their origin. The Old came from northern and western Europe, the while the New

came from eastern and southern Europe. Also there were different levels of literacy. The Old

could speak English, bilingual, and had a high literacy rate, but the New could not speak or read

English and had a low literacy rate. The old immigrants were wealthier and could settle

anywhere, but the new could not. There were also way more New immigrants than Old. The

immigrants were used as political blocks, but the Old as just known to all vote a certain way,

while the New were targeted by political bosses. The New immigrants also brought over

different ideas to the U.S. like anarchism, communism, and socialism. Communism, especially,

allowed for paranoia and eventually the Red Scare. The Old did not bring over these ideas.

When WWI started, immigration began to slow down drastically, and after the war in

1921 the U.S. passed the Emergency Quota Act and the literacy test that would limit

immigration. The quota was 3% of the census of 1910, which ultimately targeted the southern

and eastern Europeans more because more of them came over. The Act was passed because of

Russia’s fall to communism and America’s fear that southern and eastern Europeans would bring

it over and spread it in the U.S. Immigration had never risen back to the rate it was in the new

immigration since then.