America’s seemingly insatiable demand for unskilled labor fueled a rising wave of new immigrants. “I thought it was a stream that would never end,” reported one exhausted official as he watched endless lines of immigrants pass through the great Registry Hall on Ellis Island. But the great wave did come to an end. A combination of religious prejudice, economic competition, and scientific racism sparked a revival of anti-immigrant nativist sentiment.
Religious prejudice
The late nineteenth century witnessed a rise in prejudice directed at Catholics and Jews. In 1887, working class Protestants in states throughout the Rocky Mountains and Far West formed the American Protection Association. Members opposed the so-called Roman menace by organizing boycotts of Catholic merchants and vowing to never vote for Roman Catholic political candidates. At the same time, Jews faced growing social and economic discrimination, supported by negative stereotypes portraying them as cunning and greedy merchants who exploited trusting Americans.
Economic competition
Economic competition reinforced the fears and suspicions bred by religious intolerance. In 1893, a panic on Wall Street touched off a severe economic depression. A worried advisor warned President Cleveland, “We are on the eve of a very dark night.” Within a year, one-fifth of the nation’s workers lost their jobs. Alarmed labor leaders blamed immigrant workers for taking American jobs and working for low wages. They also accused ruthless corporate officials of using immigrants as strikebreakers.
Scientific racism
The Immigrant Restriction League (IRL) took advantage of the country’s growing climate of anxiety and suspicion. Formed in Boston in 1894, the IRL advanced the pseudo-scientific theory that each ethnic group had its own inborn characteristics. For example, Anglo-Saxons possess courage and leadership skills, placing them at the top of the ethnological pyramid. In contrast, Italians were a violent and undisciplined ethnic group, incapable of assimilating American culture. The IRL pointed to scores from newly developed IQ tests as evidence proving that new immigrants had inferior intelligence compared with native, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants.
The IRL played a critical role in shaping public opinion to support new laws designed to restrict immigration. In 1917, the IRL successfully lobbied Congress to pass an Immigration Act with a literacy test banning immigrants over sixteen who could not read a language. But the IRL’s mission was not completed. Led by Madison Grant, they pushed for quotas to limit immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. In his influential book, The Passing of a Great Race, Grant offered alleged historic evidence to support the view that the influx of new immigrants threatened to undermine America’s superior Anglo-Saxon civilization.
Restrictive quotas
The fears and suspicions aroused by World War I and the ensuing Red Scare strengthened a growing anti-coalition of voters. Congress responded to the nativist push for restrictive measuring by passing the National Origins Act of 1924. The legislation limited annual immigration to two percent of a country’s population in the United States at the time of the 1890 census. Since the wave of new immigrants began in 1890, the quotas favored immigrants from Northern and Western Europe while sharply reducing the flow of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. For example, England received a generous quota of 65,721 while Italy received a mere 3,845 per year.
The quota system provided for 153,714 immigrants from Europe while continuing to ban immigration from Asia. However, the law placed no restrictions on the Western Hemisphere. As a result, Canadians and Mexicans were free to enter the United States. For example, approximately 500,000 Mexican workers came to the United States during the 1920s.
Low tide, 1924 – 1965
The quota system caused a dramatic decline in immigration to America. Just 4.1 million newcomers entered the United States between 1930 and 1960. While foreign-born people represented 15 percent of the population in 1930, they comprised only 4.7 percent in 1960. Given the sharp decline in immigration, authorities closed Ellis Island in 1954. The abandoned facility provided a striking symbol of the dramatic change in American immigration policy.
So why should you remember nativism and immigration quotas? APUSH test writers have paid close attention to the causes and consequences of nativism. You should to! Nativism refers to the anti-foreign sentiment favoring the interests of native-born people over the interests of immigrants. The rise of nativism in the period from 1890 to 1924 was a response to religious prejudice, economic insecurity, and pseudo-scientific theories about the alleged characteristics of different ethnic groups. Titled “The Only Way to Handle It,” the political cartoon at the beginning of this post has been featured in DBQs and as a prompt for a set of multiple-choice questions. Be sure you are familiar with the provisions of the Immigration Act of 1924. It ranks as one of the ten most frequently tested congressional acts on APUSH exams!