Immigration from 1900 to 1924 in the United States

Introduction to Immigration from 1900 to 1924

Almost 9 million immigrants entered the United States in the first decade of the 20th century, close to 6 million in the 1910s, and about 4 million in the 1920s. In the early 20th century, Japanese Americans constituted the largest group of Asian immigrants. They primarily engaged in agricultural pursuits in California, Oregon, and Washington. In 1907 the United States and Japan signed a so-called Gentlemen’s Agreement, in which the Japanese government promised to deny passports to Japanese laborers intending to enter the United States. In return, the U.S. government refrained from enacting laws officially excluding Japanese immigrants.

The Immigration Act of 1917 expanded the classes of foreigners excluded from the United States. It imposed a literacy test and designated an Asiatic Barred Zone, a geographic region encompassing much of eastern Asia and the Pacific islands from which immigrants would not be admitted to the United States. Aliens unable to meet minimum mental, moral, physical, and economic standards were excluded, as were anarchists and other so-called subversives (see Anarchism). Most of the basic provisions of the Immigration Act of 1917 were retained in subsequent revisions of the immigration law.

After World War I (1914-1918) a marked increase in racism and isolationism in the United States led to demands for further restrictions on immigration. In 1921 Congress established a quota system for immigrants. The number of immigrants of any nationality admitted to the United States each year could not exceed 3 percent of the number of foreign-born residents of that nationality living in the United States in 1910. The law applied to all immigrants from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and certain islands in the Atlantic and Pacific.” (1)

Challengues of the Immigration from 1900 to 1924

Restriction of foreign immigration during the 1920s marked a significant change in U.S. policy. Immigration had soared in the late 19th century and peaked in the early 20th century. Between 1900 and 1915, for example, more than 13 million people came to the United States, with the preponderance from Southern and Eastern Europe. Many of these people were Jewish or Catholic, a fact that alarmed many older Americans who were predominately Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. Some resented the newcomers because they competed for low-wage jobs, others because the new immigrants maintained Old World customs, often lived in urban ethnic enclaves, and seemed to resist assimilation into the larger American culture.

As a result of this immigrant surge after World War I, nativist appeals intensified. A reorganized Ku Klux Klan emerged calling for “100-percent Americanism.” Unlike the Klan of Reconstruction, the new Klan restricted its membership to native-born white Protestants, and campaigned against Catholics, Jews and immigrants as well as African Americans. By redefining its enemies, the Klan broadened its appeal to parts of the North and Midwest, and for a time, its membership swelled.

Anti-immigration sentiment was codified in a series of measures, culminating in the Immigration Quota Law of 1924 and a 1929 act. These laws limited the annual number of immigrants to 150,000, to be distributed among peoples of various nationalities in proportion to the number of their compatriots already in the United States in 1920. One result of these restrictions was to reduce the appeal of nativist organizations; the Great Depression of the 1930s also caused a sharp drop in immigration. (2)

Resources

Notes and References

1. Information about Immigration from 1900 to 1924 in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia
2. ”An Outline of American History”(1994), a publication of the United States Information Agency (USIA). Editor: Howard Cincotta

Guide to Immigration