The Great Melting Pot:

European Mass Migration to America, 1840-1914

Hanna Hovi (December, 2001)
A FAST-US-2 (PP2D) U.S. Institutions Survey Paper
FAST Area Studies Program
Department of Translation Studies, University of Tampere

Introduction

. . . America is God’s Crucible, the great Melting Pot where all the races of Europe are melting
[and] reforming!…. German and Frenchman, Irishman and Englishman, Jews and Russians –
into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American….He will be the fusion of all races, the
coming superman (Jones 143).
This is how Israel Zangwill, an English Jew, in 1908 in his play The Melting Pot described the
great American myth of the melting pot. This myth was created during the European emigration to
America in the 19th and 20th centuries. In America, it was thought, all different nations would blend
to create a new race of men — the backgrounds and histories of the immigrants would lose their
individual meanings; these different ways of life would melt together into a new culture. However,
this "melting" process proved to be not quite as simple as it was made to sound, and as many
people had pictured it.

This paper will briefly review the historical background of European emigration to the United
States in the 19th century. The two phases of immigration will be reviewed, with an emphasis on
the first or "old" period, during which immigration reached its peak. Irish, Scandinavian, and
German immigrants will be used as examples of the circumstances under which emigrants left
the old world and fit in to the new. Finally the myth of America as a melting pot will be discussed,
along with the reasons that led to immigration restrictions in the beginning of the 20th century.

Historical Background

In the era of imperialism, the 16th and 17th centuries, both Britain and England had established
colonies in the new world, America, but due to their competition for the domination of Europe they
were driven to several wars. In 1763, after the wars had expanded to the American continent, the
British became rulers of the entire French-speaking part of Canada. (Ahtiainen, et al., 145.)

The 13 colonies that belonged to England had long desired to be independent and began to
rebel. In the 1770s, after a severe war, England was finally forced to declare the United States as
independent. The ideals and philosophy of the colonial and war years had a great influence on
the Constitution of the United States, which was written in 1787 (Ahtiainen, et al., 147). The
individual rights guaranteed by the Constitution in the new United States were considered almost
unbelievably extensive from a European perspective; they contained, for instance, freedom of
speech and religion, which in Europe had never before been seen. The democracy of the new
world seemed to fit the idea of a perfect society, and this was one of the factors which attracted
immigrants from Europe.

In the 19th century the common opinion in the United States was that God had chosen the
inhabitants of this new land to be an example for other nations, and to be responsible for the
future of the entire continent of North America (Ahtiainen, et al., 147).
The differences between the northern and southern parts of the United States turned during the
19th century to a civil war, which didn’t end until 1865 (Ahtiainen, et al., 149). The main issue of
the war was the use of a slave workforce by the southern states. After the North won the war,
slavery was prohibited.

Still during the war, in 1862, the Homestead Act was passed by the Congress. This gave
immigration its final boost. According to the Act a pioneer could obtain 160 acres of land free of
charge, if he agreed to settle on the site, build a home, and cultivate the land for five years
(Bedford, 81). The incredible possibility of getting free land encouraged new flows of immigrants
to settle the Frontier. It was thought that anyone could start from the bottom and rise as high as
their talents and ability to work hard allowed.

The end of the civil war started a new era in the history of the United States. This was an era of
growth the like of which had never been seen before. The population grew unbelievably quickly,
production and industry became more and more efficient, and the wealth of the nation increased.
Great natural resources and the building of railways across the country stimulated a population
growth from 38 million to 89 million during the period of 1870-1909 (Bjoi, et al., 101). This
population growth and the economic development made possible by the immigrants transformed
the United States into an effective and powerful nation.

The Reasons for Leaving the "Old Country"

The greatest mass migration in the history had already begun before 1776 (Jones, 11).
Nevertheless, it would be a false belief that the new immigrants came to a fully settled country.
Even if many inhabitants of the earliest colonies of the United States were English, there were
also large groups of Germans, Scandinavians, Irish, French and Jews (Jones, 11). They hadn’t
explored all of the country, but they had already set up their own homes and communities, mainly
on the eastern coast. The West with its vast prairies, Indians, and untouched nature was still to
be conquered. Moreover, the society of the new land hadn’t yet been fully formed, which also was
an attraction for many Europeans.

In America Europeans saw a chance to create a whole new society. Many of the intellectuals and
victims of persecution in Europe saw America as a perfect hideaway, and also as a possibility to
change social orders and political ways of thinking for the better. Victims of persecution in Europe
escaped to America and tried to establish a new ideal society there. The Constitution with its
guarantee of exceptional civil rights encouraged the people of the old world to face the risks of
the dangerous and troublesome journey across the Atlantic to seek success and happiness in the
new world, although many also simply sought employment or feared obligatory military service in
their homeland. (Commager, 156.)

In the 19th century economic troubles in Europe became critical and pushed especially the poorer
populations of northern and western Europe across the Atlantic. Before the 1880s most
immigrants had come from the British Isles and northern Europe, particularly from Scandinavia
and Germany. Ship fares had become cheaper after the introduction of the steam engine, and it
was much easier to leave than it had been just a few decades earlier. By the end of the 19th
century, these three groups — from the British Isles, Scandinavia and Germany — were
considered to be the "old" immigrants, who had already conquered the West and established their
homes and futures in America.

The First Immigrants

The black year of 1847 in Ireland caused the first real flow of these "old" immigrants to America
(Jones, 67). The potato blight, which ironically had its origin in America, struck Ireland in the
middle of the 1840s and destroyed the crops two years in a row. The nation turned into a land of
horrors, as famine swept through the country. In the spring of 1847 typhus and fever found easy
victims in the weakening population. One way to escape was to flee to America. Altogether a
million people immigrated during the 10 years between 1844-1854 (Jones, 67-69). Most of the
Irish immigrants settled in the area around New York. Another place of concentration was the
Great Lakes, while other immigrants spread to the Midwest, some even to San Francisco and
New Orleans.

Despite their usually rural background, most of the Irish stayed in the rapidly expanding cities.
They did not fit in easily. Employment was difficult; the Irish were unskilled for urban trades; it was
even a common belief that the standard of domestic arts in Ireland wasn’t high enough to make
Irish girls suitable for domestic help. Crime rates went up after the Irish influx, and the Irish were
often singled out as the culprits. Due to these prejudices the Irish were only able to obtain the
worst and the hardest work to be done, like the building of railways, roads, and canals. One of the
most important factors behind discrimination against the Irish was their Catholic religion. They
were the largest group of Catholic immigrants, and were very protective of their religion, which
had often had persecuted in their homeland. The establishment of American Catholicism is
largely an Irish achievement. (Jones, 77-79.)

However, in spite of the prejudices and the discrimination the Irish did manage to become an
important factor in American political life, in which they participated vigorously. Thus, they were
finally able to create a stable position in American society. The industrial growth and expansion in
America after the Civil War gave businessmen new opportunities to gain wealth, which then
brought status along with it. (Jones, 91.)

The Northern Immigration

The reasons driving Scandinavians to America were more or less the same economic difficulties
as elsewhere in Europe. Between 1825 and 1914 immigration from Norway to the United States
alone comprised 750,000 people, a higher proportion of the population than in any other
European country except Ireland. (Jones, 122.) The population in Norway had been increasing
rapidly over the past few years, and the country, which consisted mainly of mountains, lakes, and
dense forests, had difficulty supporting the growing population.

The same was true in Sweden; in the late 1860s poor crops and famine increased the
immigration flow to the United States (Jones, 122). In the beginning of the 19th century the
emigration from Finland reached its peak; altogether 350,000 Finns immigrated to America
(Lappalainen, 116). This was a remarkable proportion considering the population of Finland in the
19th century. The most important reason for Finns to take off to the new land was the hope of
becoming rich. Finnish settlement was concentrated in Michigan and Minnesota, and finally in the
whole northern part of the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific, where the nature
resembled that of Finland.

The Immigration of the Hard-working

Emigration from Germany started to speed up in the 1830s, and in the decade after 1846 over a
million emigrants arrived in America. It has been speculated that the German immigration was
connected with the revolution of 1848 and its failure, which resulted in many seeking to escape to
the new world. However, revolutionaries were only a small fraction of the immigrants. The
emigration was a rural and village movement, due to the growth of population and the problem of
supporting it. Especially farmers found it difficult to manage in the fierce competition for land in
Germany. (Jones, 125.)

Economic circumstances were not the only reasons for emigration. The avoidance of military
service, fear of religious or intellectual damnation, or the desire to be a part in building a new
perfect society played important roles in the emigration. Germans settled mainly in the northern
parts of the United States, especially in the area around the Great Lakes. The Germans soon
earned a reputation for hard work and thoroughness, with which their farms prospered and
hardships were overcome (Commager, 83).

Many Germans settled in Milwaukee, which came to be known as the German Athens. They had
brought with themselves a militant class consciousness, and soon began to dominate American
Socialism, giving it a special German flavor. In the 1880s German was the language used in the
Socialist Labor Party. Beer brewing was another German importation and also their monopoly –
Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz and Miller became very popular in America. The first American kindergarten
was founded in 1856 by a German immigrant. In 1901 Germans formed the National German-
American Alliance in order to preserve the German language and literature in the United States,
but during the First and Second World Wars the general opinion turned against the Germans,
their language, and societies. (Jones, 130-133.)

Facing the Risks

The risks and hardships of settling on the Frontier were clear. The settlement of the wide prairie,
the Great Plains, wasn’t easy, and in order to gain the ownership of the 160 acres promised in the
Homestead Act, the pioneer had to survive a total of five years on the site. Many of the
immigrants had never been farmers and had to learn everything the hard way. Some didn’t even
try their luck, but bought the farm of some pioneer who had already lived on it for the required five
years and was able to sell it. (Commager, 84.)

The remaining Indian population and their wars against the pioneers also caused problems, until
all the Indian tribes had been driven to reservations. Railways were built all the way to the West,
which helped new immigrants to reach the furthest Frontier. However, these newer immigrants
were more accustomed to mining than to agriculture, and the untouched land was exploited
ruthlessly. (Jones, 220.)

Severe weather conditions at the end of the 1880s made the circumstances even worse, and in
the 1890s the United States was forced to declare the Frontier closed (Bjoi, et al., 114). There
was no longer any unoccupied land. Especially the new immigrants who arrived at the end of the
19th century found themselves doing the hardest and the dirtiest work in the cities, since no free
land was to be found.

The Myth of the Melting Pot

The old immigrants, who arrived between 1840-1880 from northern and western Europe, had
been considered very similar to the descendants of the original European colonists. On the basis
of their experience, it was thought that future immigrants also would acquire the English
language, assimilate easily to the population, and contribute to the building of a unified society.
The myth of the great American melting pot, where all different nations would "melt" together to
form a superior race, was created during this period, when these conceptions of the immigrants at
first seemed to work.

The "new" immigration wave which began in the late 1880s, however, soon changed this. After
the peak of old immigration in the 1880s the source of immigration changed to eastern and
southern Europe, as the problems in that part of Europe became acute. Among others, more and
more Hungarians, Poles, Italians, Jews (whose different religious culture made them similar to
other ethnic groups), and also Mexicans began to flow into the United States. Already in 1896
southern and eastern European immigrants were a majority in the immigration influx; by 1914
they formed a total of 80% of the immigrants (Jones, 220).
These southern and eastern European immigrants hadn’t had the chance of traveling or leaving
their home country until now, and thus their influx to America started later than in western Europe.
These immigrants came to be known as the "new ones". They looked different, spoke different
languages, and confessed to different religions than had the older immigrants (Bedford, 63). Their
arrival sparked a questioning of the concept of the melting pot which eventually resulted in
restrictions to immigration.

Doubts about the validity of the melting pot concept arose both among the native-born American
population and — ironically — also among the older immigrants. Racial discrimination started to
affect the images people had of the eastern and southern Europeans; they were considered to be
a "lesser breed" (Jones, 228). Simply put, the question was this: Did America want to build a
society based on descendants of German, Scandinavian, and British people, who had been
historically free and who had already helped to build the great society of the United States, or was
the country willing to accept new cultural influences and races which were often considered by
the native-born population and older immigrants as being inferior (Bjoi, et al., 122)?

The Frontier had been officially closed; there was no longer any attractive unoccupied land. Thus,
the new immigrants couldn’t move on to the West; they had no other choice but to settle in the
cities. Not having the language skills to easily assimilate, they often found it easier to live only
among their own people in ethnic enclaves that came to be considered by others as ghettos and
slums.

Ethnic Prejudice and Segregation

The "melting pot" was already at this point just a myth, as it was evident that nationalities were
not harmoniously mixing to create a new race. The tendency toward ethnic segregation, along
with the fact that the new immigrants were usually less literate and less skilled than the older
ones had been, simply added to prejudices that were rapidly growing. National and cultural
antipathies were inevitable, and the future of a united American people of all these nationalities
and cultures became doubted. Even among the immigrant groups themselves prejudice
sometimes turned to violence, for example between Mexicans and Italians (Jones, 228). The new
immigrants were often contemptuously referred to, for instance, as Polacks (Poles) or Hunkies
(Hungarians).

Nor were prejudices confined to national origin as such; religion also became a segregating
factor. Up to this point, with the notable exception of the Irish immigrants, the United States had
essentially been a Protestant nation. Now, in addition to the new influx of European Jews, the
mainly Roman Catholic immigrants from eastern and southern Europe caused a stronger
variation in the religious field than the country had been accustomed to. (Commager, 85.)

Not only did the older immigrants tend to look down on newer immigrants, but especially the older
immigrants who lived in the cities where the newer immigrants now began to cluster became
afraid of losing their jobs, as a cheaper supply of labor had entered the market. The eastern and
southern Europeans did the dirtiest work for only a minimum wage, which led to their becoming
regarded both as the lowest class in society and as an economic threat to the older immigrants.
The willingness of the new immigrants to do the hardest jobs for the lowest wages was seen by
the older immigrants to both threaten their own employability and reduce their wages if they could
get jobs. Thus older immigrants often refused to work with or have any contact with the new
immigrants. (Bedford, 64.)

This concern for the unity of the society and the fear of "lesser breeds" contaminating American
society led to efforts to "Americanize" the immigrants and restrain the immigration flow. During
the decade of World War I a formal Americanization process was introduced in the schools, and
private and public educational institutions taught the new immigrants the basics of English,
hygiene, the American political system, and American history. Among these Americanization
institutions the YMCA was perhaps most famous; it taught not only English lessons but also
welfare work and citizenship classes. (Jones, 227.)

This process of Americanizing the immigrants didn’t happen only due to a benevolent desire to
help them fit into society. World War I had raised a feeling of patriotism, and immigrants were
often accused of having divided loyalty, as they sometimes still sided up with their fatherlands —
or were suspected of doing so if they continued to speak their native languages (particularly if the
language happened to be German or that of a country allied with Germany during the war). This
was why immigrants often felt forced to appear more "American," and participate more visibly in
the American side of the war.

Immigration Restrictions

The great numbers of immigrants pouring into the United States finally resulted in immigration
restrictions. Before 1914 there had been police and health measures, but during the war they
turned into efforts which aimed at limiting the immigration quantitatively. A general revulsion
against Europe was raising its head, and the war bred a distrust of the idealisms of Europe
(Bolshevism, Fascism, etc.) which the immigrants often brought with them (Jones, 227). The
general opinion feared the alteration of American society, and condemned the new immigrants as
the source of this alteration. Therefore the first true restrictions on immigration were introduced.

In 1894 the Immigration Restriction League was founded. The League believed the new
immigrants to be inferior to the older ones, and that they were responsible for the possible
weakening of the American society. The League contributed largely to the February 1917
Immigration Act, which provided for the exclusion of those immigrants unable to read a forty-word
passage. But this literacy test wasn’t enough; other restrictions were also added to the law. The
head tax (a tax which each family member entering America had to pay) was doubled to $8 and
chronic alcoholics, vagrants, and persons of "constitutional psychopathic inferiority" were
excluded. (Jones, 228.)

After the war several new laws to restrict immigration were introduced, and after 1921 new
immigration quotas were passed. This resulted in a radical reduction in the number of immigrants.
It had been realized that the melting pot wasn’t working, at least not as quickly as it should have
worked, and the United States sought to stabilize its ethnic diversity (Bedford, 65). This it
managed to do, even though due to the Second World War the flow of immigrants was to
increase once again.

Toward a Multicultural Society

The lack of ethnic coherence has placed enormous strain upon the functionality of American
society, but it has also made America more aware of its ethnic minorities and the legislation which
concerns them. Nor is this strain confined to domestic affairs. The political environment in the
United States continues to be influenced by the ethnic backgrounds of candidates for office, and
even if American foreign policy aspires toward pursuing the best interests of the United States as
a whole rather than individual ethnic groups, it is not difficult to cite cases where the proportion or
activity of certain ethnic groups has seemed to clearly influence foreign policy decisions. (Jones,
239-242.)

Nonetheless, America’s ethnic heritage has been greatly enriched by the mass migration from
Europe. The melting pot didn’t quite work as expected, but it did succeed in creating a world
power almost despite all the different nationalities and minorities. The economic boom and
industrial growth of the 19th century could hardly have been possible, at least as quickly as it
happened, without the immigrants, the railways they built, and their many other contributions to
the development of the new nation. The railways bound the rapidly expanding country together
and helped it to turn from a colony to a superpower in less than two centuries. Especially the new
immigrants provided a source of unlimited cheap labour which was essential in building the
United States into an advanced industrial nation.

Eventually, all the immigrants became "Americanized," yet each group brought its own cultural
flavor and special skills to an increasingly diversified American society. Immigrants didn’t forget or
abandon the cultures of their home countries in the process of becoming Americans. Becoming
Americanized did, however, often mean giving up one's native language and changing one's
name to sound more American.

There were such great variations both in the cultural features and the experiences of the
immigrants that summarizing them would be impossible. However, it can be noted that the lives of
most immigrants improved after they moved to the new world. Society was more open in America
than it had been especially in southern and eastern Europe. The children of the immigrants were
to become even more successful, as they were able to assimilate into American society more
easily than their mothers and fathers, whose identities were always partly back in the "old
country." These second-generation descendants of the immigrants were the first who truly felt
themselves to be American.