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Why did people immigrate to the United States in the late 1800's? The reasons these new immigrants made the journey to America differed little from those of their predecessors. Escaping religious, racial, and political persecution, or seeking relief from a lack of economic opportunity or famine still pushed many immigrants out of their homelands. Many were pulled here by contract labor agreements offered by recruiting agents, known as padrones to Italian and Greek laborers. Hungarians, Poles, Slovaks, Bohemians, and Italians flocked to the coal mines or steel mills, Greeks preferred the textile mills, Russian and Polish Jews worked the needle trades or pushcart markets of New York. Railroad companies advertised the availability of free or cheap farmland overseas in pamphlets distributed in many languages, bringing a handful of agricultural workers to western farmlands. But the vast majority of immigrants crowded into the growing cities, searching for their chance to make a better life for themselves.
References: Kraut, Alan, The Huddled Masses: The Immigrant in American Society, 1880-1921 (1982); Handlin, Oscar, The Uprooted (1951). "Immigration in the early 1900s," EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2000). |
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Colonial Times American Revolution Slavery in America Early American Native Nations / Native Americans Consitution and Bill of Rights 1st Five Presidents Westward Expansion | Pioneers | Pony Express Civil War Technological Revolution and American Innovation World War 1 (from an American Perspective) World War 2 (From an American Perspective) |
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Volume 1: Norsemen to the end of the French & Indian War pdf audio Volume 2: American Revolution & Patriotic Songs pdf audio Volume 3: The First President through the Fugitive Slave Law pdf Volume 4: Abraham Lincoln through The War Between the States pdf A Short History of the United States by Edward Channing is a fairly complete American history book from 1000 to 1900 . Download a free e-book or the audio recordings from Librivox. (NOTE: Though the audio recordings are listed as "Chapters" on Librivox, there are actually several chapters on each recording, so you will have recordings for the entire book if you download the 26 "Chapters" from Librivox. The recordings range from 7 minutes to 38 minutes in length.) As a side note, Channing's A History of the United States, is regarded as one of the most complete and accurate accounts of American history and received the 1926 Pulitzer Prize for History. - See more at: http://www.halfahundredacrewood.com/2011/06/supplementing-cc-on-shoestring.html#sthash.idhsVOWm.dpuf |