page_title: History of the United States (1865–1918)
section_title: Immigration
hierarchical_section_title: History of the United States (1865–1918) / Social history / Immigration
caption_attribution_description: A cover from the "World on Sunday" the magazine section of the New York World; a 1906 poster re immigration, illustrated by an artist now unknown. Other information See Nicholson Baker and Margaret Brentano, eds. The World on Sunday: Graphic Art in Joseph Pulitzer's Newspaper (1898 - 1911) (2005) p 85 for large copy.
context_page_description: The history of the United States from 1865 until 1918 covers the Reconstruction Era, the Gilded Age, and the Progressive Era, and includes the rise of industrialization and the resulting surge of immigration in the United States.
  This period of rapid economic growth and soaring prosperity in the North and the West saw the U.S. become the world's dominant economic, industrial, and agricultural power. The average annual income of non-farm workers grew by 75% from 1865 to 1900, and then grew another 33% by 1918.
  With a decisive victory in 1865 over Southern secessionists in the Civil War, the United States became a united and powerful nation with a strong national government. Reconstruction brought the end of legalized slavery plus citizenship for the former slaves, but their new-found political power was rolled back within a decade, and they became second-class citizens under a "Jim Crow" system of deeply pervasive segregation that would stand for the next 80–90 years. Politically, during the Third Party System and Fourth Party System the nation was mostly dominated by Republicans.
context_section_description: From 1865 through 1918 an unprecedented and diverse stream of immigrants arrived in the United States, 27.5 million in total. In all, 24.4 million (89%) came from Europe, including 2.9 million from Britain, 2.2 million from Ireland, 2.1 million from Scandinavia, 3.8 million from Germany, 4.1 million from Italy, 7.8 million from Russia and other parts of eastern and central Europe. Another 1.7 million came from Canada. Most came through the port of New York City, and from 1892, through the immigration station on Ellis Island, but various ethnic groups settled in different locations. New York and other large cities of the East Coast became home to large Jewish, Irish, and Italian populations, while many Germans and Central Europeans moved to the Midwest, obtaining jobs in industry and mining. At the same time, about one million French Canadians migrated from Quebec to New England.
  Immigrants were pushed out of their homelands by poverty or religious threats, and pulled to America by jobs, farmland  and kin connections. They found economic opportunity at factories, mines and construction sites, and found farm opportunities in the Plains states.
  While most immigrants were welcomed, Asians were not. Many Chinese had been brought to the west coast to construct railroads, but unlike European immigrants, they were seen as being part of an entirely alien culture. After intense anti-Chinese agitation in California and the west, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. An informal agreement in 1907, the Gentlemen's Agreement, stopped Japanese immigration.
  Some immigrants stayed temporarily in the U.S. then returned home, often with savings that made them relatively prosperous. Most, however, permanently left their native lands and stayed in hope of finding a better life in the New World. This desire for freedom and prosperity led to the famous term, the American Dream.
caption: The Sunday magazine of the New York World appealed to Immigrants with this 1906 cover page celebrating their arrival at Ellis Island
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