-Even though the foreign born have never composed more than 16% of the U.S. population since 1675, immigration has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of American history.


-By 1910, Eastern and Southern Europeans made up 70 percent of the immigrants entering the country. After 1914, immigration dropped off because of the war, and later because of immigration restrictions imposed in the 1920s.

-Immigrants seek jobs, money, shelter, friends, freedom, food, and basically a new start.


-Vast majority of immigrants crowded into the growing cities, searching for their chance to make a better life for themselves.



-Government inspectors asked a list of twenty-nine probing questions, such as: Have you money, relatives or a job in the United States? Are you a polygamist? An anarchist?


-Doctors and nurses poked
Medical examination
Ellis Island, 1910
and prodded them, looking for signs of disease or debilitating handicaps.


-If immigrants did not receive stamps of approval, and many did not because they were deemed criminals, strikebreakers, anarchists or carriers of disease, they were sent back to their place of origin at the expense of the shipping line.