Hippocampus United States History: The Growth of America

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Between 1790 and 1820, the population of the United States more than doubled to nearly 10 million people. Remarkably, this growth was almost entirely the result of reproduction, as the immigration rate during that period had slowed to a trickle. Fewer than 250,000 immigrants entered the United States due to doubts about the viability of the new republic and travel restrictions in Europe during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.

Soon after Napoleon’s final defeat in 1815, immigration to the United States began to increase. Competing shippers who needed westbound payloads kept transatlantic fares low enough to make immigration affordable, and migrants were interested in the prospect of abundant land, high wages, and what they saw as endless economic opportunities. Many also migrated to America because Europe seemed to be running out of room, and numerous people were displaced from their homelands. For the next several decades, the number of immigrants continued to rise. In the 1820s, nearly 150,000 European immigrants arrived; in the 1830s, nearly 600,000; by the 1840s, nearly 1.7 million; and during the 1850s, the greatest influx of immigrants in American history—approximately 2.6 million—came to the United States.

During the 1800s, most European immigrants entered the United States through New York. Ships would discharge their passengers, and the immigrants would immediately have to fend for themselves in a foreign land. It did not take long for thieves and con-men to take advantage of the newcomers. Some of the immigrants brought infectious diseases with them to the States. In 1855, the New York legislature, hoping to curb some of these problems, turned the southern tip of Manhattan into an immigration receiving center. The immigration center recorded their names, nationalities, and destinations; gave them cursory physical examinations; and sometimes assisted them with finding jobs.

By 1860, the number of states had more than doubled to 33 from the original 13. Russia, France, and Austria were the only other countries in the western world that were more populous than the United States. Forty-three cities in the United States boasted populations of more than 20,000 people.

Most of the immigrants coming to the United States came from Ireland and Germany, but some also came from China, Britain, and the Scandinavian countries. In the 1840s, Ireland experienced a potato blight when a rot attacked the potato crop, and nearly two million people died of disease and hunger. Tens of thousands of Irish fled the country during the “Black Forties,” many of them coming to America. By the end of the century, more Irish lived in American than in Ireland, with nearly 2 million arriving between 1830 and 1860. As they arrived in the United States, they were too poor to move west and buy land, so they congregated in large cities along the eastern coast. By 1850, the Irish made up over half the populations of Boston and New York City.

The Irish accepted whatever wages employers offered them, working in steel mills, warehouses, and shipyards or with construction gangs building canals and railways. As they competed for jobs, they were often confronted with “No Irish Need Apply” signs. Race riots were common between the Irish and the free African Americans who competed for the same low-status jobs.

As a rule, Irish immigrants lived in crowded, dirty tenement buildings that were plagued by high crime rates, infectious disease, prostitution, and alcoholism. They were stereotyped as being ignorant, lazy, and dirty. They also faced severe anti-Catholic prejudices. Partially due to the hostility they faced, the Irish cultivated a strong cultural identity in America, developing neighborhood newspapers, strong Catholic churches, political groups, and societies.

Although most Irish had a rough start in America, many eventually improved their position by acquiring small amounts of property. The Irish eventually controlled the police department in New York City, driving around in police vans called “paddy wagons.”

In the 1820s and 1830s, state constitutions were revised to permit universal white-male suffrage, and as a group, the Irish found their way into American politics and were able to exert a remarkable political influence. They primarily followed the Democrats and Andrew Jackson, who was the son of an Irish colonist. Irish votes enabled Jackson to defeat John Quincy Adams in the election of 1828. By the turn of the twentieth century, the Irish had established political machines such as New York’s “Tammany Hall” and virtually ran the municipal government in and around New York.

During the eighteenth century, many Germans moved to America in response to William Penn’s offer of free religious expression and cheap land in Pennsylvania. Consequently, when a new wave of Germans immigrated to America starting in the 1830s, there were already enclaves of Germans in the United States. Between 1830 and 1860, more than 1.5 million Germans migrated to American soil. Many of them were farmers, but many were also cultured, educated, professional people who were displaced by the failed democratic revolution in Germany in 1848.

In contrast to the Irish, the Germans possessed modest amounts of material things and, as a result, were able to afford to settle in rural areas in the Midwest, such as Ohio and Wisconsin. They often migrated in families or groups, enabling them to sustain the German language and culture in their new environments. The German communities preserved traditions of abundant food, beer, and music consumption. Their culture contributed to the American way of life with such things as the Christmas tree and Kindergarten (children’s garden), but their cultural differences often garnered suspicion from their “native” American neighbors.

America had always been a land of immigrants, but for many American “natives,” the large influx of immigrants in the 1840s and 1850s posed a threat of unknown languages and customs. Some Americans feared that foreigners would outnumber them and eventually overrun the country. The natives saw the mass settlements of Irish and German Catholics as a threat to their hard-won religious and political liberties. This hostility rekindled the spirit of European religious wars, resulting in several armed clashes between Protestants and Catholics.

In 1849, nativists formed a group in New York called the “Order of the Star Spangled Banner,” which developed into a political party called the “American Party.” When asked about the organization, members refused to identify themselves saying, “I know nothing,” which eventually led the group to be labeled the “Know-Nothing” Party. The anti-Catholic group won many elections up until the 1850s, when the anti-Catholic movement subsided and slavery became the focal issue of the time. Throughout this critical growth period in America, immigrants were helping to form the United States into one of the most ethnically and racially diverse societies in the history of the world.