Immigration History

Learn about Immigration history with these old magazine articles. Find information on immigration in the 1920s.

A Fiscal Report on the Immigrants of 1911 (America Magazine, 1912)

This is a short notice concerning which of the prominent immigrant groups were the poorest and the richest in the year 1911 – and from which nations did they originate.

Of the arrivals during the fiscal year, 1.6 percent were debarred from entering this country. Special mention is made of the fact that immigrants from Canada carried the greatest amount per capita, and those crossing the Mexican border brought with them the least money.

A Fiscal Report on the Immigrants of 1911 (America Magazine, 1912) Read More »

H.L. Mencken on Immigration (The Smart Set, 1921)

This article from THE SMART SET was published at a time when America was marking the three-hundredth anniversary of the Puritan arrival at Cape Cod and written by H.L. Mencken with his characteristic sense of hopelessness, this small piece remarks that (up to that point in time) immigrants to America were all cut from the same Puritan cloth. The Puritan has been a reoccurring figure in America

and will not die out…until the delusion of moral perfection is lost and forgotten.

H.L. Mencken on Immigration (The Smart Set, 1921) Read More »

The Foreign-Born Population in the Early ’30s (Pathfinder Magazine, 1932)

A brief notice from the 1930 Census reporting on that percentage of the United States population that was born on foreign shores. Within the confines of this small paragraph some details were provided as to how many arrived prior to 1900, how many between 1901 and 1910; 1911 and 1919; 1920 and 1930. Additional information appears concerning the assorted racial make-up of these new American and how many of them originated from both quota and non-quota nations.

The Foreign-Born Population in the Early ’30s (Pathfinder Magazine, 1932) Read More »