Volume 4, No. 1 (Fall 2000) -- Ellis Island/Immigration Issue

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Though most Americans view the United States as a white European nation, the result of continuous European migration since the 17th century, we now understand that European immigration was only one stage in the peopling of the American continent. From the 1820s through the 1990s, two-thirds of the nearly 65 million immigrants to the United States came from Europe. By 1965, however, less than half of the immigrants came from Europe; by the 1990s, it was less than 10 percent.

During the period when European immigration dominated, the source of immigrants changed. In the first two-thirds of the 19th century, most immigrants came from Ireland, Germany and Great Britain. In the 1880s a permanent shift occurred. In 1882, the peak year of the "old immigration," 87 percent of the immigrants came from Ireland, Germany, Great Britain, Scandinavia, Switzerland and Holland. In 1907, the peak year of the "new immigrants," 81 percent of immigrants came from Italy, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Greece, Rumania and Turkey. From the 1820s to World War II, Germany provided 16 percent of immigrants, Ireland 12 percent, Italy 12 percent, Austria-Hungary 12 percent, Great Britain 11 percent, Russia 10 percent, and Scandinavia 5 percent.

European conditions influenced the stream of migrants. Poor harvests and famine sent millions of Irish, Swedes and some Germans to the United States in the 1830s and after. In the 1840s, political upheaval sent more Germans across the ocean, and a steady flow of religious dissenters came at all times. Limited economic opportunities in Europe sent tens of millions of peasants, small farmers, craftsmen and unskilled workers, men and women alike, both as individuals and families, to America. Ethnic and religious minorities including Jews from Eastern Europe, Poles and Germans from Russia, Macedonians from the Balkans, Czechs and Bohemians from Austria-Hungary found freedom in the United States. All founded settlements in Kansas.

European immigrants have left both negative and positive legacies. From their first appearance in the New World, European immigrants had little respect for the environment and less respect for the indigenous inhabitants, Native Americans. Europeans left on this land the stain of slavery. They also brought European ethnic and racial ideas and conflict and religious intolerance. Yet they have left a more positive mark as well. The English gave us their language, the Irish personalized politics, the Germans gave our cities a cosmopolitan air. Later, the new immigrants built and transformed an industrial, modern country, and made it into a polyglot, multicultural nation.

Brown Quarterly Wins KPW and NFPW Contest Awards The editor of the Brown Quarterly, Grace L. Wilson, earned first place (newsletters) in the Kansas Press Women "Communications Contest 2000" and second place in the National Press Women contest in Anchorage, Alaska in September. The state judge commented: "This entry includes three absolutely wonderful issues...which should be essential reading for all students...[it] is an excellent example of why and how multicultural issues can be brought to life in classrooms across the United States."