Immigration

During the late eighteenth century and early to mid nineteenth century, there was a mass exodus of people from Europe, China, Japan, Canada and the West Indies moving into the United States. This was a time for growth in the United States, often referred to as the Industrial Age. Skilled and unskilled labor was plentiful; however, the wage was scarce. Some of the jobs that the immigrants had were Coal Mining, Construction, and

manual labor. These were the major jobs they had, all of them were hard jobs that they didn't get paid good money for. The average immigrant worker would receive $1.25 a day or $6.25 a week which, would work out to be 30 cents an hour. Most immigrants lived with each other in a group until they had a job and were able to afford to live on their own.

American workers had to worry about was the increasing addition of immigrants into the country. The majority of these immigrants were from countries such as Europe, Asia and Mexico. These new American inhabitants were a threat to the already working American citizens. They were generally desperate for any job they could get their hands on and would do whatever it took to do just that. They heard that the conditions in the United States were superior to those in their own country and traveled a long way to make a better life for themselves. The immigrants were so used to the terrible conditions and pay they were receiving in their homeland they were content with working for whatever they could in America. Industrial employers actively recruited immigrant workers under the Labor Contract Law. The high number of immigrants was not solely negative. They also introduced customs from their country and formed sort of a melting pot with the other foreign workers. However, the American workers resented the migrants.

Immigration was such a problem that Congress even completely banned one particular ethnic group, the Chinese. When the Chinese Exclusion Act was first passed, it was vetoed by Hayes. But when he was no longer in power, it was ratified in 1882. Due to these exclusions and bans on immigration on foreigners, the American Industrial workers were not as threatened with their job security. They would have more chances to obtain the jobs they wanted at reasonable prices such realizations also gave birth to the Kearnyites who were Irish that reacted upon the rapid number of Chinese Immigration.

The Peak Years of immigration occurred between the years