Big Apple History . Coming to America . The Second Wave of Immigrants


	Immigrants disembarking at Ellis Island

With their skills, education, and political beliefs, German immigrants often led the struggle for trade unions and government free of favoritism. Others became active in the politics of their own neighborhoods. They founded self-help schools, German-language libraries, orchestras, and community centers.

The flood began in the early 1880s and peaked in the first decade of the 20th century. Then, with World War I and the restrictive immigration laws of the early 1920s, it shrank to a trickle. But in those 40 or so years, the city -- the world! -- saw a mass movement of human beings like nothing it had seen before or since. It dwarfed even the great Irish and German immigration of the mid-19th century.

Where did they come from? And what brought them here? They came from almost every country in the world. But most came from Italy and the Russian Empire. They were Sicilian peasants pushed off the land by overpopulation, over-worked land, and falling farm prices. They were Jews from Eastern Europe fleeing poverty, oppression, and violence. They were desperate people escaping misery. They were ambitious people pursuing a dream of a better life, and New York was their number-one destination. Between 1880 and 1920, the foreign-born population in New York nearly tripled, from just over 700,000 to almost two million!

Illustration: Courtesy of Culver Pictures.