The Old World in the New: The Significance of Past and Present Immigration to the American PeopleCentury Company, 1914 - 325 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
aliens Amer American Austria-Hungary ballot become blood Bohemian born boss Boston boys Celt cent charity Chicago chil church cities citizens civic Cleveland colonies coun crime Croatian dren drink Ellis Island England English Europe European farm farmers five foreign foreign-born friends German girls grants GRATION Greek half hand Hebrew Hibernian ican illiteracy immi immigrants industrial insanity Ireland Irish Italy Jewish Jews keep labor land leaders less Lithuanian living Magyars ment migration million miners Minnesota moral nationalities native American naturalized naturalized citizens never North Norway Norwegian parents peasant Photograph by Hine Pittsburgh Poles police Polish political population Portuguese proportion public school pupils quarter race Roumanian Russian Ruthenian saloon saloon-keeper says Scandinavian settlement Slavic Slavs Slovak social South Italians southern stream strike Swedes Syrians thousand tion United vote voters West wife woman women workers York
Popular passages
Page 18 - But during the voyage there is on board these ships terrible misery, stench, fumes, horror, vomiting, many kinds of seasickness, fever, dysentery, headache, heat, constipation, boils, scurvy, cancer, mouth-rot, and the like, all of which come from old and sharply salted food and meat, also from very bad and foul water, so that many die miserably.
Page 293 - That the Mediterranean peoples are morally below the races of northern Europe is as certain as any social act.
Page 7 - Virginia early complained that "it hurteth to suffer Parents to disburden themselves of lascivious sonnes, masters of bad servants and wives of ill husbands, and so clogge the business with such an idle crue, as did thrust themselves in the last voiage, that will rather starve for hunger, than lay their hands to labor.
Page 69 - What a glorious new Scandinavia might not Minnesota become ! Here would the Swede find again his clear, romantic lakes, the plains of Scania rich in corn, and the valleys of Norrland ; here would the Norwegian find his rapid rivers, his lofty mountains, for I include the Rocky Mountains and Oregon in the new kingdom ; and both nations their hunting-fields and their fisheries. The Danes might here pasture their flocks and herds, and lay out their farms on richer and less misty coasts than those of...
Page 69 - Scandinavians who are well off in the old country ought not to leave it. But such as are too much contracted at home, and who desire to emigrate, should come to Minnesota. The climate, the situation, the character of the scenery, agrees with our people better than that of any other of the American States...
Page 72 - I must needs commend their respect to authority, and kind behaviour to the English; they do not degenerate from the old friendship between both kingdoms. As they are people proper and strong of body, so they have fine children, and almost every house full; rare to find one of them without three or four boys and as many girls; some, six, seven and eight sons. And I must do them that right; I see few young men more sober and laborious.
Page 276 - If the immigrant is neither debauched nor misled, but votes his opinions, is he then an element of strength to us ? When a people has reached such a degree of political likemindedness that fundamentals are taken for granted, it is free to tackle new questions as they come up. But if it admits to citizenship myriads of strangers who have not yet passed the civic kindergarten, questions that were supposed to be settled are reopened.
Page 286 - ... in their gatherings, washed, combed, and in their Sunday best. You are struck by the fact that from ten to twenty per cent, are hirsute, low-browed, big-faced persons of obviously low mentality. Not that they suggest evil. They simply look out of place in black clothes and stiff collar, since clearly they belong in skins, in wattled huts at the close of the great ice age.
Page 113 - Steerage passengers from a Naples boat show a distressing frequency of low foreheads, open mouths, weak chins, poor features, skew faces, small or knobby crania, and backless heads. Such people lack the power to take rational care of themselves; hence their death-rate in New York is twice the general death-rate and thrice that of the Germans.