In the mid-1880's, some states sent agents to Europe to attract settlers. Railroad companies did the same thing. Better conditions on ships and steep declines in travel time and fares made the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean easier and more affordable. In the mid-1800's news of the discovery of gold in California reached China. Chinese immigrants and sojourners streamed across the Pacific to strike it rich. Sojourners were temporary immigrants who intended to make money and return home. French-Canadian immigrants and sojourners opened still another path to the United States. They moved across the Canadian-U.S. border into the New England states and Michigan.
The flood of immigrants began to alarm many native born Americans. Some feared job competition from foreigners. Others disliked the religion or politics of the newcomers. During the 1850's, the America Party, also called the Know-Nothing Party, demanded laws to reduce immigration and to make it harder for foreigners to become citizens. Although the part soon died out, it reflected the serious concerns of some Americans.
During the 1870's, the U. S. economy suffered a depression while that of Germany and Britain improved. German and British immigration to the Untied States then decreased. But arrivals increased from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, China, Canada, and southern and eastern Europe. In 1875, the United States passed its first restrictive immigration law. It prevented convicts and prostitutes from entering the country. During the late 1870's, Californians demanded laws to keep out Chinese immigrants. In some instances, mobs attacked Chinese immigrants, who were accused of lowering wages and unfair business competition. They were also denounced as inassimilable and as racially inferior.
The third wave was from 1881 to 1920. Almost 23 million immigrants poured into the United States from almost every area of the world. Until the 1880's, most newcomers still came from northern and western Europe. They came to be called old immigrants. Beginning in the 1890's, the majority of arrivals were new immigrants, people from southern and eastern Europe. (Source: The World Book Encyclopedia, Volume 10, Page 82).
More and more native-born Americans believed the swelling flood of immigrants threatened the nation's unity. Hostility which had boiled over against the Chinese in the 1870's now turned against Jews, Roman Catholics, Japanese, and, finally, the new immigrants in general.
In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited Chinese laborers from coming to the United States. That year Congress also began to expand its list of unacceptable immigrants beyond convicts and prostitutes to include such people as beggars, contract laborers, the insane, and unaccompanied minors. A 1917 law required adult immigrants to show they could read and write. The law also excluded immigrants from an area known as the Asiatic Barred Zone, which covered most of Asia and most islands in the Pacific. (Source: The World Book Encyclopedia, Volume 10, Page 82).