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No Irish Need Apply
Immigrants came to New York in the 1800s from many different places and for many different reasons. English, French, and Germans fled poverty and looked for opportunity. But mostly they came from Ireland and for the simplest of reasons: they were starving to death. The potato crop was failing, and English masters were taxing away their money. America seemed their only hope. -
the first wave of immagrants
Big things were happening in Europe during the mid-1800s. In Germany, a revolution failed. In Ireland, the potato famine was wreaking havoc. Across the rest of the continent, the economy was changing. Big landowners pushed peasants off their land. New factories made craftsmen obsolete. Where would the unwanted, sometimes starving millions -
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immagration
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The Second Wave Of Immagrants
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. -
Looking Back
Children's roof playground at Ellis Island Children's roof playground at Ellis Island
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Interviewed late in life, Tessie Croce remembered the day she came to the United States from Italy as if it were yesterday, though she was only 15-years-old at the time. After weeks in third-class steerage, she arrived at Ellis Island with her mother, her aunt, and her grandmother. -
New Immagration
In 1965, the Hart-Cellar Act, an immigration law that favored opening up United States' borders to immigrants with skills, was passed. It was the most radical change to federal immigration policy since 1924, when immigration was made more difficult. In the 1970s, 800,000 immigrants came to New York City. In the 1980s, one million more came. And in 1992 alone, 120,000 newcomers called New York home. By the late '90s more than one third of all New Yorkers were born outside the United States. The i