The twenties, thirties, and especially the forties (the period of the Great Irish Famine and abortive revolution on the continent) were marked by a large foreign immigration, principally Irish and German. The former dug the canals, then remained to build the railroads, and finally settled in large numbers in the urban centers. The Germans provided skilled workers and professional people and became a stimulus to an expanding cultural life.

The detailed history of the political strife of the period is characterized by the multiplication of factional groups brought about by conflicts of personalities, interests, and issues.  The Native American Party gave expression to anti-foreign, anti-Catholic sentiment in the State, caused mainly by the economic pressure arising from the new immigration.

In the Civil War period industrial capitalism was introduced, with machine production, absentee ownership, corporate management, and the wage laborer. The railroads brought the raw materials to the industrial centers and carried away the finished products; the canals declined in importance, and many an inland port, once bustling and prosperous, became a sleepy milk station and a Saturday-afternoon shopping center for farmers. The factories attracted young people from the country, and the cities grew rapidly at the expense of the rural areas. Later, as the heavy industries moved closer to the sources of raw materials, New York State turned to the manufacture of intermediate products and consumers' goods.

In the recent past the State gained new industries resulting from scientific advance, especially the production of radio equipment, electrical supplies, chemicals, and airplanes. New York City became the center of the Nation's banking, finance, and wholesale and retail merchandising; and Wall Street became the barometer, and to a growing extent the control center, of the Nation's business. In recent years the city has developed into the greatest seaport in the world. While agriculture in the State remained economically important, its character changed; cultivation of grain was superseded by dairying and the growing of fruits and vegetables for markets close at hand. Thus the wealth of the State today, unsurpassed in the Union, is securely founded on eminence in specialized agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce.

Urbanization and industrialization created problems that became the political issues of the post-Civil War period. In the late seventies bad harvests in Ireland drove thousands of Irish to New York. In the eighties began a stream of immigration, ending only with the World War, that brought new racial elements in large numbers to the State--Italians, Poles, Russians, and others, all from southern and eastern Europe-- and that created new problems in economics and citizenship. The growing cities needed workers to lay streets, sidewalks, and sewers and to construct water, light, power, and rapid transit systems. Politicians in control of political machines were able, in granting contracts and franchises, to enrich themselves by betraying the public interest to the contractor or the public-utility promoter. Through the boss, Big Business controlled politics. The temptation of proffered graft was too strong to be universally resisted by elected representatives. Tilden achieved national renown, and all but won the Presidency, as a result of his exposure of the Tweed Ring and the Canal Ring.

In the twentieth century the rapid development of machine industry and recurring cycle of prosperity and depression gave emphasis to another set of social problems; women and children in industry, conditions of work in factories, workmen's compensation, the rights and duties of organized labor, unemployment insurance, and old-age security. In many of these fields New York State legislation has served as a model for other states.

A) Ethnic Groups

When the Empire State was still New Netherland, the Colony already had representatives of a dozen European nationalities. The first settlers of Fort Orange, now Albany, were French speaking Walloons. Rensselaerswyck, the great patroonship on the Hudson, recruited its leaseholders from among the Norwegians, Danes, Germans, Scots, and Irish as well as Hollanders. English from Connecticut settled in the lower Hudson Valley in 1642, and others from the same colony and from Massachusetts Bay established themselves in the eastern half of Long Island. On Manhattan the pioneer Dutch element was soon swamped under a babel of tongues, races, and creeds, which included a group of 23 Jewish voyagers, come to New Amsterdam from Brazil. In 1644 Father Isaac Jogues was informed that 18 different languages were represented in the population of Manhattan and its environs.

After the British took over New Amsterdam in 1664, large numbers of English and Welsh arrived and settled on the southern tip of Manhattan and on Staten Island. Labor scarcity and high wages encouraged the importation of Negro slaves; by 1700 New York had 6,000 slaves in a total population of 40,000.

The largest mass migration of the Colonial period was that of the German Palatines, a small group of whom settled on the site of Newburgh in 1708-9. Two years later the British Government, adopting the plan of Governor Robert Hunter, subsidized the settlement of about 2,000 of them in the Hudson Valley to produce pitch, tar, and turpentine; but the entire undertaking was badly handled. After they were thrown on their own resources in September 1712, most of the settlers remained in the Hudson Valley, some of them on the Livingston estate; others scattered to New Jersey and Pennsylvania; and several hundred settled in the Schoharie and Mohawk Valleys, extending the New York frontier westward and northward.

Generally speaking, immigration into the Province of New York during the first half of the eighteenth century was discouraged by the threat of French and Indian raids, by the wider religious freedom offered by other colonies, and by the prevailing system of large land grants to political favorites, which narrowly restricted the opportunity of new settlers to acquire title to farms. Small numbers of Scotch-Irish, Germans, and New Englanders, however, formed precarious settlements along the upper waters of the Susquehanna and the Delaware, where they bore the brunt of the Indian attacks. After the close of the French and Indian War and the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, permanent communities were established in the central part of the State.

The Revolution brought immigration almost to a standstill. The Irish welcomed the war as an opportunity to strike back at their historic oppressor; the Germans, while they fought as valiantly--witness Oriskany--did their share not so much from revolutionary zeal as from the desire to protect their farms and homes.

As soon as the peace treaty was signed, American land agents launched a vigorous publicity campaign in Europe to attract settlers. Preference was shown for the " bold and adventurous spirit of the Irish, Scotch and English and the patient, laborious and persevering genius of the Germans." British subjects traveled in American ships to circumvent the obstructions placed in
the way of emigration by the employing classes in England, who saw in this "flagrant seduction" a threat to their own cheap labor market. A number of Portugese, Spanish, and French refugees from oppression in the West Indies added to the variety of nationalities.

While this new influx in the labor market eased its economic justification, the institution of Negro slavery was further weakened by the aggressive denunciation of the Quakers. Legislature was forced to pass an act, effective in 1827, prohibiting slavery in the State.

When canal-building in the twenties and thirties increased the demand for labor, experienced Irish canal-diggers responded in droves, entering the State by way of Canada as well as through the port of New York. They swung picks and shovels, lived in leaky-roofed shanties, and worshipped God with missionary priests. Although wages as low as 50 cents a day fell short of what was promised, and although in numberless cases men were defrauded of their pay and discharged without cause, it has been said that " the wild Irish behaved better than Revolutionary soldiers on the march." By 1840 they had channeled the State with 13 canals totaling more than 900 miles; and from canal-building they turned to railroad construction. But they did more than dig ditches and lay rails; they " were working on the foundations of three Episcopal sees, were choosing sites for five hundred churches, were opening the interior of the State to the empire of religion, as well as of commerce."

Beginning about 1840, additional hordes of Irish, fleeing the great potato famine at home, came to the American shore. Between 1847 and 1860 more than 1,000,000 Irish immigrants passed through the port of New York. Many thousands of them settled in New York City to work as teamsters, day laborers, streetcar conductors, and shipyard mechanics. Others pushed up the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys to the brick kilns at Haverstraw, the iron works and quarries at Saugerties, and the mills and factories in Albany, Troy, and Utica.

In the same period other nationals poured in from revolution-torn Europe. Italians fleeing from abortive revolts against Austria started coming as early as 1820; political refugees spilled out of Hungary and Germany by the ill-fated revolutions of 1848 came in shiploads during the fifties. In the three-year period of 1852-4, upward of 500,000 Germans landed in America.

The ebb and flow of immigration was, however, influenced by social, political, and economic conditions in this country as well as by those in Europe. During prosperous time in America the Europeans were invited, and welcomed; but during periods of depression conflicts of interest and prejudice came to the surface, and the "foreigner" was blamed for every misery and hardship. To the "native" worker enduring a falling standard of living he was an economic threat; to the aristocracy of landlords and lawyers he was a political threat. As the Protestant newcomers were absorbed, the Roman Catholics were left in conspicuous isolation; and they therefore served as the target of the strong nativist movement in the State. In 1834 the New York Protestant Association was formed and two years later, in Brooklyn, stirred up an anti-Catholic agitation that was marked by the destruction of churches and other property of Roman Catholics. In 1843 the Native American party elected James Harper, mayor of New York City, after a campaign in which crowds paraded on the streets with banners bearing the slogan "No Popery". Subsequently the party extended its activities to cover the entire State and broadened its aims to retain for the "native" American his power and position threatened by immigrants schooled in European ideologies. See Native American Party (Know-Nothings) * (W.P.A.)

Native American Party (Know-Nothings)

In American history, a secret political party or society, which after 1852 suddenly gained the ascendancy in several States, and then as rapidly declined. Its work was closely allied with the movement of the "American" and "Nativist" parties, and it aimed, through very stringent naturalization laws, to make politically powerless the large number of immigrants then settling in the United States, and through other means to check the growth of foreign influences and ideas. A decade earlier the American Party had shown strength in New York City, and after the Democratic victory of 1843, which resulted in many local offices being given to the foreign-born, the native Americans carried the city election of April, 1844. In the fall of the same year both New York and Philadelphia gave Nativist majorities, but three years later the party had disappeared in the former city.

 The Twenty-ninth Congress had six Nativist members, while the Thirtieth had only one. The Irish famine and the revolutionary movements in Europe during 1848 and 1849, with the reaction thereafter, occasioned a greatly increased immigration, and caused a reappearance of the Nativist movement in the form of a secret society variously known as "The Sons of '76," or " The Supreme Order of the Star Spangled Banner," which was primarily opposed to immigration and the spread of Catholicism in America, and the members of which, upon being questioned about their order, uniformly replied "I don't know." The party which came to be organized, and which from the above circumstance was popularly called the "Know-Nothing Party," conducted its work in profound secrecy, holding secret conventions, and often so casting its vote as to make it an indeterminate quantity in many elections. In the State elections of 1854, the party carried Massachusetts and Delaware. In New York it polled more than 120,000 votes, and it also showed strength in the Middle States. In 1855 it was successful in four New England States, and in New York, Kentucky, and California.* (N.I.E.)

Ethnic Groups In New York State  (continue)

As successive waves of immigration broke over the State, nativism began to lose its effectiveness, despite the partial success of the Know-Nothing Party in 1852. By 1860 the two powerful nativist parties were swallowed by the Republicans and Democrats. From then on Catholics led more peaceful lives, and "No Irish Need Apply" signs disappeared from employment offices. Another factor that helped to put the quietus on the Nativist movement was the rise of the capitalist employer, to whom cheap labor meant more profits, and more immigrants meant more cheap labor.

Immigration during the 40 years before the World War was made up predominantly of Italians and Greeks and the peoples of the Slavic countries of eastern Europe: Poles, Lithuanians and Letts, Roumanians, Russians, and Russian Jews. These filled the steerages of westbound ships and were filtered through Ellis Island. Only the war and subsequent immigration restrictions checked what was one of the largest mass population movements in history. Many of these newcomers, especially the Italians, regarded coming to America as a temporary adventure from which they would return home with pockets full of money. Some did carry out that plan, but the vast majority became rooted in the new world.

In the upstate area, the older Irish and German stocks are completely assimilated. The Irish have made the political field largely their own; the Germans are mechanics, brewers, and bakers; both are well represented in the professions and have played a conspicuous part in civil and commercial life.

The flood of Italian immigration reached its crest in 1907, when 300,000 passed through the port of New York. They settled mainly along the water-level route from New York City to Buffalo. In Rome they make up the bulk of mill hands employed in the large brass and copper plants. Another group, cultivating the black muckland at the city's southern border, produce tomatoes, celery, and onions in wholesale quantities. In Utica, where they occupy a distinct district, they are principally knitting mill workers. In Syracuse they dominate the city's north side and are employed in the steel mills, chemical plants, and clothing factories. Rochester's 55,000 Italians, less compact as a racial group than those in other cities, work in many industries, including clothing and shoe manufacture. Buffalo's 80,000 Italians, predominantly of Sicilian extraction, are represented in almost every type of commercial endeavor and share with the Poles the heavy labor in steel mills and iron foundries.

The Poles have always sought the centers of heavy industry like the steel mills and iron foundries in Syracuse and Buffalo. The latter city has 187,000 Poles, the largest Polish community in the State and the second largest in America. The Russians began to come in large numbers after the Russo-Japanese War and the abortive revolution of 1905, and reached a peak in 1913. They toiled for small pay and absorbed little of the language or customs of their adopted country. Russian Jews, on the other hand, adjusted themselves to the commercial tempo of America with amazing ease. Successive generations, educated in American schools, have attained high place in the State's commercial, industrial, political, and professional life.

Each nationality, while attempting to keep alive its racial heritage, has contributed its share to our American culture. Racial differences have broken down considerably, and today men and women whose ancestry reach back into almost every European nation partake in a common economic and political life.

Public Welfare

Mass immigration in the nineteenth century brought in its wake grave problems of public health and poor relief. Large numbers of immigrants needed medical care upon landing; many were poverty-stricken; others were done out of their meager savings by thieves and swindlers. Without friend or funds, they soon found themselves drawn into the slums or the poorhouse, or were obliged to engage in the meanest forms of work for low wages and under conditions that exposed them to vice, disease, and death. Alarmed by the growing hordes of indigent aliens, poor-law officials demanded State and Federal legislation to protect local communities. In 1847 a State board was created to help and advise newcomers and to reimburse local communities for immigrant relief. Funds for this purpose came out of head taxes and indemnity bonds imposed on immigrants. The agitation against "alien pauperism" culminated in 1882 in an act of Congress regulating immigration and containing a provision intended to exclude persons likely to become public charges.

NEW YORK CITY


The city is a cluster of ethnic groups and with the passing of the years, many Old World customs have been lost. Foreign white residents in the city in 1930 numbered 5,082,025, . Of these the Italians led with 1,070,355 and were followed by the Russians (mostly Jews) with 945,072, the Germans with 600,084, the Irish with 535,034, the Poles with 458,381, and other groups trailing off into relatively small numbers. There are approximately 2,000,000 Jews in New York; a 1927 estimate gave 1,765,000.

The Lower East Side stretches along the east of Chinatown, from Brooklyn Bridge to 14th street. With the Bowery, the East Side is a notorious slum district. Here are tens of thousands of Jews and Italians, thousands of Poles, Greeks, Russians, Spaniards, Lithuanians and a scattering of Turks, Persians, and Chinese, a concentrated melting pot of the Nation's immigrants.

Harlem, was once a district of quiet farms where lived a few Hollanders, French Huguenots, Danes, Swedes, and Germans. Between 1830 and 1880 the railroad and rapid transit lines reached it and worked a miracle of transformation. For three decades the Germans were the dominant element, with the Irish ranking second. The immigration waves of the 1880's and 1890's brought in Jews and Italians. Then the Negroes began to come in--from downtown, from the South, from the West Indies, from Africa.

There are three Harlems: Negro, Spanish and Italian---half a million people crowded into the largest slum area in New York. The Harlem River Houses, a large-scale modern housing development, accentuate the urgent needs of the community. In Negro Harlem, the Negroes practice their professions and enjoy comparative freedom from oppression and prejudice. Spanish Harlem clusters around the 110th Street station of the Lexington Avenue subway. The population is about 120,000 of whom 85 percent are Puerto Rican. During the World War they settled here because of low rents and freedom from racial discrimination. Italian Harlem, bordering the East River opposite Ward's and Randall's Islands, has a population of 150,000 living in an area of one square mile, the most densely populated section of Manhattan. It is the largest colony of Italian-Americans in the country.

The Bronx , has 1,385,777 people on its 41.4 square miles. As late as 1850 its population, largely German, was but 8,000. Annexation of West Bronx to New York in 1874 and of East Bronx in 1895 encouraged development. Hordes of immigrants from the East Side of Manhattan, seeking more commodious quarters, moved in. In 1938 half the population was Jewish, the remainder a
medley of other national groups.

In Brooklyn 2,660,479 people are crammed into an area of 81 square miles. The Flatbush, Shore Road, and Bay Ridge neighborhoods are occupied by the more prosperous elements of the community; Bay Ridge has a colony of Scandinavians; Brownsville is Jewish, Ridgewood German, the southern end Italian; Red Hook has a variety of national groups, largely Syrian and Arabian; the Irish and Poles are scattered.*(W.P.A.)