May 24, 2013

Immigration Pathfinder

Encyclopedia Britannica:
http://www.school.eb.com/failedlogin?target=/- Starting with a general encyclopedia can help you narrow your topic.  Enter your search terms, read the entries and take notes to help you focus in on your topic.

Immigration to the United States:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/learn/features/immig/introduction.html – links to various immigrant groups are the pictures on the left column.  Includes a cookbook (click the potluck) link with recipes and stories from people around the U.S.

http://library.thinkquest.org/20619/Intro.html – Learn about several groups who immigrated to the United States (English, Italian, Irish, Chinese, Africans, German, Japanese and Jewish).

http://www.cis.org/ – The Center for Immigration Studies conducts research and provides policy analysis of the economic, social, demographic, fiscal, and other impacts of immigration on the United States.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/cea_immigration_062007.pdf – Document explaining government’s view of current immigration.

http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/ – Search for historical information from past US Census reports.

http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html – Use the US Census population clock to learn the current estimates of the population and the demographics.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html – The World Fact Book with current information about the population of the U.S.

 

Ellis Island:

http://www.ellisisland.org/ – Search for a specific passenger, read stories from immigrants, attempt to pass the citizenship test and more at this site.

http://www.ellisislandimmigrants.org/ – read about the history of Ellis Island, search for an ancestor, access records from other countries, and view the Ellis Island timeline.

The table below includes some information about different groups who immigrated to the United States but it is not complete.  As you learn about your focus population, please let me know so that I can complete this table.
Some major immigration movements to the United States:

Origin Time Frame How Many?
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Ireland 1840-50 ~1.5 million
Germany 1840-80 ~ 4 million
Holland, Norway & Sweden 1870-1900 ~ 1.5 million
Poland 1880-1920 ~ 1 million
Eastern Europe (Jews) 1880-1920 ~ 2.5 million
Austria, Czechaslovakia, Hungary 1880-1920 ~ 4 million
Italy 1880-1920 ~ 4.5 million
Mexico 1910-1920

1950-1990

 ~ 700,000

~5 million
Cuba,Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Jamaica 1960-1980 ~ 1,600,000
Viet Nam 1970-1980 ~ 500,000