Introduction

The history of American immigration is one that can be categorized as a unique experience for each participant. However, most immigrants encountered very similar situations when immigrating to the United States. Many immigrant groups left their home countries for reasons alike, and also experienced continual discrimination by nativists when they first arrived. To the nativits, immigrants were viewed as stupid, poor, dirty and were tied to many other negative connotations. As immigration continued to rise and more and more foreigners were entering the country, nativists had no choice but to learn to accept the immigrant in America. Despite the vast influx of immigration in the 1800s & 1900s, the way different immigrant groups adapted to American life, and essentially what they did when they got here vary greatly. For example, the Italians and Germans both immigrated to America from Europe nevertheless not all of them had the shared the same experience. Although at times these two immigrant groups shared similarities in the prejudices and negative responses from nativits, it is clear that their experiences within their new world were vastly different.

Coming to America - German Immigration

In contrast to the Italians, Germans began to immigrate to America in increased volumes in the early 1700s because they were often being attacked by various nations. “By 1745 there were an estimated 45,000 Germans living in Pennsylvania alone.” (1) By the 1800s Germans were still immigrating in large numbers.

Germans emigrated to the U.S. en masse in the 1840s and 1850s when about 434,600, then nearly 951,000 arrived. After a falling off emigration in the 1860s and 1870s, nearly a million and a half Germans arrived in the U.S. in the 1880s. This emigration fell sharply in the 1980s, partly because German industrial development created a vast demand for labor at home. (2)

However unlike most German immigrants reasons for leaving differed from those who had travelled to America earlier. Leslie Moch in her book Moving Europeans states that modernization and population growth were major benefactors in Germans choice to immigrate.

Modernization and population growth forced many Germans from their respective family businesses. Also, modernization made immigrating more convenient and faster with inventions such as the steamboat and steam train. Many Germans took long, complicated, but cheap routes through Great Britain by way of train and boat to get to the United States. (3)

Upon entering the United States the Germans tended to settle away from the cities and develop communities within the countryside, unlike Italians who established themselves within urban areas. Nevertheless when they did remain in urban areas it was not uncommon for them live amongst themselves. These communities allowed them to succeed in their skilled labors and work.

In cities, Germans would cluster together to form communities not unlike the Chinese Chinatowns. These replications of Germany would house prominent German businesses such as the lager beer industry. German entrepreneurs such as bakers, butchers, cabinetmakers, cigar makers, distillers, machinists, and tailors also could be found in abundance in these "Miniature-Germany" towns. German women, however, were less likely than the average American woman to enter the labor force. Very few German women could be found holding jobs in a factory, or as a clerk. Instead, they sought after work as bakers, domestic workers, hotel keepers, janitors, laundry workers, nurses, peddlers, saloon keepers, and tailors. (4)

1. http://library.thinkquest.org/20619/German.html 
2. http://library.thinkquest.org/20619/German.html 
3. Moch, Leslie Page. Moving Europeans. Pg 148.
4. http://library.thinkquest.org/20619/German.html 

Coming to America - Italian Immigration

Unlike the Germans, Italians migrated in mass numbers to the United States in the early 1900s. At the time when the immigration of other nationalities began to slow down, there was an influx in the amount of Italians entering the country.

By 1920, when immigration began to taper off, more than 4 million Italians had come to the United States, and represented more than 10 percent of the nation’s foreign-born population. (1)

Italians, like other immigrant groups settled predominantly in urban areas, but in contrast tended to interject themselves among other immigrant groups rather than clustering together.

As in many other places in the world, Italians in America clustered into groups related to their place of origin. For example, the Neapolitans and Sicilians settled in different parts of New York, and even people from different parts of Sicily settled on different streets. However, what seldom occurred in U.S. were Italians enclaves, or all-Italians neighborhoods. The Italians would disperse themselves in other immigrant groups, such as, the Irish, the Jews, the Germans, and the Poles, while remaining in their clusters. (2)

Italian immigrants living conditions were harsh and tended to be overcrowded. This made them easily susceptible to disease. In order to save money Italian immigrants often forwent food.

The living conditions for the Italians tended to be over crowded and filthy all over the U.S.. Italian laborers also tended to skimp on food in a desperate attempt to save money. However, after time and new generations of Italians, the dirtiness of their homes disappeared along with the complaint of weak Italians from lack of nutrition. (3)

1. http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/italian3.html
2. http://library.thinkquest.org/20619/Italian.html
3. http://library.thinkquest.org/20619/Italian.html

German Labor & Living Conditions

After immigrating to America, German men took jobs that catered to their skills as opposed to engaging in manual labor as other immigrant groups did. "Germans were prominent as bakers, butchers, cabinetmakers, cigar makers, distillers, machinists, and tailors"(1) German women often never entered the work force and instead tended to matters at home or helped with the family business. "Many women worked either in the family-owned business or businesses in the German American community"(2)

As opposed to other immigrant groups, Germans took more time to break the language barrier. Much of this had to do with their tendencies to settle in rural areas. Because the Germans were not exposed to the native language as frequently as others, the time it took them to learn English, especially women,  were slower than those immigrant groups who lived in urban areas.  Alan Krout in his book The Huddle Masses quotes one resident of Wisconsin saying 

“Very few of the Germans in the town understood a word of English. Because men generally had more contact with the outside, English-speaking community , they often mastered English before women in rural America." (3)

1. Daniels, Rodger. Coming to America. Pg.150
2. Daniels, Rodger. Coming to America. Pg.150
3. Kraut, Alan M. The Huddled Masses Pg. 130

Italian Immigrant Labor

When coming to America, Italians had a good work ethic but limited education. Many were also illiterate and did not know the English language. This caused them to take labor jobs as opposed to the Germans who had certain skill sets. 

Arriving with strong backs, few skills, and little or no capital, most Italians turned to manual labor wherever they settled. In New York, Italian labor built the subways and bridges linking the boroughs. In 1879, over 75 percent of the workers on New York City construction projects were Italian. They rolled cigars by hand in Florida. They mined coal in Pennsylvania and Illinois. They groomed vineyards in California. On the prairies they laid the track linking coast to coast. Though many worked in factories, especially in New England textile mills and New York garment factories, most Italian males preferred working outdoors. Those Italian women who joined the work force took jobs as factory operatives. (1)

In addition, Italians replaced the Irish in construction jobs such as building railroads and paving streets. Many also became street vendors. “Other Italian occupations included vending. The pushcart became one of the stereotypes of Italian American life." (2)

1. Kraut, Alan M. The Huddled Masses Pg. 92
2. Daniels, Roger. Coming to America. Pg. 195 

German Religious Views

Religious views for German immigrants varied greatly. While the majority of Germans followed the Protestant and Lutheran faith, there were also some who were Catholic as well as Jewish.

Most German immigrants were Protestants, with Lutheranism by far the most numerous denomination; perhaps a third of German immigrants were Catholics, and perhaps 250,000 were Jews.(1)

However the Lutheran community within America was not welcomed by incoming immigrants.

Within the Lutheran community in the United States there was considerable friction. Nineteenth-century German Lutheran immigrants found that the existing German Lutheran churches in the United States had developed unwelcome tendencies.(2)

This was not the case for catholic Germans. Although they were accepted amongst the incoming, their small numbers were overcome by the Irish.

Catholic Germans were allowed national parishes but were swamped by the numbers of Irish immigrants in eastern dioceses, such as New York, where the clerical leadership was almost invariably Irish or Irish American.(3)

This caused a constant struggle between the Irish and Germans for power within the church. The liberal attitudes of German Catholics often conflicted with the attitudes of the conservative Irish.

In much of the Midwest, German and later German American bishops and eventually archbishops came to prevail, but in their struggles with the Irish and Irish American bishops for control of the American church, the Germans lost...The differences have come to be expressed primarily in social and political rather than doctrinal terms. As a rule German and German American prelates have been and are more liberal on social and political questions.(4)

1. Daniels, Rodger. Coming to America. Pg.153
2. Daniels, Rodger. Coming to America. Pg.153
3. Daniels, Rodger. Coming to America. Pg.153
4. Daniels, Rodger. Coming to America. Pg.153

Italian Religious Views

Catholicism was the predominant religion for Italian immigrants. However, their catholic faith differed greatly from that of other immigrant groups such as the Irish or the Germans.

 Although almost all Italian immigrants were and remained Catholics, their Catholicism was of a quite different nature than that of Irish and Polish Catholics on the one hand or German Catholics on the other. (1)

1. Daniels, Roger. Coming to America. Pg. 197 

Videos on Italian Immigrants

Italian Immigrant Stereotypes

Bibliography

Cordasco, Franceso. Assimilation of the Italian Immigrant. New York, Arno Press, 1975.

Cordasco, Franceso. Some Aspects of Italian Immigration to the United States. New York, Arno Press, 1975.

Daniels, Roger. Coming to America. New Jersey, Harper Collins Publishers, 2002.

King, Desmond. Making Americans. Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2000.

Kraut, Alan M. The Huddled Masses. Wheeling, Illinois., Harland Davidson Inc., 2001.

Moch, Leslie Page. Moving Europeans. Bloomington & Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 2003.

Ziegler-Mcpherson, Christina A. Americanization In The United States. Florida, University Press of Florida, 2009.