Chapter 1 Anation of Nations 1 -- Chapter 2 Why They Came 4 -- Chapter 3 Waves of Immigration-The Pre-Revolutionary Forces 10 -- Chapter 4 Waves of Immigration-The Post-Revolutionary Forces 17 -- Chapter 5 The Immigrant Contribution 64 -- Chapter 6 Immigration Policy 69 -- Chapter 7 Where We Stand 77 -- Appendix A The United States of America-A Nation of Immigrants 84 -- Appendix B Chronology of immigration 88 -- Appendix B-1 Major immigration policy...

Discover just how important the movement of people to and across the United States has been throughout the nations history. Helpful photographs, fact boxes, and a timeline bring all the aspects of immigration and migration in America into sharp focus--from the bustling days of Ellis Island to the current debates about these issues.

"The population of the United States has diverse sources: territorial acquisition through conquest and colonialism, the slave trade, and voluntary immigration, which has been the greatest instrument of population expansion and has been central to the transition in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from a rural-agricultural to an urban-industrial society. Recognition of the need for labor to develop and expand economic activity has been central...

"A sweeping history of the legislative battle to reform American immigration laws that set the stage for the immigration debates roiling America today. The idea of the United States as a nation of immigrants is today so pervasive, and seems so foundational, that it can be hard to believe Americans ever thought otherwise. But a 1924 law passed by Congress instituted a system of ethnic quotas so stringent that it choked off large-scale immigration for...

Describes, in question and answer format, the great migration of immigrants to New York's Ellis Island, from the 1880s to 1914. Features quotes from children and adults who passed through the station.

Presents the history of Ellis Island from 1892 when it served as the most important center for immigration into the United States, to its near collapse in the 1970s due to neglect, to its rebirth in 1990 as the Ellis Island Immigration Museum.

Describes the history, closing, and restoration of the Ellis Island immigration center and depicts the experiences of the immigrants who came to Ellis Island at the turn of the twentieth century.