The Economic Threat: Jobs and Wages Under Attack

Your biggest concern after leaving school would probably be finding decent work with fair pay - and that's exactly what worried Americans in the 1920s. Economic fears dominated the immigration debate because immigrants were willing to work for much less money than established Americans.

The situation got particularly heated after 1919 when trade unions organised strikes for better wages and shorter hours. American workers found their efforts constantly undermined by "Black Leg" immigrants who would break strikes by accepting lower wages. This created massive resentment amongst White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) who felt their bargaining power was completely destroyed.

Employers loved this arrangement because they could always threaten to hire cheaper immigrant labour if American workers demanded too much. The new immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe were often desperate enough to take jobs in dangerous mines and factories that Americans wouldn't touch.

Quick Fact: Economic fears affected more Americans than any other concern about immigration, making it the primary driver of changing attitudes.

Social Problems and Prejudiced Solutions

Immigration wasn't just an economic issue - it created visible social problems that made many Americans uncomfortable. Major cities like New York, Chicago, Boston, and Pittsburgh became home to immigrant communities living in awful conditions.

Places like Chinatown and Little Italy were overcrowded, disease-ridden, and poverty-stricken. Crime rates soared dramatically - in 1858, an astounding 14,600 out of 17,300 people arrested in New York were immigrants. Italian immigrants particularly suffered from stereotypes linking them to organised crime and the Mafia.

The Dillingham Commission of 1907 officially declared that Southern and Eastern European immigrants were "inferior" to earlier WASP immigrants. This led to literacy tests designed to keep out "undesirable" newcomers. Nativist Americans used pseudo-scientific racism to justify their belief that these immigrants threatened the "American way of life."

Remember: Though social fears and prejudice were significant, they didn't affect as many Americans as the economic concerns about jobs and wages.

Political Fears: Isolationism and the Red Scare

After World War I, America wanted to retreat from international involvement, and immigration became caught up in this isolationist movement. The US Senate rejected joining the League of Nations in 1920, preferring to avoid European entanglements entirely.

The Red Scare created particular anxiety about Russian immigrants who might bring communist ideas to America. These political beliefs directly contradicted American values like free enterprise, competition, and individual freedom. The 1919 Boston Police Strike was blamed on communist influence, with newspapers dramatically reporting riots and violence.

However, the actual threat was tiny - only 0.1% of the population were genuine anarchists or communists in 1920. Most immigrants were far too busy adapting to American life to plot political revolutions.

Anti-German sentiment during WWI had already shown how quickly attitudes could turn against "foreign" influences. German language was removed from schools and publications, and people with German-sounding names were banned from joining the Red Cross.

Key Point: While political fears grabbed headlines, the real driver of anti-immigration sentiment remained economic - Americans were most concerned about protecting their jobs and wages from foreign competition.