Immigrants 2

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had come from Protestant northern and western Europe. But for the first time, Catholic and Jewish immigrants outnumbered Protestants, and still other arrivals were Muslims, Buddhists, or Greek or Russian Orthodox church members.
Fleeing such hardships as poverty, religious persecution, and political unrest in their homelands, immigrants journeyed to the United States in search of freedom and opportunity. The immigrants came partly because Europe seemed to be running out of room. The population of the Old World more than doubled in the nineteenth century, and Europe began to generate a seething pool of apparently "Surplus" people. They were displaced and footloose in their homelands before they felt the tug of the American magnet. However, most of the immigrants came to the United States for economic reasons. In the late 1800’s, the agriculturally based economies of many European towns declined as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Farmers and local craftspeople often ...

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regions.
To travel to the United States, most immigrants boarded a huge steel steamship. The ship typically held from 1,200 to over 2,000 people and was their home from 8 to 14 days. Ship life was hard. Many immigrants ate off of tin plates with only soup or bread to choose from. To alleviate themselves from the unpleasant smells on the steamships, immigrants went on deck for some fresh air. At times many of the immigrants prayed for the steamships to go under so they could relieve themselves from the fear and worry. By the end of the voyage, immigrants who had survived the journey were as overjoyed to leave steerage as they were to catch a first glimpse of their new home, ...

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