BHHS Library - Immigration

Lower East SideThe Tenement Museum has been interpreting the history of New York immigration for over 30 years. To learn about immigration in the Lower East Side, visit here.

From the Tenement Museum:

Journey into the history of pickles on the Lower East Side. Learn how Lower East Siders pickled their veggies 100 years ago, why the tradition of pickling was important for many immigrants from Eastern Europe, and how kids got a good deal on their pickle purchases. We’ll end the event with a short demo of how to make your own cucumber pickles at home!

There’s no one taste or flavor to define a neighborhood, especially one like the Lower East Side. Our new film, Taste of the Tenement, explores the rich history of this vibrant neighborhood through the common thread that brings us all together: food. Follow us on a culinary journey of food traditions born out of tenement life. Using historic and archival recipes, oral histories, scholarly interviews, and special guests Padma Lakshmi and Michael W. Twitty, we create a full course meal of the American experience through the lens of food.

The Library of Congress has many things for you to search & use

Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress The history of the United States has always been shaped by peoples and communities who came to its shores or moved within its borders. Some sought a better life, some fled oppression, and some were moved against their will. This presentation uses Library of Congress primary sources to explore moments and experiences from several of these communities.

Ellis Island Part of Statue of Liberty National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration Home Page

Immigration Act of 1924

Early Waves of Immigrants

Immigration Act(1882)

Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882

Make sure to go to the drop down menu on the left & under the databases

search U.S. History in Context from Gale and Infobase's American History.

Both contain not only essays, but primary source documents, images and timelines.

Sweatshops 1880-1940History of Sweatshops: 1880-1940 Tenement Sweatshops Women finishing pants, New York City, around 1900 Photographer: Jacob Riis. Courtesy Museum of the City of New York Emanating from crowded tenements, lofts, and row houses, the whir of sewing machines added to the din of urban life. In many cities, recent immigrants converted small apartments into contract shops that doubled as living quarters. Fierce competition among contractors for work and immigrants’ desperate need for employment kept wages down and hours up.

WATCH the one that connects to your immigrant group

The Chinese Exclusion Act | Asian Americans | PBS LearningMediaLearn how the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 reflected the rampant scapegoating and stereotyping of the Chinese workers. This law barred Chinese laborers from entering the country, only allowing Chinese students, teachers, travelers, merchants, and diplomats to still apply for admission. This also marked the start of required immigration documents that the Chinese were required to hold on to their person to avoid deportation. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first in a series of laws explicitly used to limit immigration based on race. The law changed the landscape for American immigration and set a precedent in policy-making for generations to come.

20th Century Italian Immigration: America the Melting Pot…or Not? | PBS LearningMediaExplore the experiences of twentieth century American immigrants alongside renowned chef Tom Colicchio as he learns about his Italian ancestor’s arrival to Ellis Island in this episode of Finding Your Roots. Learn about how some immigrants made multiple trips to and from America from their homelands and the difficult conditions they faced as new citizens.

Our Immigrants at Ellis Island (book)

Immigration figures -1903

Jewish Immigration to New York City | Finding Your Roots - Background Reading

In the late 19th century, there was a mass migration of Eastern European Jews to the United States, and between 1880 through 1924 over 2 million Jewish people came to America to find better lives.

Jewish communities existed for centuries in Eastern Europe and suffered as the Russian empire grew under the rule of the czars. In the western region of Imperial Russia in the late 1700s, Empress Catherine II (aka Catherine the Great) established the Pale of Settlement where the Jews were restricted to live. Life in the Pale was overcrowded with unsanitary conditions, oppressive rules, and limited opportunities, and the oppression turned violent with the spread of anti-Jewish riots called pogroms. The pogroms destroyed Jewish neighborhoods and many Jewish people were massacred. The majority of the pogroms took place in the Pale of Settlement, continuing for decades and making life unbearable.

From 1880 to 1924 a mass migration of Jewish people living in Russian controlled Eastern Europe made the arduous journey to the United States. Many settled in the Lower East Side of New York City, which contained the largest concentration of Jewish people in the world in the late 19th century.

Jewish Immigration to New York City | Finding Your Roots | PBS LearningMediaNational Public Radio host Terry Gross’s grandparents were born in Eastern Europe and immigrated to New York City in the early 1900s; for both of them, the “old country” was Russia, a huge empire with shifting boundaries.

Community and Connectedness in the Warsaw Ghetto | Finding Your Roots | PBS LearningMediaActress Scarlett Johansson discovers an untold story in her family. In the early 1900s, her great-grandfather and his family struggled as Jews living in a town called Grojec, an area that is now part of Poland. In this town, Jews were barred from owning farmland and poverty was rampant. Scarlett’s great-grandfather—Sol Schlamberg—ended up leaving for the United States in hopes of creating a better life for himself. Schlanchne’s brother stayed and was ultimately transported to the Warsaw Ghetto. The Ghettos were horrifying places and the Warsaw Ghetto was the largest ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe.