The Great Immigration and the Melting Pot

From the 1880s the stream of migrants to the United States changes: in place of north-western Europe come Italians, Poles, Hungarians, Greeks and Jews fleeing pogroms and poverty. In 1892 the receiving station on Ellis Island opens, and in three decades millions pass through it. New York fills with neighbourhoods that have their own newspapers, schools and theatres in Yiddish and other tongues. A play of 1908 gives the country the image of the melting pot, though the melting goes slowly. The laws of 1921 and 1924 impose quotas and all but close the door.