Faith Winkelmann AP Immigration Essay AP US History December 3rd, 2014

In the years between 1830­1900, America saw an influx of immigrants coming into the country. Just in a thirty year span, 1830­1860, 4.8 million immigrants were granted access into the United States. Among those 1.9 were of Irish descent while 1.5 million were German. While the immigration of the German and Irish was similar in some ways yet some differences were made known. Native of Europe, they fled across the great Atlantic to the United States for different reasons. This cause many and varying effects on the people and the land.
In the years between 1840 and 1852, life in Ireland was disastrous to say the least.
Sweeping through the country became to be known as The Great Famine. This brought was a period of mass starvation, disease and colonization in the United States of America. Throughout the famine about 1 million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland, causing the countries population to fall drastically. Many, once in the United States, fled to Boston,
Massachusetts. In one year, it is stated that Boston's Irish population jumped to around 50,000.
The Irish immigrant experience was not trouble­free. Most came to the shores of America with only a couple of skills besides cooking and cleaning. On top of the lack of skills, the Irish were shunned for their religion of Catholicism. By the 1870s most of the Irish immigrants still

inhabited the area east of Boston. Around this time, some of the successful Irish descendants played their hand at business and also politics.
From the 1830s to the 1860s, more than one million Germans immigrated to United
States of America. German immigrants to America were typically struggling farmers and political/religious refugees. These German immigrants settled throughout the United States, but the majority made roots in the mid­west. The flood of German immigrants to America was the product of long­standing