How much of our population is foreign born?

The United States is a land of immigrants, and we’re strong and productive because of it. Only the Native Americans were originally born here. The rest of us came from Somewhere Else.

When we think of the heyday of Ellis Island, it seems like everyone was coming in from Europe – Ireland, Italy, and Germany. Is that still the case today?

How much of our population is foreign born? And, where are they coming from? Where do most of our foreign-born residents settle?

Place of birth of the foreign-born population by Elizabeth M. Grieco, Edward N. Trevelyan

Additional Recommended Resources

• CQ Researcher – Immigration
• Opposing Viewpoints – Immigration
• A Day Without Immigrants
• Graphing Immigration
• A Day Without a Mexican (DVD)
• Library Programs: ESL

Thanksgiving Day

National holiday in the United States commemorating the Pilgrims‘ celebration of the harvest reaped by the Plymouth Colony in 1621, after a winter of great starvation and privation. The celebration was probably held in October. The neighboring Wampanoags, who outnumbered the colonists, joined them for three days and contributed food to the celebration. The first proclaimed day of thanksgiving in the colony was not held until 1623 (probably at the end of July), following an improvement in prospects for the still struggling colony, and was a day of prayer, not feasting. Read more..

History of Halloween in the United States

Image via Wikipedia

Did you know that Halloween in the United States dates back to 1840′s? The arrival in the country of large numbers of Irish immigrants, following the disastrous potato famine in Ireland, helped establish the feast in America. Their celebrations of All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days still preserved many of the ancient rites of Samhain. For example, the carving of pumpkins comes from the Irish legend of Jack, a man so evil that when he died he was rejected by both heaven and hell and was condemned to roam the countryside with nothing but a glowing turnip for a head.

Read more about Halloween in U.S. History in Context.

History Happenings: Progressivism & Immigrants

Progressivism and the Treatment of Immigrants
ProQuest’s  Historical Newspapers

Video Overview

The influx of immigrants into the United States was greater in the decades after the Civil War than it had been at any previous time.

The majority of immigrants arriving to the industrial cities of the East in the 1870s and 1880s came from England, Ireland, and northern Europe.

© Getty Images

At the end of the century, new waves of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe came to escape the poverty and oppressive conditions of their homelands.

Learn about attitudes toward immigrants in the United States in the 19th century and why many people felt threatened by these new arrivals.

War Between the States

Image via Wikipedia

April 12, 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of the opening battle and the official start of the Civil War (also called the “War Between the States”).

Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy ordered South Carolina’s General Beauregard to assault the Union’s Fort Sumter and surrender the fort to the Confederacy. Four years later on April 9, 1865, and after hundreds of battles, the South surrendered at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

One of the most divisive and important events in American history, the Civil War pitted countrymen against countrymen in the new and developing republic of the United States of America. Among the many issues at stake were the role of central government, state’s rights, slavery, and the fate of the Union itself, which had borne our fledgling nation through the American Revolutionary war and the War of 1812.

Grim, brutal, and utterly personal, the Civil War claimed more American lives than any other war fought before or since the founding of the United States. No other war contains such philosophical and emotional impact. The issues and concerns that were on the hearts and minds of the politicians, Statesmen, combatants, and ordinary citizens of the late nineteenth century can still be seen as evidence, even in modern times.

No modern politician can ignore or discount the attitudes and mindsets the were forged in the Civil War and expect a measure of success—for many of those attitudes for both the North and the South still thrive in American society, culture, and debate.

Historical Learning Activity
Assign students to learn more about the causes of the Civil War.

Students should write a report of at least 150 words or a presentation of at least seven slides that cites at least three resources from the Pathfinder listed below. Students should address the following essential questions for critical thinking (you can add or substitute others):

• What were three significant events that led to the start of the war and why?
• Were two of the most significant leaders on both sides and why?
• What were the primary motives of President Lincoln to engage in the war?
• What were the real social, political, and economic differences between the Union and Confederate States?

Historical Learning Activity

Using Historical Newspapers

Search for:

• Election of 1860
• South Carolina Secession
  
• Creation of Confederate States of America

Related Resources:

Civil War Digital Archive

ABC-Clio History Database

U.S. History in Context