Westward The Immigrants

Describes the discovery and settlement of the Western United States by diverse ethnic and religious groups, who came and stayed for widely differing reasons.

Here is a colourful alternative to the view that America's immigrants were uprooted, defenceless pawns adrift in a sea of confusion and despair. Taking the members of one nationality as a prototype, Westward the Immigrants (originally published as The Immigrants Upraised) traces the social, political, and economic progress of Italian immigrants after they deserted New York's crowded Mulberry Street for more rewarding pursuits in the twenty-two states west of the Mississippi.

Norwegian Harold B. Kildahl, Sr., sailed across the ocean to the New World in 1866. His memoir provides vivid descriptions of the Kildahl family's travels to southern Minnesota. The family witnessed the infamous James-Younger Gang bank raid in Northfield, Minnesota in September, 1876, and the founding of St. Olaf College. The annual floods of the Red River of the North ultimately lead the family to move to the Dakota Territory in 1883. In 1888, Harold B. Kildahl, Sr. returned to Minnesota to seek an education. During the next ten years, he completed grade school and high school, graduated from St. Olaf College (1895), and the Lutheran Seminary in Minneapolis (1898), was ordained, married, and received a call to be a pastor in the Lutheran Faith.

“Manifest Destiny” was the belief that the United States was meant to reach from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. The story of how it was achieved is full of excitement, which readers discover as they explore this pivotal period in American history. Important social studies curriculum topics, including immigration and westward expansion, are presented in an engaging way. Historical images allow readers to place themselves on a wagon train or a railroad. Primary sources are included throughout the text to help readers gain experience relating those sources of information to what they know about history.

“Manifest Destiny” was the belief that the United States was meant to reach from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. The story of how it was achieved is full of excitement, which readers discover as they explore this pivotal period in American history. Important social studies curriculum topics, including immigration and westward expansion, are presented in an engaging way. Historical images allow readers to place themselves on a wagon train or a railroad. Primary sources are included throughout the text to help readers gain experience relating those sources of information to what they know about history.

In this comprehensive study of Belgian settlement in western Canada, Cornelius Jaenen shows that Belgian immigration was unique in its character and brought with it significant benefits out of proportion to its comparatively small numbers.

Why have Americans expressed concern about immigration at some times but not at others? In pursuit of an answer, this book examines America’s first nativist movement, which responded to the rapid influx of 4.2 million immigrants between 1840 and 1860 and culminated in the dramatic rise of the National American Party. As previous studies have focused on the coasts, historians have not yet completely explained why westerners joined the ranks of the National American, or “Know Nothing,” Party or why the nation’s bloodiest anti-immigrant riots erupted in western cities—namely Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis. In focusing on the antebellum West, Inventing America’s First Immigration Crisis illuminates the cultural, economic, and political issues that originally motivated American nativism and explains how it ultimately shaped the political relationship between church and state. In six detailed chapters, Ritter explains how unprecedented immigration from Europe and rapid westward expansion re-ignited fears of Catholicism as a corrosive force. He presents new research on the inner sanctums of the secretive Order of Know-Nothings and provides original data on immigration, crime, and poverty in the urban West. Ritter argues that the country’s first bout of political nativism actually renewed Americans’ commitment to church–state separation. Native-born Americans compelled Catholics and immigrants, who might have otherwise shared an affinity for monarchism, to accept American-style democracy. Catholics and immigrants forced Americans to adopt a more inclusive definition of religious freedom. This study offers valuable insight into the history of nativism in U.S. politics and sheds light on present-day concerns about immigration, particularly the role of anti-Islamic appeals in recent elections.