Immigrants

During the 1800s, Millions of Irish, British, Germans, and Scandinavians crossed the ocean to become Americans. The immigrants usually went to the United States with very little money and education so most of them were not welcomed and were treated unfairly in American society. Nativism, which refers to the policy of favoring the interests of native-born Americans over immigrants, appeared. At first, the Americans only disliked the immigrants’ religious and cultural differences. Later on, they started to fear that the immigrants would take away their jobs since they were willing to work more and get lower wages.

Ku Klux Klan

The Ku Klux Klan was an organization against African Americans, immigrants, Catholics, and Jews. They thought that the immigrants were trying to destroy the traditional Americanism. They restricted membership to native-born white Protestants. The first Ku Klux Klan was formed in the late 1860s and ended in the 1807s. The second one was reborn in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1915. They started by breaking Leo Frank, who was a Jewish-American, out of the jail and hanged him. In the early 1920s, the Klan grew to between 3 and 4 million members. They even gained considerable political power throughout the country. To show their power, they held massive marches in major cities and used a lot of violence secretly.