Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I suppose there's lots of reasons, starting with that NY was just better suited to being an immigrant gateway and was the premier city in the US at the time. Boston has always been... less welcoming, in your terms.
NY was where all the Atlantic shipping ported, and there were no immigrant ships - just steerage on liners and some freighters. So Ellis Island was built where it would be most useful.
Yes, it was built where it was most useful. So much of where immigrants settled, had to do with geography. NY had the ability to absorb a very large number of immigrants all at once.
Not all stayed, however. At Ellis Island, there were people sent by different industries ready to offer transportation, housing and employment to immigrants who were just off the boat. In the case of coal miners, for example, the major Coal companies sent people to recruit for these jobs, who spoke Slovak, Polish. and other Eastern European languages. Meeting someone from "the old country" who was prepared to offer the promise of company housing and instant employment, must have been hard to turn down.
I don't really think NY was "more welcoming" than anyplace else. I do think it was larger. All things considered, it was easier to stay where the ship landed, than to venture out into the unknown.
It was also on the coast. It had a harbor and geographically, it was closer to the shipping route from Europe. Why did immigrants end up going to New York instead of Boston?
No, there aren't (or weren't) immigrants in Boston.
Post Civll War Boston had a higher relative share of immigrants than just about any city, and was very close to New York. It had direct service to Liverpool as did New York. The better question is why Philly had a much lower relative share of immigrants.
I can't speak for Boston, but I can for Southborough. In the 1860s, it was dominated by Yankee farmers and shopkeepers. 100 years later, it was dominated by Irish, Italian and upper middle class suburban immigrants. The only real vestige of its Yankee past was at 2 upper-class private schools.
Many immigrants actually did go to Boston. There is a large,Irish, Italian, Portuguese, Eastern European Jewish, Greek and Polish presence in Massachusetts. There are not as many Scandinavians and Germans in New England as there are in NY and the Midwest. Portugal seems to be over represented.
Obviously, the majority of the immigrants who arrived during the height of the European Migration came thru the NY port and Ellis Island. Once they arrived there, not all settled in NYC.
Many went to Pennsylvania, especially for coal mining jobs, further west, to industrial cities such as Buffalo NY, Utica NY, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Akron/Canton, and other Ohio cities, and of course, Chicago. Minneapolis/ St. Paul.
Others went "south" to industrial NJ cities - Paterson, Newark, Camden etc. Still others, to places such as Baltimore.
Boston, being North and East of most of actually *most* of the United States is a bit tucked away, by virtue of geography. Massachusetts and New England in general, had a demand for immigrants to work in the textile mills, as domestics, and as hospital workers.
What Boston and the surrounding area has that NY does not, is a large percentage of French emigres. I am not certain if most came directly from France, or if more were French Canadian transplants.
Massachusetts as a state, has one of the largest population of Eastern European Jews in the country. They obviously did not arrive with the Pilgrims.
The strife between the newer migrants and the "Boston Brahmans" - the older Yankee blue bloods, is well documented.
I apologize for bumping an old thread but I just wanted to address the part about NYC not receiving a large percentage of French emigres-This is not entirely true. While yes, percentage wise the number is small given the sheer diversity that exists in a given area compared to Boston. However, NYC did recieve a sizeable number of French immigrants. There were enough immigrants to establish a "Little France" enclave in the Soho area during the late 19th century. It lasted for about 20 years.
The St. Jean Baptiste Catholic Church(which is still alive and well) was established specifically for the city's French Canadians and their descendants. In the early 19th century, one in every nine New Yorkers were of French descent (most of whom were Huguenots, with some Catholics also present).
The church was built in an effort to establish the presence of French Catholics in the city, after Bishop de Forbin Janson lamented the fact that the community did not raise its churches in their national customs, like the Irish and Italians. Interestingly, Yorkville(a primarily German enclave, at the time) was also home to a prospering French Canadian population. Some of the French also worked in the shoemaking business, alongside the Germans and Irish.
So while French Americans in the NY area are not a very "loud" group, they very much exist. In retrospect, some of my peers in high school were of french descent(including a teacher of mine who was a French/Italian mix). Unfortunately, their history is often forgotten in favor of other groups.
New York was the port of entry along with a few others ( Baltimore and New Orleans and San Francisco, etc.). I suppose some came directly to Boston. At some point they had to process thousands and the infrastructure (hospital, housing, feeding) for that huge influx of people had to be built and maintained— an industry for processing immigrants. My people came through Castle Garden in NYC before Ellis Island was built.
Many immigrants actually did go to Boston. There is a large,Irish, Italian, Portuguese, Eastern European Jewish, Greek and Polish presence in Massachusetts. There are not as many Scandinavians and Germans in New England as there are in NY and the Midwest. Portugal seems to be over represented.
Obviously, the majority of the immigrants who arrived during the height of the European Migration came thru the NY port and Ellis Island. Once they arrived there, not all settled in NYC.
Many went to Pennsylvania, especially for coal mining jobs, further west, to industrial cities such as Buffalo NY, Utica NY, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Akron/Canton, and other Ohio cities, and of course, Chicago. Minneapolis/ St. Paul.
Others went "south" to industrial NJ cities - Paterson, Newark, Camden etc. Still others, to places such as Baltimore.
Boston, being North and East of most of actually *most* of the United States is a bit tucked away, by virtue of geography. Massachusetts and New England in general, had a demand for immigrants to work in the textile mills, as domestics, and as hospital workers.
What Boston and the surrounding area has that NY does not, is a large percentage of French emigres. I am not certain if most came directly from France, or if more were French Canadian transplants.
Massachusetts as a state, has one of the largest population of Eastern European Jews in the country. They obviously did not arrive with the Pilgrims.
The strife between the newer migrants and the "Boston Brahmans" - the older Yankee blue bloods, is well documented.
I've lived near the Boston area and there were a lot of people whose families had come from Quebec, French Canadians. You'll find them all over Massachusetts because they came to work in the mills. There are a lot in central CT too, which is a former manufacturing center. They didn't need Boston or New York.
otherwise it would have been New Orleans that took NYCs place. whatever got you to the Mississippi the quickest was going to be the most important city.
Before Ellis Island opened, New Orleans boasted the largest Italian population in the USA.
Before Ellis Island opened, New Orleans boasted the largest Italian population in the USA.
NYC had 9x as many 1st and 2nd gen Italians as New Orleans before Ellis Island opened in 1892, 11x if you include Brooklyn. No other city in the country had even 1/6ths as many per the 1890 census. New Orleans largest immigrant groups then was French, German, and Irish, but immigration through New Orleans largely shut down after The Civil War, with Galveston becoming a key immigration port afterwards due to its rail connections to the interior.
After Ellis Island, cheaper rail links, and overstuffed Manhattan, many Italians went to nearby secondary cities like Newark, Jersey City, and New Haven.
They may have, but they were met with signs such as "no Irish need apply." That tells you all you need to know.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
