Immigration Mini-Unit
Lesson 1: The ‘Push and Pull’ of immigration
Essential Questions:
Why did many immigrants decide to leave their native countries?
What factors made them decide to come to the United States?
What was the journey like for steerage passengers?
What factors might prohibit entry to the United States?
Objectives:
Students will be able to describe the motivations of immigrants coming to the United States.
Students will be able to connect qualifications/restrictions on immigration to the social, economic and
political issues of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Activities:
- Students who arrive to class are given an identity card (Family D, child).
See PowerPoint Lesson 1 Slides
- Students are asked to have family ‘meetings’. Students are asked to consider what factors would
cause them to immigrate and come to America. What would ‘push’ them out of another country?
What would ‘pull’ them to America?
-
Class puts ideas on the board. Ideas can be current or historical.
-
Explain to the families that they have made the decision to immigrate; they will have to purchase
tickets to come to America. Ask- What factors might prevent you from gaining entry?
-
Put student responses on the board- explain that there were few immigration restrictions in the 19th
century, but that some people would be denied admittance to the country if they could not support
themselves, had radical political beliefs or if they had a transmittable disease.
Explain to the students that their ‘family’ will be immigrating today. Due to a law passed by the US,
anyone rejected by immigration officials will need to be transported back to their port of call at the
expense of the steamship company. Since steamship companies wanted to prevent this cost, they
would perform the same inspections of immigrants that would occur in Ellis Island including a
medical exam and questionnaire.
See blank manifest PDF
- Families should fill in the manifest. They should do their best to answer the questions so that they
will be able to enter the country.
-
-
After filling out their manifest, discuss the purpose of the questions on the manifest. What did this
demonstrate about America at the time?
-
Explain the difference between 1st, 2nd and 3rd class. Ask students what problems they might
encounter on the steamship journey. Where will they go when they arrive at NYC?
-
Collect student’s manifests before they leave, you will use these tomorrow.
Immigration Mini-Unit
Lesson 2: Arrival at Ellis Island
Essential Questions:
What was the purpose of Ellis Island?
In what ways did the decisions made at Ellis Island impact families?
What decisions had to be made after leaving Ellis Island?
Objectives:
Students will be able to describe the process of arriving at Ellis Island and the consequences of the
examinations.
Students will be able to work collectively to come to a solution about the problems they are confronted
with at Ellis Island.
Activities
See PowerPoint Lesson 2 Slides
- Put on board- Welcome to Ellis Island!
-
Have students get back into their family groups, and deposit their ‘luggage’ (backpacks, books)
outside the door or somewhere in the classroom.
- Tell students that they will need to get in line for inspection.
See family identifications and chalk marks document (p. 6)
- Sit at a desk in the front of the room and ask students questions about the answers on their manifest.
Give students chalk marks according to the ‘family chart’.
-
After completing the interviews, put the chalk mark ‘key’ on the Smart Board (or overhead or hand
out) and discuss why certain medical conditions would exclude you from gaining entry. As you
explain, call each family member marked with that chalk mark.
o
Explain that certain conditions, like trachoma or a confirmed mental illness, would exclude
you outright. Conditions like senility and lameness (if it prevented you from working) would
exclude you if you did not have relatives that would provide for your support.
o SI- Special inquiry, in this activity, is applied to women traveling alone or with children.
These women would not be allowed to leave until their husbands or male relatives arrived at
the island. If a woman came to America to join her fiancé, he would be required to come to
the island, and the two would be married before she was allowed to leave with him.
o Discuss the problems, like conjunctivitis and favus, which would require hospitalization.
Ellis Island had hospitals where most immigrants could receive free care for ailments. What
should the families do? Would you leave a child on the Island to receive treatment? Try to
stay on the Island with them?
o What about the conditions that cause you to be denied entry? Should everyone go back? Just
one person? What about the children?
-
Have a final family meeting and make decision- what will you do with those people who cannot
enter? How did you arrive at your decision? What decisions do you need to make now that you are
allowed to leave Ellis Island and go to NYC?
Assessment: LETTER HOME. See assignment sheet for details and requirements. (Page 7)
Immigration Mini-Unit
Lesson 3: “The Streets are not paved with gold- they aren’t paved at all, and I’m expected to pave
them!”
Essential Questions:
How did America of the late nineteenth/early 20th century measure up to immigrant’s expectations?
What was typical work and housing like for immigrants of the late nineteenth century?
Objectives
Students will be able to describe typical housing and work for immigrants.
Students will be able to communicate the myth v. reality of immigration to America.
Activities:
See PowerPoint Lesson 3 Slides
- When students enter the room, the quote: “The Streets are not paved with gold- they aren’t paved at
all, and I’m expected to pave them!” should be on the board with these questions: How does the
quote above describe the myth v. reality of immigration? What hardships might immigrants face
upon arrival? What do immigrants do for work and housing?
-
Discuss student’s responses to each question
-
Display the background information on Riis on the board
-
Display the image of a Tenement on the board and ask the students to make some observations about
Tenements. Explain that Architects designed the dumbbell tenement to fit as many people as
possible into a city block while providing all rooms with light and air. Ask the students: How
successful was the dumbbell tenement at meeting these two goals?
-
Pass out the Jacob Riis reading and the 5 senses chart (Page 8 & PowerPoint)
-
Discuss Riis’ description of tenements and the information the students filled out on their 5 senses
chart
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If tenements were so bad- why live there? Discuss- discrimination, wages v. rent, not much legal
protection, etc.
-
Handout the images from Riis (see PowerPoint) and the photograph worksheet (Page 9)
-
Discuss student answers for each photograph
Immigration Mini-Unit
Lesson 4: The Tenement Museum
Essential Questions:
What was life in a Tenement apartment?
What challenges did immigrant families face and how did they overcome them?
Objectives:
Students will be able to create and perform a skit or other presentation about an immigrant
family from the late 19th or early 20th century.
Activities:
-
Have students get into small groups to complete the Tenement Museum virtual tour and project
(Note: There are 5 apartments available to view, you may want to divide the class into 5 groups)
-
Explain the history of the museum
o Opened in 1992, the Tenement Museum is located at 97 Orchard St on the Lower East Side of
Manhattan. Built in 1863, the top 5 floors of the building were condemned in the 1930's while
store fronts still operated on the bottom floors. Shuttered from use and left to decay, the top
floors were (and continue to be) renovated by the museum to offer a glimpse into immigrant
history.
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Have students go to http://www.tenement.org/
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Click on ‘Play’ and then go to ‘Virtual Tours’
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Have the students click on the ‘Ruined Apartment’ tour to view the hallway
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Ask students- does anything surprise you about the hallway? How does the hallway contrast with the
images displayed by Riis?
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Have students listen to the virtual tour of the ruined apartment and investigate the apartment.
-
Next, have student groups go to their assigned apartments and view the virtual tours, read the
information about the families, and fill in their Tenement Worksheet (Page 9)
-
Explain the Tenement Presentation project using the assignment and the rubric. Have students work
on their presentations, then act them out! (Page 11)
-
Ask students- which gives a better picture of immigrant life- Riis or the Tenement Museum? What
are the advantages and drawbacks of each? See PowerPoint Lesson 4 Slides
Assessment: Tenement Presentation
Family Identifications and Chalk Marks
Family A
Mother
Father
child
teenager
teenager
Family E
Woman
SC
SI
Family B
Mother
child
child
child
child
SI
CT
SC
L
Family F
Grandfather
child
SC
child
Family C
Father
child
child
teenager
teenager
SC
Circled X
Family D
Mother
Father
Grandmother S
child
child
CT
Letter Home
Name: ______________________________
Date: ________________________________________
You have now gone through the journey to America. You need to write to your family and friends back home
telling them what has occurred. Some of them have not even heard why you left in the first place- you will need to
explain your decision. This letter should be an ‘open’ letter to your family and friends- these were common in the
ninetieth and early twentieth century. They would be sent to the local parish priest, reverend or rabbi or the head
of your family at home to be read to family, friends, or the congregation.
Your letter should explain:
Why you left home
The process you went through at the steamship company
The boat trip to America
Ellis Island and your experience there
What happened to members of your family during the inspection process
What decisions your family had to make
What decisions your family is facing now that you are in NYC (or, let them know you are coming back
home)
Would you recommend immigration, based on what you have experienced so far? Why or why not?
Excerpt from How the Other Half Lives, by Jacob Riis
Be a little careful, please! The hall is dark and you might stumble over the children pitching
pennies back there. Not that it would hurt them; kicks and cuffs are their daily diet. They have little
else. Here where the hall turns and dives into utter darkness is a step, and another, another. A flight
of stairs. You can feel your way, if you cannot see it. Close? Yes! What would you have? All the
fresh air that ever enters these stairs comes from the hall-door that is forever slamming, and from
the windows of dark bedrooms that in turn receive from the stairs their sole supply of the elements
God meant to be free, but man deals out with such niggardly hand. That was a woman filling her
pail by the hydrant you just bumped against. The sinks are in the hallway, that all the tenants may
have access--and all be poisoned alike by their summer stenches. Hear the pump squeak! It is the
lullaby of tenement-house babes. In summer, when a thousand thirsty throats pant for a cooling
drink in this block, it is worked in vain. But the saloon, whose open door you passed in the hall, is
always there. The smell of it has followed you up. Here is a door. Listen! That short hacking cough,
that tiny, helpless wail--what do they mean? They mean that the soiled bow of white you saw on
the door downstairs will have another story to tell--Oh! a sadly familiar story--before the day is at
an end. The child is dying with measles. With half a chance it might have lived; but it had none.
That dark bedroom killed it.
. . . . What if the words ring in your ears as we grope our way up the stairs and down from floor to
floor, listening to the sounds behind the closed doors--some of quarrelling, some of coarse songs,
more of profanity. They are true. When the summer heats come with their suffering they have
meaning more terrible than words can tell. Come over here. Step carefully over this baby--it is a
baby, spite of its rags and dirt--under these iron bridges called fire-escapes, but loaded down,
despite the incessant watchfulness of the firemen, with broken household goods, with wash-tubs
and barrels, over which no man could climb from a fire. This gap between dingy brick-walls is the
yard. That strip of smoke-colored sky up there is the heaven of these people. Do you wonder the
name does not attract them to the churches? That baby's parents live in the rear tenement here. She
is at least as clean as the steps we are now climbing. There are plenty of houses with half a hundred
such in. The tenement is much like the one in front we just left, only fouler, closer, darker--we will
not say more cheerless. The word is a mockery. A hundred thousand people lived in rear tenements
in New York last year. Here is a room neater than the rest. The woman, a stout matron with hard
lines of care in her face, is at the wash-tub. "I try to keep the childer clean," she says,
apologetically, but with a hopeless glance around. The spice of hot soapsuds is added to the air
already tainted with the smell of boiling cabbage, of rags and uncleanliness all about. It makes an
overpowering compound. It is Thursday, but patched linen is hung upon the pulley-line from the
window. There is no Monday cleaning in the tenements. It is wash-day all the week round, for a
change of clothing is scarce among the poor. They are poverty's honest badge, these perennial lines
of rags hung out to dry, those that are not the washerwoman's professional shingle. The true line to
be drawn between pauperism and honest poverty is the clothes-line. With it begins the effort to be
clean that is the first and the best evidence of a desire to be honest.
You may download, print and make copies of these pages for use in your classroom, provided that you include the copyright notice
shown below in all such copies.
Copyright © 1999 Houghton Mifflin Company. All Rights Reserved.
Jacob Riis Tenement Images
Name: _____________________________
Date: ______________________________
Choose one image that makes an impact on you. Choose one person in the image to ‘become’. Ask yourself1. What do I see?
2. What do I feel?
3. What do I think?
Name: ________________________________
Date:
_______________________
In your group, visit one of the tenement apartments at The Tenement Museum,
in NYC. Read the description of the family and listen to the audio tour, if
Family Name
Place of Origin + why Family size/members Dates at 97
they immigrated to
and jobs of each
Orchard St
America
Describe one
How did the family
hardship the family survive/overcome this
faced
hardship?
Item in apartment
that represents the
family and why
Why did the family
leave Orchard St?
available. Be ready to present what you learned in a creative format!
Tenement Presentation
Now that you have learned about a family in a nineteenth or
twentieth century tenement, you will be making a presentation of
that information to the class.
In your presentation, you will need to
Introduce the family
o Who is in the family
o Background (where from and why they came to the US)
o What the family does for work
When they moved to 97 Orchard St.
A hardship they faced and how they overcame it
When and why they moved away from 97 Orchard St.
Some options are as follows:
Skit- take the class back in time and write a short skit
depicting one event that happened in the family’s life
Interview- Have all of the family members present for an
interview (could be for the museum, a censor taker,
newspaper reporter, etc.) about their lives at 97 Orchard
St.
You may use any other presentation format you can think of that is
creative, interactive and involves all group members.
Category
Excellent
Good
Content
All content on
instruction sheet
has been
integrated into the
presentation and is
historically
accurate.
Creativity
The presentation is
creative, respectful,
and engaging.
Script or
Presentation Plan
A script,
presentation outline
or plan has been
handed in prior to
the presentation; all
group members
follow the script
outline or plan.
Participation
All group members
participate and
contribute to the
presentation.
Tenement Presentation
Incomplete
Caroline Allison
Bibliography
Riis, Jacob. How the Other Half Lives. New York: Scribner, 1890. Reprint, Boston: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.
Riis used photography it illustrate and expose conditions in tenement buildings in a series of lectures and
articles in the late nineteenth century; this work is his most well known. It was used in the project to
illustrate what tenements were like in the late 19th century.
RootsWeb at Ancestry.com. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ilpip1gs/manifest_extract_forms.htm
This site provided black ships manifests; one of which was used in this project.
Tenement Museum. www.tenement.org.
This museum, which opened in 1992, has been restored to show several tenement apartments at the time
that they would have been occupied by newly arrived immigrants in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. It was used for virtual tours in this project.
