Profound economic, social, and cultural transformations of the nineteenth century destabilized empires throughout Europe, giving rise to revolutions from which several new nation-states emerged. In combination with industrialization, the instability put thousands of people across the continent on the move, particularly those from rural areas in Southern and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Over 20 million European immigrants arrived to the East Coast between the end of the Civil War and 1924, seeking refuge and opportunities to rebuild their lives in the U.S.
European immigrants struggled to find housing and good-paying jobs, most settling in densely crowded, racially segregated urban neighborhoods. While some Americans worked to feed impoverished immigrants, many others relied on pseudo-scientific arguments about racial purity to argue that hunger in immigrant neighborhoods proved the new arrivals were “unfit” for citizenship. Fears that the number of immigrants threatened to overwhelm the capacity of the U.S. to feed its citizens resulted in the 1924 National Origins Act, which imposed strict quotas that sharply curtailed immigration from Europe and effectively banned immigration from Asia.
“Street Arabs in Sleeping Quarters,” Jacob A. Riis Museum of the City of New York.
Museum Map
WISHING
TREE
The Proof is in Our History
- 1.Welcome
- 2.Museum Lobby
- 3.The Age of Mass Migration - Landing
- 4.The Age of Mass Migration - Main
- 5.Immigration from Europe
- 6.On the Breadline
- 7.Beginnings
- 8.An Unequal Recovery
- 9.How did the Food Stamp Program work?
- 10.Hunger, Justice, and Civil Rights - Landing
- 11.Hunger, Justice, and Civil Rights - Main
- 12.Walk for Decent Welfare (Columbus, OH)
- 13.Televising the War on Hunger - Landing
- 14.Televising the War on Hunger - Main
- 15.CBS’s “Hunger in America”
- 16.President Lyndon B. Johnson
- 17.Senator George McGovern and Senator Robert Dole
- 18.Dr. Jean Mayer and the White House Conference
- 19.1975-1996: The Unmaking of the Great Society
- 20.Government Cheese
- 21.The Welfare Queen
- 22.The Return of the Welfare Queen
- 23.Crises of New Proportions - Landing
- 24.Crises of New Proportions - Main
- 25.COVID-19
- 26.Welcome to the SNAP Café
- 27.SNAP Cafe – Create a meal
- 28.Wishing Tree
MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger