How was this group of immigrants different from previous waves of immigration?
ALAN KRAUT: Prior to the end of the 19th century, the greatest number of immigrants coming to the United States were coming out of northern and western Europe. They were coming from England and Ireland and, of course, from central Europe, from the German states. They tended to be Protestant in religion with the exception of the Irish, who were overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. And they tended to be very much skilled or semi-skilled immigrants who were coming to this country as well. They were often fair-skinned. And some, at least in the case of the English and the Irish, spoke English. This was, of course, not the case in the late nineteenth century. The late nineteenth century brought to the United States millions of Catholics and Jews and darker-skinned people, duskier complexions, many of them in much greater levels of poverty than those who had come at an earlier time. The result is that there was a tremendous belief on the part of American nativists that these newcomers were of infe
