The Role of Individual States in Fostering Migration - a Swiss and American Case Study
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by eScholarship@BC Emigrants, Immigrants and the State: The role of Individual States in Fostering Migration - A Swiss and American Case Study Author: Melanie Simone Lorenz Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:108834 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2019 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. Emigrants, Immigrants and the State: The role of Individual States in Fostering Migration - A Swiss and American Case Study Melanie Simone Lorenz A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Boston College Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences Graduate School April 2019 © Copyright 2019 Melanie Simone Lorenz Emigrants, Immigrants and the State: The Role of Individual States in Fostering Migration - A Swiss and American Case Study Melanie Simone Lorenz Advisors: Dr. Heather Cox Richardson, PhD Dr. Marilynn Johnson, PhD Emigrants, Immigrants and the State: The Role of Individual States in Fostering Migration – A Swiss and American Case Study analyzes the role that individual American states (in opposition to the nation state) played in fostering migration during the long nineteenth century. The paper argues that individual states played a crucial role in fostering migration because of different economic challenges and that in order to create a more complex, and more inclusive narrative of American immigration history, scholars must pay closer attention to the individual states in Europe and the United States. Emigrants, Immigrants and the State uses a variety of primary source documents from Switzerland and the United States and provides two case studies that explain the different economic reasons that induced states to foster migration, and the ways in which they did it. The main goal of transnational state migration authorities was to provide migrants with information, financial and organizational resources, and protection along their journey. In order to achieve their goals they cooperated with different migration agencies, corporate entities, migrant aid societies, and previous migrants. The beginning of the twentieth century brought on a lot change. The Swiss federal government took on the matter of regulating emigration, and thus the Swiss cantons’ involvement became less important. In the United States, the beginning of the twentieth century brought on the rise of nativism, and eventually the federal government took control of immigration and implemented a growing number of restrictive policies. Nevertheless, the states continued to play an important but somewhat different role in migration. While some US states focused on Americanization, other American states continued to promote immigration but became more selective. In other states, such as Wisconsin, immigrant colonies and immigrant groups were able to resist the Americanization efforts. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ v Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 Literature Review ....................................................................................................................... 7 1.0 Chapter 1 Swiss and American States Fostered Migration .............................. 14 1.1 Situation in Switzerland ..................................................................................................... 14 1.2 Situation in the United States: .......................................................................................... 21 1.3 States’ involvement in fostering migration ................................................................... 30 1.4 Promotion of Migration: .................................................................................................... 35 1.5 Protection of Immigrants: ................................................................................................. 45 1.6 Conclusion: ........................................................................................................................... 51 2.0 Chapter 2: “We have immigrants, but not the right ones” ............................... 53 2.1 Historical Background: ...................................................................................................... 53 2.2 States still need immigrants, but they have to be the right kind: ............................ 55 2.3 Americanization: Immigrants have to be American ................................................... 62 2.4 The Exception to the Rule ................................................................................................. 71 2.5 Conclusion: ........................................................................................................................... 76 3.0 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 78 4.0 Works Cited ................................................................................................................. 80 v INTRODUCTION I have said nothing as to the necessities of immigration. They are so plain and palpable that it would seem almost an insult to the intelligence of our people to discuss them. I take it for granted that we all appreciate its importance, and that the only branch of the subject open for discussion is, as to the best means to be adopted to secure it. Governor Walker, Governor of the State of Missouri, 18731 The People of the village, as well as of the surrounding country, speak among themselves almost exclusively the German-Swiss dialect, peculiar to their native country …. A stranger stopping here for the first time could easily imagine that he had dropped down upon a portion of Switzerland. John Luchsinger, Swiss Immigrant, Wisconsin politician, 18922 John Luchsinger and Governor Walker both referred to American immigration during the nineteenth century, yet in a way that seems different from the general stories about immigrants on Ellis Island or in overcrowded East Coast cities. In those general stories, immigrants are generally portrayed as being the victims of American nativism, especially around the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This one is different. The fact that there were Swiss colonies in the United States, and that a governor of an American state would talk so favorably about immigration in Missouri seems surprising. Underneath the popular narrative there are different – more positive - stories that appear when one looks at individual states and their role in fostering migration. Individual states 1 As quoted in: Missouri Board of Immigration, Fourth Biennial Report of the Board of Immigration of the State of Missouri. (Jefferson City: Regan & Carter, State Printers, 1873), 6. 2 John Luchsinger, “The Swiss Colony of New Glarus,” in: Lyman Copeland Draper (ed.), Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society, 1908), 412. 1 are an often overlooked key player in migration, since the traditional narrative tends to focus on the bilateral relationship between sending and receiving country. I argue that an analysis of the actions of individual states shows that varying economic needs made states actively foster migration, and to do so in very specific ways. This creates a multitude of individual stories, some of them quite positive ones, rather than one overlying narrative of nativism. In order to fulfill their economic needs, Midwestern and western states promoted immigration. This creates a more complex narrative that differs from the traditional one which associates immigration during the nineteenth century with eastern cities whose native-born inhabitants claimed to be overrun by pauper immigrants. In his book True Faith and Allegiance: Immigration and American Civic Nationalism Noah Pickus argued that the short-lived success of the Know-Nothing party in the 1840s? came from the lack of a national consensus: “Northerners were preoccupied with Catholics, southerners apprehensive about blacks, and westerners worried about Chinese.”3 This lack of consensus reveals the importance of focusing on the states, since it was the individual needs and problems of the states that created such confusion and makes it very difficult to come up with an all-encompassing narrative – a one size fits all narrative. It is not the intent of this paper to deny that there were similarities or overlying themes in immigration such as race. Yet, by looking at immigration on a state level, one can see different immigrant groups, different actions of the state and the changes that occurred around the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. The 4 An early exception is Theodore C. Blegen, “The Competition of the Northwestern State for Immigrants.” In: The Wisconsin Magazine of History, Vol.3 No.1 (Sept., 1919), pp.3-29. 2 role of the states consisted of two important parts: First they provided information, as well as the legal and financial framework to foster migration, and second, they also provided protection for migrants. During the nineteenth century, states on both sides of the Atlantic became increasingly involved