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1. Designed by Ceci Brunning and Jenna Bunnell
Photo source: “Immigrants at Ellis Island”
The Roaring Twenties signaled an era in American history
in which modernity and progress were at the forefront of
every American mind. Business was booming in the post-
AMERICANS’
PERCEPTIONS OF
IMMIGRATION
IN THE 1920S

2. Photo source: “Newly Arrived
immigrants on Ellis Island”
http://teacher.scholastic.com/
activities/immigration/tour/
stop3.htm
World War era and the new consumer- based economy catered
to an ever evolving society, which rejected traditional social
norms and and embraced modern notions of cultural and social
freedoms. The famous “Jazz Age” has been immortalized as an
age of unabashed creativity and liberation all set to the tune of a
sexy jazz rhythm in a neighborhood speakeasy.
Of course, the image of the 1920s entrenched in the splendor of
fictional characters like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, Jay Gatsby and in
famous residents of West Egg are romanticized visions of a
society that was in all actuality full of social and economic
disparities between American urban areas and American
farmlands. Fear and paranoia swept through the more
conservative epicenters of America, and many people
experienced a period of backlash against social change, foreign
objects, and foreign peoples.
This DBQ assignment is meant for students to view the issue of
immigration through various primary sources based on the
perceptions of different individuals and groups from the 1920s.
Using these primary sources, students will be introduced to
differing opinions on the issue of immigration during a time period
where racial tensions were high, and fear and paranoia ruled the
day.
2

3. The following documents
are meant for examination
purposes. As you look
over them, consider the
various perceptions of
immigration throughout
the 1920s. What was the
reasoning and motivations
behind these differing
beliefs? How did different
groups or individuals view
immigrants and
immigration? What did
these same individuals
and groups believe should
be done with immigrants?
How are their arguments
similar and different?
3
Picture Source: “Norfolk and Hester
Street’s” Photographer: J.S.
Johnston, 1898.
http://macaulay.cuny.edu/eportfolios/
friedlander12/demography-and-
residence-patterns/jewish-
demographics-and-residence-
patterns-2/emigration-to-the-us/

4. 4
The “immigration problem,” so called, has
always been and always will be an economic
problem. There are many people who feel that
there is an inherent superiority in the Anglo-
Saxon race, that it has a better mind, greater
virtue, and a better reason for existence and
expansion than any other race. They insist
there are eugenic reasons for excluding
immigration from South and Central Europe;
they would preserve America for people of
Anglo-Saxon stock.
As an immigration official I presided over
Ellis Island for five years. During this time
probably a million immigrants arrived at the
port of New York. They were for the most part
poor. They had that in common with the early
immigrant. They had other qualities in
common. They were ambitious and filled with
hope. They were for the most part kindly and
moved by the same human and domestic
virtues as other peoples. And it is to me an
open question whether the “new immigration,”
if given a virgin continent, and the hope and
stimulus which springs from such opportunity,
would not develop the same qualities of mind
and of character that we assume to be the
Frederic C. Howe was appointed the
Commissioner of Immigration of the
Port City of New York between 1914
and 1919. Howe wrote prolifically on
social reforms and women’s suffrage.
He would later help to establish the
National Progressive League to
support the president candidacy of
Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Photo Source: “Frederic C. Howe”
http://spartacus-educational.com/
Frederic_C_Howe.htm
As you read this excerpt from Howe’s “The Alien,” think about the way in which
Howe describes the immigrants he witnessed during his time as
Commissioner.
1. What is the author’s perspective on the root of the immigration problem is?
2. How does the author address other perspectives on immigration?
3. What comments is he making overall on the point of view of immigrants in
America?
Except from Fredric C. Howe’s, “The Alien,” in
H.E Stern’s, ed., Civilization in the united
States: An Inquiry by Thirty Americas, 1992.
Source:http://americainclass.org/sources/
becomingmodern/divisions/text7/

5. 5
Video source: Felix the Cat: all Puzzled
https://archive.org/details/Felix_AllPuzzled_NoAudio
Felix the Cat: All Puzzled
The beloved Felix the Cat
debuted his silent acting
career in a 1919 cartoon.
Throughout the1920s and up
until the 1940s, Felix
cartoons were wildly popular
with the American public.
While you are watching the
short film, try and figure out
what Felix is “saying” about
immigrants and foreigners in
general.
1.How are Russians
portrayed in this clip?
2.What does the answer to
the crossword indicate about
the American perception of
immigrants and foreigners?
3. In what ways would this
video affect the perceptions
of the American public?
Note: there is no audio in this film.
It begins with 7 seconds of black screen

6. 6
The Rising Tide of Color Against
White World Supremacy, 1920
[E]ven under even the most
favorable circumstances, we
are in for generations of racial
readjustment—an immense
travail [project/challenge],
essentially needless, since the
final product will probably not
measure up to the colonial
standard. We will probably
never (unless we adopt
positive eugenic measures) be
the race we might have been if
America had been reserved
for the descendants of the
Re-Forging America: The Story
of Our Nationhood, 1927
However, we know enough
about present-day America to
realize that it differs from the
America of 1914 fully as much
as the America of 1870 did
from America before the Civil
War. Happily, while the
America of 1870 had changed
for the worse, our America of
today is vastly improved.
Indeed, not since the nation’s
youthful days before 1850
have America’s prospects
been so bright as they are
Picture Sources: “Lothoro Stoddard”
http://www.toqonline.com/blog/lothrop-stoddard-and-the-rising-tide-of-color/
“The Rising Tide Of Color Against White World Supremacy”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rising_Tide_of_Color_Against_White_World-Supremacy
Text Sources: “The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy, 1920”
“Re-Forging America: The Story of Our Nationhood, 1927”
http://americainclass.org/sources/becomingmodern/divisions/text7/colcomnativeforeign.pdf
Lothrop Stoddard wrote
The Rising Tide of Color
in 1920. Stoddard was a
supporter of eugenics
and argued that the
destruction of
Western civilization
began with the mixing of
races. His ideas about
racial purity would later
be held in high regard by
the National Socialist
Lothrop Stoddard
Read the excepts from Stoddards
theories on race and reflect on his
attitudes towards race.
1. What is the author’s perspective
on immigration?
2. How does he view America?
Immigrants?
3. What does he credit as positive
and effective in the life of
Americans?

7. 7
Photo source: “We Can’t Digest the Scum” Billy Ireland (1919)
http://hti.osu.edu/sites/hti.osu.edu/files/styles/raw-image/public/
RedScare_50.jpg?itok=7kfE8iYn
After the Russian Revolution and the rise of
the Communist Bolsheviks in Russia,
capitalist Americans began to feed into the
idea that radical foreigners would attempt
to overthrow the government and capitalist
economy. America’s melting pot, or the idea
that mixed heritages were happily unified in
America, suddenly became an American
weak-point.The “red scare” of the 1920s
gave way to massive speculation over
communist tendencies in both foreigners
and American’s sympathetic to socialist
ideals.
Look at the political cartoon and try to determine the
meaning behind the images:
1. How does this comic portray immigration?
2. What words are included in the melting pot?
3. How do those words connect to immigration?
4. What is the melting pot a symbol for? How does this
cartoon change the meaning of the melting pot?

8. 8
“America for the Americans,” Madison Grant,
The Forum, September 1925
America, like all other nations, must consider
immigration and its limitation solely from her
own standpoint. Her first duty is to herself and
to the people already here. No obligation or
duty what- ever in this connection is owing to
anyone else. Whether or not we should admit
any individual or racial group is a matter to be
determined solely by the interest and welfare of
Americans. Such is the national viewpoint. The
international viewpoint is that America should
share its prosperity and the wealth of its citizens
with the world at large and should admit
anyone who desires to come here. . . . The
aliens in our midst are not assimilated as it was
fatuously believed would be the case a few
decades ago, when the “Myth of the Melting
Pot” was enthusiastically accepted and
welcomed. Recent discussions in the press have
brought out clearly the fact that those who are
alien in race and religion have not
amalgamated with the native population. They
largely marry among them- selves, maintain
their religions and customs, and retain their
foreign connections and sympathies almost
without abatement. . . . We might as well
recognize the fact once for all that, with the
exception of individuals, the great mass of our
foreigners remain foreign and will so remain as
long as we allow them to recruit their numbers
from abroad. . . . Whether the foreigners
remain in separate colonies, or whether they
Photo source:”Madison Grant” found in “Our Vanishing Wildlife: Its Extermination and
Preservation” William T. Hornaday (1913).
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13249/13249-h/images/img77a.jpgText
Text source: “America for the Americans,” Madison Grant, The Forum, September (1925).
http://americainclass.org/sources/becomingmodern/divisions/text7/
colcomnativeforeign.pdf
Madison Grant
Madison Grant was a prominent
conservationist and eugenicist
throughout the 1920s and 1930s. He
wrote the infamous book, “The
Passing of the Great Race” in 1916
in an attempt to highlight the need
for European racial purity. Grant
championed eugenics, or the belief
and practice of improving the
genetic quality of the human race, as
a means of maintaining white
supremacy.
Read Grant’s short essay and then
answer the following questions:
1. What does Grant believe about
the melting pot analogy?
2. What is his view on immigrants?
3. What does he believe immigrants
do?
4. According to Grant, how do
immigrants fit into society?

9. 9
“In the past twenty-five years an innumerable host has crossed the
ocean in the steerage quarters of the great, trans-Atlantic steamships,
and landed on our shores, making America the dumping ground for
every class of criminals and other undesirables. They have come out
from old religious and political dynasties, as truly pagan as those of
India and China, where the heathen in their blindness and superstition
bow down to gods of wood and stone. What respect have these
persons for our laws? or what appreciation for the great achievements
wrought out by the hands of toil and sacrifice? They have taken
advantage of our hospitality, monopolized our American industries, and
carried the spoils back across the seas. In some places—of which
New York is a good example—under the leadership of corrupt
politicians they have captured the government and subsidized it to
their own purposes. Such persons are only waiting for the opportunity
to substitute the green, yellow, or red flag for the Stars and Stripes.
- Alma White, Founder of the Pillar of Fire Church in Denver, Colorado
Alma White was the founder of the Pillar of Fire Church in Denver,
Colorado. White was famous for her connections with the Ku Klux
Klan and often attended Klan functions with her church members.
She published a monthly publication called The Good Citizen
and wrote many pamphlets in direct support of the Ku Klux Klan’s
agenda of intolerance and white supremacy.
Photo source: “The Ku Klux Klan in Prophecy” Alma White (1925)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0f/Kkkinprophecy.jpg
Text source: “Heroes of the Fiery Cross” Alma White (1928)
http://americainclass.org/sources/becomingmodern/divisions/text7/
colcomnativeforeign.pdf
Questions to answer:
1. What are the main complaints addressed in this paragraph?
2. What does White accuse immigrants of doing to America?
3. What does white suggest is the immigrant ‘agenda?’
! ! ! !

10. 10
Does Americanization Americanize? Gino Sperenza, The
Atlantic, (1920)
This nation has two functions in history and toward mankind:
first, to disseminate principles of democracy, freedom, and
humanity among all men throughout the world; and, second,
to be a nation characteristically American from top to
bottom. It is this latter function that we have sacrificed — if
not seriously endangered — by our policy and desire of
forcing quick or accelerated Americanization, be it political
or spiritual. The present ‘drive’ has already brought forth a
number of bills in Congress which, in effect, would compel
aliens, after a certain length of residence, to become
‘citizens’ or leave the country.
Yet the more ‘raw’ citizens (if I may use the term) you take
in, helping the process by a veneer of Americanization, the
more you threaten our characteristically American form of
democracy. ‘If we believe,’ as I said several years ago
before the American Academy of Political Science, ‘in the
great system of self-government developed and stubbornly
fought for by the English people through centuries of training
and struggle, we may fairly claim that its continuance and
stability will depend on a citizenship attached to and
understanding its spirit and history and in sympathy with its
political ideals,’ ‘We want and must have real spiritual
allegiance; we want and must have only such citizens as
think in terms of American life.’
As the finest contemporary exponent of America said, in his
American Ideals, there is ‘one quality that we must bring to
the solution of every problem, that is, an intense and fervid
Americanism.’ Even in the great struggle now going on
between capital and labor, ‘the outcome,’ as President
Gino Sperenza was a lawyer and journalist
who focused much of his career on serving
the Italian immigrants of New York. His later
years were spent developing his theories of
what it meant to be American and how the
idea of Americanism affected the recent influx
of immigrants during the 1920s.
After reading the selection, answer the
following questions:
1. What is Sperenza’s general feeling towards
immigrants?
2. How would he address the issue of
excessive immigration?
3. Does Sperenza feel that americanization
works in terms of assimilating immigrants?
Text Source: Does Americanization Americanize? Gino
Sperenza, The Atlantic, (1920)
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1920/02/
does-americanization-americanize/309208/

11. 11
The following are posters promoting free English
classes in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The
poster promotes the concept of
‘Americanization,’ in which immigrants were
encouraged to share American values, beliefs,
and customs. Learning English was an attempt
by immigrants to assimilate into American
culture.
1.How might these posters be useful to newly
arrived immigrants? How might these posters be
harmful to newly arrived immigrants?
2.How do these posters explain the American
perception of immigrants? What assumptions do
they make?
3.What are the potential pros and cons of
Americanization?
Photo(s) Source: “Learn English” Posters http://
digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchdetail.cfm?
trg=1&strucID=247442&imageID=434264&total=37&num=20
&word=Tompkins%20square
%20&s=1&notword=&d=&c=&f=&k=1&lWord=&lField=&sSc
ope=&sLevel=&sLabel=&sort=&imgs=20&pos=22&e=w
English
Learn English posters

12. 12
Herbert Hoover
The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 was
the primary immigration reform of
the 1920s. The act called to limit the
number of immigrants entering the
United States. Quotas were set and
provided visa to a limited total
number of people from each
nationality represented in the 1890
census. Asian immigrants, however,
were completely excluded from the
quota. The following proclamation
was issued by Herbert Hoover re-
affirming the Johnson Reed Act of
1924.
A Proclamation, Herbert Hoover 1929
Whereas it is provided in the act of
Congress approved May 26, 1924,
entitled "An act to limit the
immigration of aliens into the United
States, and for other purposes" that
"The annual quota of any nationality
shall be two per centum of the
number of foreign-born individuals of
such nationality resident in continental
United States as determined by the
United States Census of 1890, but the
minimum quota of any nationality
shall be 100 (Sec. 11 a). . . . "The
Secretary of State, the Secretary of
Commerce, and the Secretary of
Labor, jointly, shall, as soon as
feasible after the enactment of this
act, prepare a statement showing the
number of individuals of the various
nationalities resident in continental
United States as determined by the
United States Census of 1890, which
statement shall be the population
basis for the purposes of subdivision
(a) of section 11 (Sec. 12 b). "Such
officials shall, jointly, report annually
to the President the quota of each
nationality under subdivision (a) of
section 11, together with the
statements, estimates, and revisions
Text source: “Proclamation 1872-Limiting the Immigration of Aliens into the United States
on the Basis of National Origin,” Herbert Hoover, (March 22nd, 1929)
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=21838
Photo Source: “Herbert Hoover”
http://media-1.web.britannica.com/eb-media/72/1272-004-4C7530A2.jpg
1. Which countries are excluded from the list? Which countries are
included on the list?
2. What are similarities and differences between the countries listed?
Who is allowed more people, and who is not allowed very many
people?
3. What does the passage of all these quota indicate about the
American government’s attitude towards immigration?

13. 13
Photo sources: “The Arrival”
http://teacher.scholastic.com/
activities/immigration/tour/stop2.htm
“Forging Our Legacy”
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/
resources/publications/legacy/
chap-4.asp
What we Learned: A Reflection
We have learned a lot about teaching history as well as history itself through this DBQ
project. First off, we were reminded about how vast history is and how deep you can
go with a topic. Our topic developed and changed over the course of the semester,
but it always stayed within the realm of America in the 1920’s. The reason we
switched around so much was because we realized there was so much going on in the
1920’s in America and had to decide on a corner to focus on. We eventually decided
upon views of immigration in the 1920’s in America, not only because there are a lot
of primary sources on the topic but also because it directly connects to the hot
contemporary topic of views of immigration today in America.
Some difficulties we encountered were sifting through all the primary sources out
Ceci Brunning AboutMe

14.
Complete iBook available
free at iTunes
FROM - EXPLORING
HISTORY: VOL II

15. This eBook is a collaborative project of Peter Pappas
and his Fall 2014 Social Studies Methods Class
School of Education ~ University of Portland, Portland Ore.
Graduate and undergraduate level pre-service teachers were assigned the
task of developing an engaging research question, researching supportive
documents and curating them into a DBQ suitable for middle or high
school students.
For more on this class, visit the course blog EdMethods
For more on the assignment and work flow tap here.
Chapters in chronological order
1. The American Revolution by Scott Deal
2. The Pig War by Andy Saxton
3. Cesspool of Savagery by Michelle Murphy
4. Chemical War by Erik Nelson
5. Americans’ Perceptions of Immigration
in the 1920s by Ceci Brunning and Jenna Bunnell
6. The New Deal and the Art of Public Persuasion
by Kari VanKommer
7. Combat Soldiers in Context by Kristi Anne McKenzie
8. The Marshall Plan: Altruism or Pragmatism?
by Sam Kimerling
9. Little Rock Nine: Evaluating Historical Sources
by Christy Thomas
10. First Ladies as a Political Tool by Emily Strocher
EXPLORING HISTORY: VOL II
xv
Engaging questions and historic
documents empower students to be
the historian in the classroom.

16. Cover image: Replica of old French globe
Date:1 January 1, 2013
Petar Milošević
Peter Pappas, editor
School of Education ~ University of Portland
His popular blog, Copy/Paste features downloads of his instructional
resources, projects and publications. Follow him at Twitter @edteck.
His other multi-touch eBooks are available at here. For an example of
one of his eBook design training workshops tap here.
CC BY-NC 3.0 Peter Pappas, Ceci Brunning and Jenna Bunnell 2014
The authors take copyright infringement seriously. If any copyright holder has
been inadvertently or unintentionally overlooked, the publisher will be pleased to
remove the said material from this book at the very first opportunity.
xviSource