This Is What Immigration Looked Like in 1917

One hundred years ago, National
Geographic wrote that immigration in the U.S. had never
“occupied such a deep place in the mind of its people.” A year
before the end of the First World War, Congress passed the
Immigration Act of 1917, which drastically restricted the flow of
immigrants attempting to enter the United States. Families and
individuals from mostly Eastern Europe, Ireland, and Scandinavia
struggled to find refuge in a country historically accessible to
Europeans.

The reactionary policy was one of
America’s largest steps toward nativism, but certainly not its
last. The adage “history repeats itself” has perhaps never been
more relevant. The photos above are a selection from the 1917 story
“Our Foreign-Born
Citizens^[1].”