PEOPLE ON THE MOVE - Department of Geography

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE
Introduction
The movement of people is one of the more interesting topics of social studies
because it affects all of us either directly or indirectly. This activity focuses on the
processes that have influenced the movement of your student's families and those
that influenced the movement of Scandinavians to the US in tne late 19th
century. The understandings that can be gained from this learning activity are
generalizable and can be tested against data from other times and places.
Teaching Level
Grades 4-12
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills
• Grade 5
5.4 The student understands political, economic, and social changes that occurred
in the US during the 19 th century.
(B) identify reasons people moved west
5.8 The student understands the location and patterns of settlement and the
geographic factors that influence where people live
(D) explain the geographic factors that influence patterns of settlement and the
distribution of population in the United States.
• Grade 8
8.24 The student understands the relationships between and among people from
various groups…
(A) identify selected racial, ethnic, and religious groups that settled in the US and
their reasons for immigration
• World Geography
7. The student understands the growth, distribution, movemeent, and
characteristics of world population.
B) explain the political, economic, social, and environmental factors that
contribute to human migration such as how national and international migrations
are shaped by push-and-pull factors and how physical geography affects the
routes, flows, and destinations of migration
Objectives
Students will:
1. hypothesize the reasons people have for moving from one place to
another.
2. distinguish between push factors and pull factors.
3. collect data to test their hypotheses about why people move.
4. develop one or more generalizations about why people move.
Connection with the Curriculum
This activity is appropriate for students studying the migration of people in
any context. It can be used to practice language arts and mathematics skills.

Materials &
Handouts:
• Why People Move
• Teacher Background
• Push Factors
• Pull Factors
Suggestions for Teaching the Lesson
Opening the Lesson
1. Explain to students that people move for specific reasons and they will be able
to discover some of those reasons. Have students brainstorm some of the reasons
that people have for moving from one place to another. Write the responses on
the chalkboard or overhead.
2. Ask students to indicate whether or not their families have moved during their
lifetime. What were the reasons? Some students may need prompts. The
worksheet Why People Move may help focus discussion. Add these reasons to the
list on the chalkboard/overhead. Plot the locations of student moves on a map of
your community, Texas, the United States, or world.
3. Explain to students that reasons for moving can be categorized into push
factors and pull factors. Push factors represent perceived problems or
dissatisfaction with the place in which people are living. Pull factors represent
perceived benefits of the place to which people are drawn. Have student
categorize reasons in the list they have generated as either push or pull.
4. Have students summarize (generalize about) the reasons for movement of
people from place to place. Statements such as, "People move from areas of
unemployment to areas where jobs are available." is a good example of a
summary statement.
Developing the Lesson
5. Using maps and graphs available in many US history texts or world atlases,
help students to understand that historically the US has been the recipient of large
numbers of people from other parts of the world, that many countries have
contributed to this flow of people, and that the movement has varied in size from
time to time. Distinguish between immigration and emigration.
6. Help students hypothesize about push and pull factors that might have been
operating for specific groups at specific time periods, e.g., the Potato Famine,
Ireland, 1840s, Industrial Revolution and Enclosure, United Kingdom, mid-
1700s, revolutions and military conscription in the German states, 1840s and
1870s, pogrom in Russia, 1890s, Mexican Revolution, 1910s-1920s, conflict in
Central America, 1980s, etc. Ask student why their families emigrated to the
United States. Have them interview their grandparents and relatives. Map their
routes.
7. Hand out the documents Push Factors and Pull Factors. Explain that these are

actual, although slightly edited letters/documents written by Scandinavian
immigrants in the late 1800s. Have students read Push Factors first. Ask students
to infer what reasons pushed emigrants to leave their home countries. Compare
these inferences to those generated in Step 6. Then, have students read the pull
documents and infer what reasons drew people to the US. Compare these again
to those generated previously. Help students focus on the questions of how
push/pull factors operating for late 19th century Scandinavians were the same as
or different from those operating for other immigrants. Also, focus on how the
factors operating for the Scandinavians differ from or are similar to those
generated in Steps 1-4.
Developing the Lesson
8. Close the activity by having students identify several major reasons for the
movement of people from place to place. Help them to understand that reasons
may differ from place to place, and time to time.
Assessment
Ask students to write a list of generalizations regarding factors which push people
to move and pull people to certain locations. Ask them to exchange their lists and
ask small groups of students to write stories or plays about young people at
different periods of time making the decision to move. Each story/script should
feature a clear explanation of both push and pull factors.
References and Resources
Martin, Philip, and Elizabeth Midgley. 1994. immigration to the United States:
Journey to an uncertain destination. Washington D.C.: Population Reference
Bureau.

TEACHER BACKGROUND
AMERICA'S FOUR WAVES OF IMMIGRATION *
The United States is considered a "nation of immigrants." With the exception of
Native Americans, every American is 1 of 60 million immigrants or their
descendants. The United States was peopled by three broad groups.
Colonists. European settlers set the framework of the society that became the
United States. Starting at Jamestown and Plymouth early in the 17th century,
English colonists predominated, pushing back Native American settlements,
seizing control from the Dutch in New York, and overrunning various French and
Spanish settlements. They established English as the public language and English
common law as the foundation of the American legal system.
Involuntary Americans. Two types of coercion contributed to the peopling of
America: the importation of African slaves (who formed 19 percent of the U.S.
population of 1790), and the incorporation of Native American, Spanish, and
French populations as the boundaries of the United States expanded westward.
The slave trade brought an estimated 600,000 involuntary African immigrants
before the importation of slaves was officially abolished in 1808. Other notable
examples of involuntary (but free) Americans are:
• the French living in North America in 1803 when the United States
concluded the Louisiana Purchase;
• the Native Americans and Mexicans in Texas, California, and other
southwestern regions who became Americans when these territories came
under U.S. jurisdiction in the 1800s; and
• Puerto Ricans who became colonial subjects of the United States and
eventually U.S. citizens as a result of the American victory in the Spanish-
American War in 1898.
Immigrants. The word "immigrant" was coined around 1789 to describe an alien
who voluntarily moved from one established society to another. Some 60 million
immigrants have come to the United States since its founding. They, along with
the colonists, the slaves, the Native Americans, and their descendants, make up
the American people.
The number of immigrants to the United States fluctuated with economic
conditions here and abroad and with U.S. immigration policies. These various
factors combined to create four major waves of immigration. The first three were
marked by a peak followed by a trough, and the fourth wave describes the current
situation.
The First Wave: 1790-1820. The first wave of immigration occurred before
1820, the year the government began recording immigrant arrivals. English

settlers were the most prominent immigrant group— they comprised 60 percent
of U.S. citizenry in 1790, the year of the first U.S. population census. In addition
to the English, there were Scots, Scots Irish, Germans, Dutch, French, and
Spanish. These immigrant groups came for a variety of religious, political, and
economic reasons. German sectarians sought religious freedom in Pennsylvania;
Spaniards looked for Christian converts in Florida and the southwest; and the
Puritans in Massachusetts sought to establish a community restricted to members
of their faith. The early immigrants took big risks. Starvation, disease, and
shipwreck killed at least 1 in 10 of those who set sail for America before they
reached her shores. The cost of travel was equivalent to about six months' wages
in England. A substantial share of white immigrants (one-third of those arriving in
1776) indentured themselves to secure passage. These indentured workers were
legally bound to work for as long as five years for the employer who paid their
passage.
The Second Wave: 1820-1860. The second wave of immigrants fit well with
American eagerness to push back the frontier. In Europe, peasants displaced from
agriculture and artisans made jobless by the industrial revolution were eager for
new opportunities. New arrivals sent what came to be called "American Letters"
back to Europe, encouraging friends and relatives to join them. Steamship and
railroad companies recruited immigrants as customers. Between 1820 and 1840,
over 750,000 German, British, and Irish immigrants arrived in the United States.
During the following 20 years, 4.3 million more came from those countries.
About 40 percent of these second-wave immigrants were from Ireland, where
poverty and famine encouraged emigration. One-third came from the German
lands, escaping economic problems and seeking political freedom after 1848.
Roman Catholics predominated in the second wave. Although most Americans
were Protestants of various denominations, the Roman Catholic church was the
largest single religious body in the United States by 1850.
The Third Wave: 1880-1914. The third wave began in 1880, with almost
460,000 arrivals, and ended in 1914 when 1.2 million immigrants entered the
United States. These immigrants came from different regions than had the
immigrants in previous waves: over 20 million came from southern and eastern
Europe, mostly flowing into the eastern and midwestem states. Several hundred
thousand immigrants from China, Japan, and other Asian countries migrated to
the western states.
The shift in national origins can be seen by comparing the homelands of the
immigrants who came in 1882 with those who came in 1907, two peak years of
immigration. Of those arriving in 1882, 87 percent came from northern and
western Europe, and 13 percent from the countries of southern and eastern
Europe. In 1907, the proportions were reversed: 19 percent and 81 percent,
respectively. Among this third wave were the first large numbers of people of
Jewish and Eastern Orthodox religion. From the turn of the century onward, most
newcomers found industrial employment in the great cities. In 1910, immigrants
comprised over half of all operatives in mining, steel, and meat-packing, and
foreign bom men made up more than one half of the work force in dties such as
New York, Chicago, and Detroit.

The numbers were large: over 1 million immigrants arrived annually in 6 of the
first 14 years of the 20th century. By the time of the 1910 Census, foreign-bom
residents made up nearly 15 percent of the U.S. population and about 24
percent of the U.S. Labor force.
The 20th-century Trough: 1915-1964. Immigration ceased as war erupted in
Europe, and remained low throughout World War I. When immigration started to
revive in the 1920s, it was cut back again, first by sharp immigration restrictions
and then by the Great Depression. Easing of legal restrictions began after World
War n, but legal immigration stayed at about 250,000 per year until the 1960s,
when changes in immigration law allowed larger flows. Immigrants from Mexico
and other Western Hemisphere nations accounted for one-third of the 1 million
immigrants who arrived officially during the 1940s. Between 1940 and
1960,360,000 legal Mexican immigrants were admitted, and another 1 to 2
million worked temporarily as Braceros in U.S. agriculture. The number of illegal
entries from Mexico during this period is not known. The U.S. border patrol
located and deported over 1 million Mexicans in the infamous "Operation
Wetback in the mid 1950s. However, some of those deported were later found
to be U.S. citizens or legal residents.
The Fourth Wave: 1965 to the Present. The fourth wave of immigrants began
arriving in the United States after 1965, when a new law altered the preference
system from one that selected immigrants on me basis of their national origins,
reserving most places for northern and western Europeans, to one that gave
priority to people with family members already in the United States or who had
skills needed in the U.S. Labor market. This change, coupled with prosperity in
Europe, changed the composition of U.S. immigration. During the 1970s, Europe
sent less than 20 percent of U.S. immigrants; Mexico contributed nearly the same
share. During the 1980s and early 1990s, Europeans were about 10 percent of
legal immigrants, while Asians made up about one-third and Hispanics nearly onehalf
of the decade's immigrants.
The immigration waves at the beginning and end of the 20th century have many
similarities, even though the national origins of immigrants differ. Over 1 million
immigrants arrived annually during the peak immigration years in the early
1900s, about the same level as in the early 1990s. Both waves brought large
numbers of people whose national origins, religions, languages, and cultures are
significantly different from those of the American majority. Deep-seated concerns
about the newcomers during the third and fourth waves prompted reassessments
and reforms of U.S. immigration policies. Now one in every 11 Americans is
foreign-born.

WHY PEOPLE MOVE
1. How many houses or apartments have you lived in since you were born?
2. Listed below are possible reasons families move to a different place. Check the
reasons that describe why your family has moved during your lifetime.
❒ CLIMATE
❒ BETTER JOB
❒ CLOSER TO FAMILY
❒ RACIAL OR ETHNIC PRESSURE
❒ BETTER OR LARGER HOUSE OR APARTMENT
❒ LESS EXPENSIVE HOUSING
❒ CLOSER TO SCHOOLS
❒ URBAN RENEWAL
❒ FIRE OR FLOOD DAMAGE
❒ SAFER NEIGHBORHOOD
❒ CLOSER TO PLACE OF WORK
❒ OTHER (specify)_____________________________________
3. What obstacles, if any did you encounter while moving?
4. What difficulties did you have in adjusting to each new home and
neighborhood?

PUSH FACTORS
Document #1
I am a woman, born in Varmland and I belonged to the poor class. I had to go
out and earn my bread already at the age of eight. Most of what I did was to look
after children. Had to get up at four o'clock in the morning with the others.
Seldom got anything to eat or drink before eight o'clock, for the coffee mixed
with rye was thought dangerous to the health. I got rotten herring and potatoes,
served out in small amounts so that I would not have the chance to eat myself
sick. That was my usual fare. In particular a corporal of the crown and his wife
who I was with for two summers, distinguished themselves by their stinginess and
cruelty. From the military on land and sea protect us, dear Lord! Poor conscripts
have to serve as slaves under such wretched.
I did not have time to go to school very much. I had to leam the catechism,
naturally, and that I had to do during the time I was watching the cows or some
child. But I was not allowed to neglect Sunday school, for they wanted to drill
into us poor people certain biblical passages, such as "Be godly and let us be
contented," and so forth. Mean while the rich heard, "If your sins were red as
blood, yet would they be white as snow." etc. So passed the days of my
childhood and I got far enough along so that I was considered worthy of being
admitted to holy communion, which is supposed to be a turning point in a
person's life. But whichever way I turned things, the future looked just as dark.
Still I had to struggle along five more years before I could be considered a proper
hired girl and get any wage. And what a wage! And what work! No hope of
saving anything in case if illness, but rather I could see the poorhouse waiting for
me in the distance.
Then one day, I was then in my seventeenth year, the hour of freedom struck. I
got a ticket from my two brothers, who had managed to get to America, after
living through a childhood like mine, I was soon ready to travel, my few
possessions were packed in a bundle: my New Testament which I had gotten from
the pastor, a bad report card from school, money which two kind women gave
me. Thus prepared, I set off with a light heart for the great land in the west. And
I have never regretted that journey. Certainly I have had to work, but I was
considered a human being even when I was poor. Have a good home here. Am
not burdened with love for the fatherland so have no wish ever to return.
Document #2
This article was printed, in the local newspaper at Bjorgby, Denmark,
November, 1870.

The Parish Council would like to draw attention to a machine invented by the
bachelor, Christian Jensen, Skeen, Ubbsby, for the manufacturing of straw bands
for thatching. Last autumn a machine for the workhouse (poor house) was bought
from the inventor, and after one year's use it is a pleasure for us to certify that it
answers its purpose completely. It is particularly suited for application in work
houses, as it can be used by old people and children. A healthy and capable man
is able to make 800 to 1000 fauns (1 faun - 1.9 meters) a day on this machine.
We should appredate it if this recommendation might help the inventor, who is an
honest and ambitious young man, and who lives under very poor conditions.
Bjorgby-Mygdal Sogneraad November 19,1870.
Document #3
Mrs. E.C.
I was born in 1879. My parents leased a farm. When I was eight years old, my
father died, leaving me and another daughter, four years old, as well as my
mother. When the auction was over and the debts paid, there was little left. My
mother had two sons from an earlier marriage, one fourteen and the other sixteen
years old at the time of my father's death, but they were out working for others.
So some years passed and we moved down to the village. Mother worked out for
farmers, and in between she wove cotton material and sold it. Then my brothers
went to America and sent her a little money now and then, and that helped
enough so that she did not have to go the commune for help.
When I was thirteen years old, I had to go out and work. I was only a child when
I came to work for a railway crossing guard and stayed there a year. I got my
food and one when I left. Mother had to provide my clothes. Then I stayed at
home while I went and read for confirmation, to the great annoyance of the
farmers around there. When I was sixteen I took service with a farmer. I had to
work like a dog, go out and spread manure and dirt from the ditches during the
summer and on the snowiest days of winter I had to carry water to eleven cows.
This besides all the other work. Work every minute from six o'clock in the same
morning until nine at night. Sundays and weekdays always the same. No wonder
that hired girls do not want to work for farmers. Whoever had done it knows all
too well what that means. The hired man often had hard work, but he has his
room to go to when he has finished his work, and he has his noon break, but
when does the hired girl get to rest? While the others take it easy around noon
she has to run out into the woods and fields to milk, and then she has to wash
dished when she is finished with that. By then the others are ready to go out to
work again and naturally she has to go along, so it was for me, so it is for all
farmers' hired girls. Never a free moment.

PULL FACTORS
Document #1
Brothers, we have far to go,
Across the salty water, And
then there is America, Upon
the other shore, Surely it's not
possible? Oh yes, it's so
delightful.' Pity mat America,
Pity that America Must lie so
far away.
The trees that grow there in the land, Sweet
they are, as sugar, The country there is filled
with girls. Lovely little dolls.
And if you would like one of the them, You
right away have four or five, Out there in
the fields There grows English money.
Ducks and chickens come raining down,
Roasted geese, and others yet
Ry onto the table
With knife and fork stuck in "em.
The sun, it never does go down. Or go
out for each of us, Here is gaiety and
song, Cellars filled with fine champagne.
Surely it's not possible? Oh yes, it's so
delightful! Pity that America. Pity that
America Must lie so far away.
Document #2
Much I have seen, heard, and experienced, but nothing unhappy, no shady sides.
To be sure I believed when I departed from home, from the fatherland, from
family, friends, and acquaintances, that everything would at first be rather
unfamiliar. But no, strangely enough, everything is as I wished it should be. The
country is beautiful, if any land on earth deserves to be called so.
The soil consists of a kind of dark loam over a layer of marl on a day base;
your finest plowlands at home cannot compare with the rich prairies here, where
golden harvests grow from year to year without having to be manured or ditched.
No stones, no stumps hinder the cultivator's plow. If you add to this that one can
almost get such land as a gift or for an insignificant sum compared with it natural

value, you soon have an idea why America is truly and undeniably better.
But here is another thing, taxes do not consume the American farmer, they are
extremely light. America maintains no expensive royal house, no inactive armies,
which undermine the people's welfare: such things are considered here as
superfluous articles and extremely harmful. Never has a freer people trodden,
cultivated, and tended a better land than this. Hundreds of thousands of persons
have found here the happiness they vainly sought in Europe's lands.
The greater part have come here without means, many even with debts. But with
good will and an unshakable will to work they have within a few years gradually
attained sustenance, prosperity, indeed quite often wealth. And still there is land
for a hundred million people, as fabulous as this may sound. And as far as food is
concerned, there is such great abundance here that one would be amazed, even if
he were the greatest gourmet. To list everything here would surely be too long;
let me therefore say that it is unfamiliar to us. Now someone may perhaps believe
that there are bad persons and dangerous beasts here, but there is neither. When
we arrived we heard from everyone's Ups, welcome, heartily welcome, and they
showed by their actions that they meant what they said; they invited us to eat as
though we had been their nearest relatives. My traveling companion has bought
eight acres of land for around fifty dollars. The climate is remarkably fine: nothing
stands in our way except the language. We cannot understand their speech, but it
is possible for us to learn as well as others have done. I see after this first short
time that it is going well. and therefore you can understand that I do not regret
the journey, other than to regret that I had not made it before. But better late
than never, as the saying goes, and I agree.
There is no forest here to speak of, but there is so much corn that it is used for
fuel instead of firewood. Corn is also given to the large pigs, which are raised for
sale. Rivers flow through the land in all directions, railroads also cross it in all
directions.
* From Immigration to the United States: Journey to an Uncertain Destination.
Population Reference Bureau, 1875 Connecticut Ave., Washington D.C.,
20009-5728.