Russian-German Immigration

Throughout the 1900’s, Russian and German Jews immigrated to the United States in massive droves. Between 1881 and 1914, over three million Russian Jews immigrated to the United States. They formed their own communities and neighborhoods, especially in cities such as New York, where the Lower East Side was composed almost entirely of Jewish immigrants. The Russian Jews immigrated to the United States for a plethora of reasons, most of which related to the prejudices and bigotry that they had faced in their home countries, and once they were here, they faced new challenges both in the workplace and in education. Russian and German Jews immigrated to the United States in large numbers for the duration of the 1910’s and 1920’s. They faced discrimination …show more content…
Commonly, Jews ended up working as tailors, most of which worked in overcrowded, unsafe factories and sweatshops. Conditions in these places were horrendous, even though some changes were made during the Great Strike of 1909-1910. Originating in 3 factories, the Great Strike eventually expanded to encompass 20,000 workers, predominantly Jewish, and 300 factories. The strikers called for a 52-hour work week, pay for working overtime, and for recognition of their union by the factory owners. The strike ended after the factories made settlements with the strikers, though there was little concern for safety. While there were some improvements made, safety was still a massive issue; this was put on display during the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The conditions in the factory were so poor that safe evacuation of the building was not feasible, which led to the deaths of 146 Jewish and Italian women. Trying to escape the inferno, some women even jumped out of windows from the higher floors, landing on the concrete and dying as they landed. Author Ronald Takaki describes this in the book A Different Mirror for Young People, “Screaming, struggling, they jumped from windows, some from the ninth floor, their bodies smashing …show more content…
While more and more Jewish immigrants were coming to the United States, a multitude of them were seeking a formal education by going to colleges and universities. At first, they made up large portions of the population in schools like Harvard, where they made up one fifth of the student population by 1920. Other schools that had high populations of Jewish students were Hunter’s College in New York with half of the student population being Jewish and City College in New York with three quarters of the student population being Jewish. When people realized how large of a portion the Jewish students were, they protested against it. As quoted in the book The Ethnic Myth, “[I]t is evident that a tide of bigotry swept college campuses during the 1920’s, just as it did the nation as a whole.” To appease people and supposedly decrease anti-Semitism on campus, Albert Lawrence Lowell, the president of Harvard, changed the admission guidelines to impede Jewish students: GPA was no longer as important and applicants were required to include a picture with their application. These guidelines were based on a few different ideas. Jewish students generally had high grades, since they strived to prove that they were assets to the American community. The other admission guideline, requiring pictures with applications, was due to the misguided belief that you could tell that someone was Jewish