History of the United States II / Unit 9 USH2 1215 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Why 1890
The idea
The nineteen twenty-one and nineteen twenty-four quota laws are often run together, but the change between them is the lesson. The first based quotas on the census of nineteen ten; the second on the census of eighteen ninety. Moving the base year back twenty years moved it to before the great arrivals from southern and eastern Europe. Unit four's census figures show why: Italian-born residents rose from seventeen thousand in eighteen seventy to one point three four million by nineteen ten, Russian-born from under five thousand to nearly one point two million.
In practice
Two census years, twenty years apart, and the Italian and Russian rows between them.
Where people slip
The confusion to avoid is reading the second law as a smaller version of the first. Lowering the percentage cut numbers; moving the base year chose nationalities. The quotas of nineteen twenty-four favoured the older immigration from northern and western Europe by design. Unit fourteen shows the formula repealed in nineteen sixty-five.
Your place on the trail
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Unlocks
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