2. Regulation and exclusion

Abstract

The period from the end of the Civil War through the early 1920s is characterized by massive immigration, especially after the end of the depression of the 1890s, hostile reaction to large-scale immigration, and increasing centralized control of immigration by the state. The latter two trends were embedded in growing racial and nationality consciousness and the general trend toward the growth of the state and centralized bureaucracy. The results were efforts to tighten and systematize border controls and entrance procedures, exclusions of growing numbers of immigrants from Asia, beginning with most Chinese immigrants in 1882, and quota laws in the 1920s to severely restrict the entrance of southern, eastern, and central Europeans. The vast numbers of immigrants entering the country during this period of American modernization were central to the United States becoming the leading capitalist economy in the twentieth century.