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Up until the mid 1800s you had to be rich, at least solidly middle class, to afford the passage across the Atlantic. There’s maybe 70 years of uncontrolled immi

Up until the mid 1800s you had to be rich, at least solidly middle class, to afford the passage across the Atlantic. There’s maybe 70 years of uncontrolled immigration not gated by very high costs before immigration became unpopular enough for restrictions to become large.

rayiner 4y ago
Poor immigrants took on debt or worked as indentured servants to afford passage, just like today: https://www.hsp.org/sites/default/files/legacy_files/migrated/germanstudentreading.pdf https://www.hsp.org/sites/default/files/legacy_files/migrate... “One historian described the typical German immigrant as a poor farmer or artisan who arrived around 1750 with a wife and two children. They were most likely in debt for the passage across the Atlantic but had family or friends already settled in America. They were affiliated with the Lutheran or Reformed church but only loosely committed to an organized religion. Records indicate that they became prosperous members of the community. However, many were too poor to pay the transatlantic passage so as many as one-half to two-third of German immigrants came to Pennsylvania as indentured servants or redemptioners, as Germans called them.”