Potato Famine Dbq

Economic pressures, such as: growing rents, multiple crop failures, and added with the prospect of greater opportunity abroad, lead many Scotch-Irish to travel to the American colonies during the eighteenth century (Hess). Many Scotch-Irish joined the mass migrations to this New World in response to the Potato Famine of the 1840s. As many immigrants are known for, the Scotch-Irish faced intolerable conditions in their homeland. These conditions were economical as well as cultural, and so they escaped the punishing conditions by traveling to the land of the free, America. It is understandable then as to why

In 1845, Ireland was hit with a devastating blight that destroyed all of its potatoes and caused more than a million people to die of starvation and disease. The Irish Potato Famine, also known as The Great Famine, was a tragic time in Irish history, lasting from 1845 - 1849. Ireland’s poor was very dependant on potatoes, so the sudden death of the potatoes devastated Ireland’s population. Ireland got almost no help from Great Britain, so it had to help itself, but it did not have the resources to do so.

A lot of them died during this time. Lots of the people could not find food so that led them to starve. Some of the settlers even dug up graves to eat the bodies of the dead people. The natives began to help the settlers by giving them food. The people

It has been well documented that Ireland faced famine because the potato crops failure to grow. (Nunn &

Irish Immigrants in America Before the outbreak of the dread Irish Potato Famine, the people of Ireland had been a relatively small demographic in America. The immigration of Irish males had increased in the 1820 's, due to an abundance of jobs created by the building of the Erie Canal and other canal, road, or railroad projects, but when the famine struck, entire families flocked in droves to the United States. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," they heard our country call, and they came by the thousands, hoping to find, if nothing else, a decent existence. Between the years 1820 and 1930, an estimated 4.5 million Irish came to America.

In 1850, only 5% of the American population was Catholic, they were the clear minority in the country. By 1906, 17% of the population in America was Catholic. In 1845 the Irish Potato Famine started, the lack of food caused many Irish to immigrate to America. With them, they brought their own culture and traditions, many of which were based on their faith, Catholicism. Many Americans were afraid that the influx of Catholics coming to the United States would grant the Pope more control over them.

Many families came to America is search of a better life and looking for a better future for themselves and their children. In 20th century, a million new immigrants arrived to America . Families have brought in their own culture and their own believes, influencing the lives of the ordinary Americans in Chicago. Partly because of urban-to rural migration and immigration, in 1920, for the first time in the American history, the vast majority of the people lived in cities of more than 2,2500 citizens.

As time went on, gardens became plantations for more than just food production, for example cotton production, and apples became a major industry in North America. European fruits and vegetables dominated the new world in an exchange known as the Columbian exchange. According to the documentary America Before Columbus, the potato was first introduced in Spain from the Americas during the 1600's but it's cultivation and use has now spread to Italy, Northern/Eastern Europe, Austria, Poland, France, Switzerland, England, Ireland and Germany. Since the Irish had a limited amount of food available to them as a result of war, they quickly adopted the potato and one hundred years later the Irish population had more than doubled. Towns, like Berlin, grew into large cities and by the 1700’s the European population had exploded, all because of the introduction of the potato during the Columbian Exchange.

After the War of 1812, workplaces all over the United States diversified. Factories came to see more free African Americans, Germans, Irishmen, and other nationalities working within them. Plantations welcomed Irishmen displaced by the potato famine and some free men that were willing to work alongside the plantation. To be able to accommodate a growing population and to diversify its resources, America began expanding west. Settlers in the west came once again into contact with Native American groups that in a way became reliant on and even part of the Western

During the late 19th century and early 20th century there were many rumors that America was the “land of opportunity”. Millions of people emigrated from Europe and Asia to America. However, the Chinese were banned from entering the country in 1882 due to the Chinese Exclusion Act. There was a difference between the old immigrants and the new immigrants. Old immigrants came from northern or western Europe, they assimilated quickly, they were Protestant, and they arrived with some money.

  Because the potato is a tuber, and therefor grows under-ground, it could be cultivated in the inhospitable lands of northern Europe and Asia.   It quickly became the food of soldiers, industrial workers,

Immigration and The American Dream Immigrants from the mid 19th century and early 20th century consisted of mainly Southern and Eastern Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. Immigrants motivations, experiences, and impacts shaped what an immigrant had to go through being a different person from another country. Although Americans dislike foreigners who came to the United States, immigrants had a role in political, economic, cultural, and social aspects of immigrants because of their motivations, experiences, and impacts in America. New Immigrants did not have it easy and went through obstacles natives, political figures, bosses and others had thrown at them.

The period known as Starving Time took place during the winter of 1609-1610. About 440 people died because the colonists were so blinded by the opportunity to get rich that they failed to prepare for the tough challenges of new land. When they arrived in Jamestown all they wanted was natural riches such as gold, because of their greediness the settlers didn’t consider how to run a successful colony. From Travels and Works of Captain John Smith, he wrote. “We starved because we did not plan well, work hard, or have good government.”

Without crops, farmers lost valuable money, leaving them with two choices, to move away in order to make a living, or continue to lose money. “60 percent of the population moved from the western area... due to the drought that was killing cattle and ruining crops”(History.com). They had “set up the region for ecological disaster” (History.com) and could no longer live in the area. John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel

The water was unclean, droughts and prairie fires ruined their crops, and