where were immigrants coming from during the gilded age
Gilded Age In terms of immigration, after 1880 the old immigration of Germans, British, Irish, and Scandinavians slackened off. The United States was producing large numbers of new unskilled jobs every year, and to fill them came number from Italy, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Russia, Greece, and other points in southern and central Europe, as well as French Canada. The older immigrants by the 1870s had formed highly stable communities, especially the German Americans.[102] The British immigrants tended to blend into the general population.[103]
California In 1848, only one week before the official American annexation of the area, gold was discovered in California, this being an event which was to forever alter both the state's demographics and its finances. Soon afterward, a massive influx of immigration into the area resulted, as prospectors and miners arrived by the thousands. The population burgeoned with United States citizens, Europeans, Chinese and other immigrants during the great California Gold Rush. By the time of California's application to the US Congress for statehood in 1850, the settler population of California had multiplied to 100,000. By 1854 over 300,000 settlers had come.[59] Between 1847 and 1870, the population of San Francisco increased from 500 to 150,000.[60] California was suddenly no longer a sparsely populated backwater, but seemingly overnight it had grown into a major US population center.