Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/199

 ITALIAN IMMIGRATION INTO THE UNITED STATES

1901-4

G. E. DI PALMA CASTIGLIONE New York

At this time Italian immigration has reached the highest point yet attained, and perhaps to be attained in the future.

The Italians, who until 1879 had contributed but a meager part to the mass of energy which immigration represents, since that year, have gone on giving an element more and more relevant to the general body of immigration. In the last three years they have taken the lead among the diverse nationalities of the Old World which furnished men to this, the younger nation of the New World. This is shown in the following table, which indi- cates, by decades, the proportion of the Italian element to the entire immigration into the United States :

TABLE I

Decades

Total

Yearly Average

Percentage

1821-30

408

41

0.25

l83I-40. .

2,258

226

0.37

1841 ">o ..

1,870

167

o.oo

1851-60

O,27I

Q23

0. 17

186170

11,728

1,177

0. 5O

1871-80

55,759

5,576

1.98

1881-90

^Oy.^OO

30,731

5.85

18911900

65 5,668

65, 567

17.05

IQOI-4. .

741,086

185,406

27.86

1821-1904

1,786,217

The increase of Italian immigration into the United States, rather than depending upon the general increase of the emigra- tion from Italy, is the effect of a change of direction of the mass of Italian immigrants, as is shown in the next table, which gives the percentage represented by the Italian emigration to the United States as compared with the entire emigration from Italy :

183