U.S. Census Office, Foreign Born of Each Leading Nationality at Each Census: 1850 to 1900 (1903)

During the late 1800s, the United States experienced a dramatic increase in immigration, with approximately 12 million immigrants—primarily from Europe—arriving in the country. Many factors motivated this movement. The United States was widely perceived as a land of economic opportunity, while conditions in immigrants’ home countries often included job scarcity, crop failures, famine, political and religious persecution, and rising taxation. This series of bar graphs presents immigration figures by country of origin. Each graph represents a different country and measures the number of immigrants in units of hundreds of thousands, drawing on data from each U.S. Census between 1850 and 1900. Germany stands out for having the largest and most consistent number of immigrants arriving in the United States, followed by Ireland. Substantial numbers also came from England, Scotland, and Wales, as well as from Canada and Newfoundland. Immigration from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark remained relatively low between 1850 and 1880 but increased significantly after 1890. This series of graphs was included in the 1900 Statistical Atlas of the United States, a compilation of data visualizations compiled under the direction of Henry Gannett, based on 1900 Census data.