• Login
  • Register
  • FAQ
  • Contact Us
  • Home
  • Documents
  • Activities
  • Activity Tools
    • All Tools
    • Analyzing Documents
    • Discussion Topic
    • Compare and Contrast
    • Zoom/Crop
    • White Out / Black Out
    • Spotlight
    • Finding a Sequence
    • Making Connections
    • Mapping History
    • Seeing the Big Picture
    • Weighing the Evidence
    • Interpreting Data
  • Popular Topics
    • See All
    • National History Day
    • The Constitution
    • Sports: All-American
    • Rights in America
    • American Indians
    • Women's Rights
    • American Revolution
    • The Civil War
    • World War I
    • World War II
    • The Vietnam War
    • 1970s America
    • Congress
    • Amending America
    • Elections
    • What Americans Eat
    • Signatures
    • Nixon and Ford Years
  • Resources
    • Getting Started
    • Document Analysis
    • Activity-Creation Guide
    • Manage Assignments
    • iPad App
    • Presentation Materials
    • Webinars
      • Recorded Webinars
      • Live Webinars
MENU
DocsTeachThe online tool for teaching with documents, from the National Archives National Archives Foundation National Archives

The Impact of the Immigration Act of 1924

Interpreting Data

Print
Created by the National Archives
Bookmark this Activity in My Activities:
Copy this Activity to My Activities for editing:
The Impact of the Immigration Act of 1924

About this Activity

  • Created by:National Archives Education Team
  • Historical Era:The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930)
  • Thinking Skill:Historical Analysis & Interpretation
  • Bloom's Taxonomy:Analyzing
  • Grade Level:High School
Start Activity
Please use a tablet or desktop computer to use this activity.
In this activity, students will analyze a map showing quotas established by the Immigration Act of 1924, also known as the Johnson-Reed Act. They will be prompted to think about which countries were favored and which were barred from entering the United States. Then they will reflect on attitudes toward immigration at the time, and the effect these immigration restrictions had on the demographics and cultural, ethnic, and religious makeup of the United States.
https://docsteach.org/activities/student/us-immigration-quotas

Suggested Teaching Instructions

This activity can be used while studying immigration and late 19th-early 20th century nativism in the United States, during a unit on World War I, or when focusing on the impact of U.S. immigration restrictions on the refugee crisis during World War II.

For grades 7-12. Approximate time needed is 30 minutes. The activity can be done individually or in pairs. Students should have some knowledge of anti-immigrant sentiment and security concerns during World War I.

The focus is a map issued in 1940 to illustrate President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Proclamation 2283 of April 28, 1938 (repealed by President Harry S. Truman on June 30, 1952) reaffirming quotas from the Immigration Act of 1924.

Ask students to read the introduction and instructions and begin the activity. Their attention will be drawn to the information pins that will prime them to answer the questions in the "When You're Done" section:

  1. What does this map demonstrate about attitudes toward immigrants in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s?
  2. What was happening in America and in the world during that period that might provide context to these numbers?
  3. What questions do you have about the quota numbers?
  4. What impact do you think the immigration restrictions had on the demographics and the cultural, ethnic, and religious makeup of the United States?

Discuss students' answers as a class. The following background information may be helpful to explain to students once they have completed the activity:

The Immigration Act of 1924 limited immigration to 2 percent of that nationality already living in the United States in 1890, as recorded by census takers. During the 1920s, Congress had enacted laws establishing an annual ceiling for all nationalities and a system for calculating the number of each nationality to be granted entry. They used the 1910 census as the basis for determining how many immigrants from each country would be allowed to enter. The limit for each nationality was 3 percent of that nationality already living in the United States, per the census. The even more restrictive Immigration Act of 1924 established the 1890 census as the new base for determining how many immigrants would be admitted and reduced the percentage admitted to 2 percent.
 
The 1924 law also traced the national origins of the entire population of the United States, including natural-born citizens. This meant that people from Britain and Western Europe living in America for generations received larger quotas than those newly arrived from Southern and Eastern Europe. The law prohibited immigration of people from Asian countries entirely. (The 1924 act set the minimum quota of any nationality at 100, but there was a provision that the number of inhabitants in the United States upon which the quotas were based did not include "aliens ineligible to citizenship or their descendants," which is how Asian immigrants in the United States were classified.)

Documents in this activity

  • Quota Areas Set by the Immigration Act of 1924

CC0
To the extent possible under law, National Archives Education Team has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to "The Impact of the Immigration Act of 1924".

  • Explore Primary Source Documents
  •  
  • Discover Activities You Can Teach With
  •  
  • Create Fun & Engaging Activities
Follow us on Twitter:twitter
Follow us on Facebook:facebook
Please enter a valid email address

View our webinars:youtube

Get our iPad app:apple
New Documentsshare
New Activitiesshare

The National Archives

DocsTeach is a product of the National Archives education division. Our mission is to engage, educate, and inspire all learners to discover and explore the records of the American people preserved by the National Archives.

The National Archives and Records Administration is the nation's record keeper. We save documents and other materials created in the course of business conducted by the U.S. Federal government that are judged to have continuing value. We hold in trust for the public the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights — but also the records of ordinary citizens — at our locations around the country.
  • All Education Programs
  • Student Visits
  • Distance Learning
  • Professional Development
  • National Archives Museum
  • Presidential Libraries
  • Archives.gov
  • National Archives Foundation




Creative Commons License

Except where otherwise noted, DocsTeach is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Primary source documents included on this site generally come from the holdings of the National Archives and are in the public domain, except as noted. Teaching activities on this site have received the CC0 Public Domain Dedication; authors have waived all copyright and related rights to the extent possible under the law. See our legal and privacy page for full terms and conditions.