Emigrants, Immigrants and the State

Abstract

Emigrants, Immigrants and the State: The Role of Individual States in Fostering Migration – A Swiss and American Case Study analyzes the role that individual American states (in opposition to the nation state) played in fostering migration during the long nineteenth century. The paper argues that individual states played a crucial role in fostering migration because of different economic challenges and that in order to create a more complex, and more inclusive narrative of American immigration history, scholars must pay closer attention to the individual states in Europe and the United States. Emigrants, Immigrants and the State uses a variety of primary source documents from Switzerland and the United States and provides two case studies that explain the different economic reasons that induced states to foster migration, and the ways in which they did it. The main goal of transnational state migration authorities was to provide migrants with information, financial and organizational resources, and protection along their journey. In order to achieve their goals they cooperated with different migration agencies, corporate entities, migrant aid societies, and previous migrants. The beginning of the twentieth century brought on a lot change. The Swiss federal government took on the matter of regulating emigration, and thus the Swiss cantons’ involvement became less important. In the United States, the beginning of the twentieth century brought on the rise of nativism, and eventually the federal government took control of immigration and implemented a growing number of restrictive policies. Nevertheless, the states continued to play an important but somewhat different role in migration. While some US states focused on Americanization, other American states continued to promote immigration but became more selective. In other states, such as Wisconsin, immigrant colonies and immigrant groups were able to resist the Americanization efforts.