Migration and Border History

Hosted by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. America on the Move explores the role of transportation in American history. Visit communities wrestling with the changes that new transportation networks brought. See cities change, suburbs expand, and farms and factories become part of regional, national, and international economies. Meet people as they travel for work and pleasure, and as they move to new homes.

Digitized historical materials from Harvard's libraries, archives, and museums that documents voluntary immigration to the United States from the signing of the Constitution to the onset of the Great Depression.

Between 1880 and 1930, approximately 28 million immigrants entered the United States. In contrast to earlier waves of immigrants, most of whom had originated in western and northern Europe, this group arrived from eastern and southern Europe. As they entered through Ellis Island in New York Harbor and made their way into various new lives—in cities and rural areas coast to coast, from urban tenements to Midwestern farms to seaside towns— they encountered mixed reactions from existing Americans. They also entered into a political climate that was charged by the sweeping immigration restrictions placed on the Chinese in 1882 through the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Search thousands of photographs, illustrations, texts and other selections from the IHRCA's collections, located in the UMedia Archive.

Documenting voluntary immigration to the United States from the signing of the Constitution to the start of the Great Depression.

More than 12,000 digital facsimiles and born digital documents related to migrants (including immigrants and refugees) at the Library of Congress.

Collections include photographs, postcards, and film, among other sources. Documents include multiple different migrant groups. Record searching with keywords associated with groups.

Collections include historic topographical maps for California; California Social Welfare Archives; Chinese Historical Society of Southern California Collection, ca.1880-1933; Robin Dunitz Slides of Los Angeles Murals, 1925-2002; Filipino American Library Collection; Japanese Rare Books and Manuscripts Collection; Korean American Digital Archive; Peace Corps Korea Archive; Taiwanese American Archives; Ailing Zhang (Eileen Chang) Papers, 1919-1994; and more.

Includes 2000, 2010 Census data along with American Community Survey (ACS) data back to 2005.

We contrast the past three decades, during which population pressures contributed to substantial labor flows from neighboring countries into the United States and Europe, with the coming three decades, which will see sharp reductions in labor-supply growth in Latin America but not in Africa or much of the Middle East.

Public opinion statistics and data on immigrants in the United States.

Neighborhood Change database (BC Community Only)
Contains nationwide tract-level data from the 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010 decennial censuses with tract boundaries that are consistently defined across census years. Contains long form census data with details such as population, household, and housing characteristics, income, poverty status, education level, employment, housing costs, immigration, and other variables. Software creates customized, exportable data and map reports.

The database currently contains data about UNHCR's populations of concern from the year 1951 up to 2017 and you can use it to investigate different aspects of these populations: their general composition by location of residence or origin, their status (refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, etc.), their evolution over time, and so on..

Hosted in the HeinOnline U.S. Federal Legislative History Library.

Hosted in HeinOnline U.S. Federal Legislative History Library.

Hosted in HeinOnline U.S. Federal Legislative History Library.

Hosted in HeinOnline U.S. Federal Legislative History Library.

2009 guide to law and resources from 1951 onward. Make sure to look for updates if studying post-2009 history.

The project includes thirty-nine interviews with Minnesotans who speak about their Asian backgrounds. Some emigrated from Asian countries as children and spent much of the twentieth century in Minnesota; other narrators were born in the state and grew up as the children or grandchildren of immigrants; and others are newer Minnesotans, having arrived in the 1960s and 1970s.

"The Bracero History Archive collects and makes available the oral histories and artifacts pertaining to the Bracero program, a guest worker initiative that spanned the years 1942-1964."

The Center for Oral History (COH), in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, collects, documents, preserves and highlights the recollections of Native Hawaiians and the multi-ethnic people of Hawaiʻi. It produces oral histories and interpretive historical materials about lifeways, key historic events, social movements and Hawaiʻi’s role in the globalizing world, for the widest possible use.

Requires private login.
Include approximately 1900 interviews. The interviews include people from dozens of countries, former Immigration and Public Health Service employees, military personnel stationed at Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty as well as people detained at Ellis Island during World War II until it closed in 1954.

Search or browse letters and diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives (most originating from 1920-1980) by over 1900 immigrants to the United States and Canada

Collection includes transcriptions of more than 20 oral interviews, some about Angel Island.

The collection covers the dramatic decades between the Gold Rush and the turn of the twentieth century. It captures the pioneer experience; encounters between Anglo-Americans and the diverse peoples who had preceded them; the transformation of the land by mining, ranching, agriculture, and urban development; the often-turbulent growth of communities and cities; and California's emergence as both a state and a place of uniquely American dreams.

A growing archive of personal stories of immigrants to the Pacific Coast from Angel Island Immigration Station detainees to those arriving today.

Includes letters and diaries, oral histories, interviews, and other personal narratives (most originating from 1920-1980) by immigrants to the United States and Canada. Selected narratives are supplemented by audio and visual files. Also includes thousands of pages of Ellis Island Oral History interviews. 1840-present.

A growing archive of personal stories of immigrants to the Pacific Coast from Angel Island Immigration Station detainees to those arriving today.

Angel Island Immigration Station was the entryway to America for hundreds of thousands of immigrants, mainly from Asian countries, during its operation from 1910 to 1940.

"The Bracero History Archive collects and makes available the oral histories and artifacts pertaining to the Bracero program, a guest worker initiative that spanned the years 1942-1964."

The government-sponsored Bracero Program was the temporary importation of workers from Mexico to aid the American agricultural economy. More than 4 million Mexican workers left their families behind and came to work in the fields of California. This collection includes multiple collections, featuring work, transportation, and more.

The USCIS History Library holds several photographs of the Mexican Agricultural Labor Program, commonly called the “Bracero Program,” dating from 1951-1964. The photographs provide an interesting firsthand glimpse at how INS inspected and admitted Braceros on Mexican border.

More than 1700 images, mostly associated with the Bracero Program (initiated in 1942) from the Smithsonian Institution. Beautiful photographs, problematic metadata.

The collection covers the dramatic decades between the Gold Rush and the turn of the twentieth century. It captures the pioneer experience; encounters between Anglo-Americans and the diverse peoples who had preceded them; the transformation of the land by mining, ranching, agriculture, and urban development; the often-turbulent growth of communities and cities; and California's emergence as both a state and a place of uniquely American dreams.

The Chinese in California, 1850-1925 illustrates nineteenth and early twentieth century Chinese immigration to California through about 8,000 images and pages of primary source materials. Included are photographs, original art, cartoons and other illustrations; letters, excerpts from diaries, business records, and legal documents; as well as pamphlets, broadsides, speeches, sheet music, and other printed matter.

This collection of 63 photographic prints of various sizes documents migrant labor camps in California. The photographs were taken in 1935-1936, many likely by Harry Everett Drobish. Included are photographs of groups and buildings at the Arvin Migratory Labor Camp and other camps in Kern County, California. Also included are photographs of Hooverville in Sacramento, some taken by the California State Emergency Relief Administration.

Album contains brief text followed by original photographic prints that exemplify good housing conditions for migrant laborers.

The Sonoma County Wine Library's online local history collection includes images of historical interest of the Sonoma County wine industry from the 1870s through the 1990s. These images portray the wine makers and companies of Sonoma County, past and present. They document the immigrants and Utopians who founded the early wineries, wine families, the vineyards and wine production, promotional postcards, and the many varieties of wine created in Sonoma County.

Requires private login.
Include approximately 1900 interviews. The interviews include people from dozens of countries, former Immigration and Public Health Service employees, military personnel stationed at Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty as well as people detained at Ellis Island during World War II until it closed in 1954.

The promise of jobs in northern factories during World War I provided African Americans an opportunity to escape the harsh realities of the South. Between 1910 and 1930, approximately 1.6 million African Americans left the South to pursue opportunities in the Northern and Midwestern states. This exodus is known as the Great Migration, and was the first phase of an African American migration that would continue until 1970.

The New York University's Archives of Irish America offers material related to the Irish migration experience and Irish American ethnicity. Collections include personal papers, oral history files (software such as RealPlayer required). Site includes "Mick Moloney Collection of Irish-American Music and Popular Culture."

DIPPAM is an online virtual archive of documents and sources relating to the history of Ireland and its migration experience from the 18th to late 20th centuries.

This collection is comprised of 30+ black and white photographs and negatives taken of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees living at Fort Chaffee, a military base in Arkansas. The photographs document the daily life of the refugees, including the arrival of refugees by plane and bus, a visit from President Gerald Ford, refugee education and social activities.

SEAAdoc is an educational resource of the Southeast Asian Archive at the UC Irvine Libraries focusing on post-1975 refugees and immigrants from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam and the communities they have developed in the United States. It contains 1,500 visual images and 4,000 pages of searchable text selected from the Archive to represent a cross section of our holdings.

These records document the conditions of refugee camps in Southeast Asia and resettlment in Camp Pendleton, California, collected by James A. Schill, a retired Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State and USAID. The collection comprises mostly of color photographs of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees at refugee camps in Malaysia and Thailand between 1975 to mid 1980s, as well as photographs of refugee resettlement in Camp Pendleton in 1975. Also included is a Vietnamese boat person refugee's pocket diary with entries written in English, Vietnamese and French from 1979, detailing their journey to Pulau Bidong, Malyasia.