Who Was Shut Out?: Immigration Quotas, 1925-1927

Who Was Shut Out?: Immigration Quotas, 1925–1927

In response to growing public opinion against the flow of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe in the years following World War I, Congress passed first the Quota Act of 1921 then the even more restrictive Immigration Act of 1924 (the Johnson-Reed Act). Initially, the 1924 law imposed a total quota on immigration of 165,000—less than 20 percent of the pre-World War I average. It based ceilings on the number of immigrants from any particular nation on the percentage of each nationality recorded in the 1890 census—a blatant effort to limit immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, which mostly occurred after that date. In the first decade of the 20th century, an average of 200,000 Italians had entered the United States each year. With the 1924 Act, the annual quota for Italians was set at less than 4,000. This table shows the annual immigration quotas under the 1924 Immigration Act.

Northwest Europe and Scandinavia

Eastern and Southern Europe

Other Countries

Country	Quota	�	Country	Quota	�	Country	Quota
Germany	51,227	�	Poland	5,982	�	Africa (other than Egypt)	1,100
Great Britain and Northern Ireland	34,007	�	Italy	3,845	�	Armenia	124
Irish Free State (Ireland)	28,567	�	Czechoslovakia	3,073	�	Australia	121
Sweden	9,561	�	Russia	2,248	�	Palestine	100
Norway	6,453	�	Yugoslavia	671	�	Syria	100
France	3,954	�	Romania	603	�	Turkey	100
Denmark	2,789	�	Portugal	503	�	Egypt	100
Switzerland	2,081	�	Hungary	473	�	New Zealand & Pacific Islands	100
Netherlands	1,648	�	Lithuania	344	�	All others	1,900
Austria	785	�	Latvia	142	�		�
Belgium	512	�	Spain	131	�		�
Finland	471	�	Estonia	124	�		�
Free City of Danzig	228	�	Albania	100	�		�
Iceland	100	�	Bulgaria	100	�		�
Luxembourg	100	�	Greece	100	�		�
�	�	�	�	�	�		�
Total (Number)	142,483	�	Total (Number)	18,439	�	Total (Number)	3,745
Total (%)	86.5	�	Total (%)	11.2	�	Total (%)	2.3
�	�	�	�	�	�		�
(Total Annual immigrant quota: 164,667)	�	�	�	�	�		�

Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, D.C. Government Printing Office, 1929), 100.