Demographic Changes

During these years, Kings County saw a huge influx of people and drastic changes in its demographics. In 1850, the foreign-born population of Kings County was numbered at 56,201. The 1920 census reported the foreign born population as 659,287—over 10 times as large. The Irish and German were the dominant ethnic groups in the mid-19^th century; in 1870, the Irish amounted to over 50 percent of the total foreign-born population. Another popular group was the English. By the 1900s, Kings County saw the arrival of Italians and Eastern European immigrants in great numbers, and over the next 20 years, the immigration of these ethnic groups outnumbered that of the previous ones.[i]

The immigrants were not always welcomed with open arms. They were regarded as having a “bad influence” on “Christianity and Americanism.”[ii] Starting all the way from 1851, the Brookyn Daily Eagle writes in nervous anticipation of Irish waves of immigrants,[iii] which later resulted in “malignant hatred of Irish immigrants.”[iv] Foreigners were feared for being “uneducated and unskilled,” but the biggest fear was their “incapacity to earn a livelihood.” The newspaper’s report of immigration statistics was considered “perhaps a tragedy,” and not the story, of the nation.[v] Native New Yorkers saw the immigrants as breaking down traditional American values and customs; “the peasants … fall short of measuring up to the American standard.” Citizens also perceived the outsiders as draining the city of money. The Eagle claimed that forty-five percent of some immigrant groups were asking for financial assistance from the government.[vi]

[i] Allbray, Flatbush: The Heart of Brooklyn, 59.

[ii] “Immigrants’ Bad Influence,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 1, 1908.

[iii] “Immigration,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 28, 1851.

[iv] “The Presidential Election,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 15, 1860.

[v] Frederick Boyd Stevenson, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 20, 1903.

[vi] Ibid.