Industrial businesses wanted immigration because it provided cheap unskilled labor.

Question

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Answer 1

This is a very accurate statement. Industrialists during the Industrial Revolution in the US wanted immigrants. They provided for cheap labor because they could be paid almost next to nothing. Immigrants were willing to take almost any pay because they were in desperate need. Furthermore, the rest of their families would work as well, even the young children, to acquire more money for the family to have. If you look at Chinese immigrants who predominantly worked on building the railroads, they were paid very little and treated quite poorly.

Native born Americans were not willing to take little pay for their work and also began unionizing themselves, so industrial business owners would rather have saved money by paying immigrant workers less who were willing to take that pay and also because the language barrier meant that immigrants were able to be taken advantage of as well.