<P> In 1849, the California Gold Rush attracted 100,000 would - be miners from the Eastern U.S., Latin America, China, Australia, and Europe . California became a state in 1850 with a population of about 90,000 . </P> <P> Between 1850 and 1930, about 5 million Germans migrated to the United States, peaking between 1881 and 1885 when a million Germans settled primarily in the Midwest . Between 1820 and 1930, 3.5 million British and 4.5 million Irish entered America . Before 1845 most Irish immigrants were Protestants . After 1845, Irish Catholics began arriving in large numbers, largely driven by the Great Famine . </P> <P> After 1880 larger steam - powered oceangoing ships replaced sailing ships, which resulted in lower fares and greater immigrant mobility . Meanwhile, farming improvements in Southern Europe and the Russian Empire created surplus labor . Young people between the ages of 15 to 30 were predominant among newcomers . This wave of migration, constituting the third episode in the history of U.S. immigration, may be better referred to as a flood of immigrants, as nearly 25 million Europeans made the long trip . Italians, Greeks, Hungarians, Poles, and others speaking Slavic languages made up the bulk of this migration. 2.5 to 4 million Jews were among them . </P> <P> Each group evinced a distinctive migration pattern in terms of the gender balance within the migratory pool, the permanence of their migration, their literacy rates, the balance between adults and children, and the like . But they shared one overarching characteristic: they flocked to urban destinations and made up the bulk of the U.S. industrial labor pool, making possible the emergence of such industries as steel, coal, automotive, textile, and garment production, enabling the United States to leap into the front ranks of the world's economic giants . </P>

The bulk of immigrants coming to the united states between the late 1880s and the 1920s came from