Although the Church began actively encouraging Later-day Saints at least by 1894 to remain at home and build up the Church in their native lands, we still conducted an active emigration well into the 20th century. If you were a European Saint who had finally saved enough money to emigrate and had made plans to leave on a certain date, these were your last-minute instructions for the voyage and for landing in the U.S.:
Advice to Intending Emigrants
We are under the necessity of repeating some instructions to Saints about to emigrate to the land of Zion. These ought to be thoroughly understood also by the presidents of conferences and the Elders laboring among Church members. A great deal of difficulty would be avoided if people would only pay close attention to advice and follow it strictly. Some of them give so little heed to what is said that it fades out of their minds as the sound of the words dies away. In making out Declarations, the blank forms furnished for the purpose should be filled accurately and with attention to every detail. Every person in a family should be named and the respective ages given, infants in arms included. Children under one year old go free in the second class on the sea; in the third class they are charged £1 sterling, but they must be named in either class; if not, there is danger of the whole family being rejected.
Every individual should be in such condition of health as to be able to pass examination by the Board of Trade doctor and the ship’s doctor. special attention should be paid to the condition of the emigrant’s eyes. If suffering from trachoma the emigrant will be rejected; so in the case of any contagious disease. Individuals, young or old, who are crippled, or likely for any reason to become a public charge on reaching America, if not in company of parents or guardians, or fortified with sufficient affidavits from blood relatives who will care for them after reaching their destination, will not be allowed to land. Idiots and insane persons will also be turned back or sent back.
No adult emigrant is allowed to pass the customs officials who has not in his possession, and able to show it, the sum of thirty dollars. anyone under contract to perform labor in America will also be excluded. Each emigrant must be perfectly free as regards engaging in any kind of employment; if sent for by some person, company or firm with the understanding that he or she will repay in labor the money advanced for transportation, the emigrant will be refused permission to land, or will be deported.
Missionaries returning from their fields of labor to their homes in Utah should be very careful in their Declaration not to make any mistake in regard to their nationality and citizenship. They are not American citizens unless born in the United States or duly naturalized. First papers, as they are called, or declaration of intention to become a citizen does not entitle the holder to announce himself a citizen. Residence I the United States, for any length of time, does not of itself entitle the resident to claim citizenship. Misinformation on this point has caused some trouble, and persons who fall into error in relation to it are liable to be fined for the wrong. No matter if they had no intention to falsify, if they are not bona fide citizens and state that they are, they will have to suffer as though they had wilfully committed the offence.
While the Church to which we belong is not using any influence to persuade its members or others to emigrate, but desires that many of them shall stay and build up the work abroad, this office is engaged in a legitimate emigration agency, both for sea voyages and land transportation in America. Latter-day Saints intending to gather to Zion, and friends in Utah sending money to assist their relatives in doing so, will do well to book for their passage through this office, not only because they will travel in companies carefully conducted and directed by experienced persons, but because they can get the best available terms, both on reliable vessels across the sea and by suitable trains on the best lines of railroad in America. We can also provide transportation for non-members of the Church. Persons desiring to go to Canada will find equal advantages in book through this agency.
All persons who have engaged passage at a certain date should report at this office on the day before sailing, but every member of a family need not come to this office, bringing luggage, etc., with them. One member of a family or party, if authorized to act for them, is sufficient to attend to the business and receive tickets and instructions. All heavy luggage should be sent ahead as “Luggage in advance,” with proper ship labels upon it, which will be furnished from this office direct or through the conference presidents, with cards for hotels. All declaration forms should be filled out and forwarded to this office two weeks before date of sailing. Members of the church would do well, as a rule, to transact their emigration business with this office through their conference presidents, who will save them much trouble and annoyance.
All Latter-day Saints gathering to Utah to aid in building up the Zion of the last days, should be determined before starting to endure patiently the trials of the journey, to bear a cheerful and kindly spirit, to help one another by the way, and on their arrival to adapt themselves to the new conditions which will surround them; to avoid fault-finding, to live in peace with their neighbors, to associate with the good and the upright, and choose companionship with those who serve God and keep His commandments, and to attend faithfully to every duty incumbent upon them by reason of their covenants with the Lord their God. Then they will remain with His people. His blessings will be upon them, temporally and spiritually, and they will rejoice before Him in the heights of the mountains. Will our brethren and sisters intending to emigrate give heed to these few words of advice? Church publications, everywhere, please copy.
– Charles W. Penrose (European Mission Office, Liverpool
Very interesting. I’m surprised that a labor obligation would have you turned away; my understanding is that employer-sponsored visas are one of the easiest ways to come to the US today.
Starting in about the 1870s or 1880s the laws regarding indentured (later contracted) labor started becoming more and more restrictive. The following website is fairly straightforward in its explanations:
http://immigrationinamerica.org/448-contract-labor-system.html
If you start with that explanation of contract labor and work your way through the 1885, 1891, 1903, and 1907 Acts (links at bottom of each page) you’ll know more than you ever wanted about the regulations during those years, including factors like contract labor and polygamy.
I believe that it was the 1907 Act that stripped women like my great-grandmother of their citizenship if they married an alien immigrant. In my g-grandmother’s case she was American born but married a Swedish immigrant, and I’ve never discovered whether she filed for citizenship again after her husband died at a fairly young age.
Very interesting.
I am not sure that I would characterize employer-sponsored visas as “easy”–you do need to find an American employer who is interested in hiring you, after all, and for immigrant visas the employer generally needs to show that there are no qualified American workers available to fill the position, and you have to wait for a visa to be available under the quota–the “per country” limits mean that an Indian applicant who begins the process today probably won’t get an immigrant visa for 20 or 30 years. (Since October 2007, the cut-off date has moved from 22 April 2001 to 01 January 2004–which means that people who began the process on or before that date are now eligible to receive an immigrant visa. Presumably this is what those ignorant of the process are thinking of when they suggest that people “get in line and wait.”)
Still, it’s one of the paths to immigration which is available for a select few.
The law 100 years ago can look odd compared to current law, since a job offer then from a U.S. employer would essentially bar one from immigrating. Now it’s a requirement under one of the main pathways to legal residency.
Bro. Penrose mentions that prospective immigrants would have to pass inspection by both the ship’s doctor and the Board of Trade doctor. That’s a British agency–the U.S. Immigration Act of 1891 had established the Bureau of Immigration and provided for medical inspection (and, by the way, barred the immigration of paupers and polygamists–those bars on immigration are still part of the law today, and the forms include the question whether one intends to practice polygamy in the United States). So U.S. Bureau of Immigration doctors would have been conducting the fearsome inspections at Ellis Island or other ports of entry.
The British Board of Trade did not have the same concerns as the U.S Bureau of Immigration–in particular, it did not view trachoma as a dangerous condition. Thus the ships’ doctors would carry out their own inspection and prevent sick passengers from boarding. The carriers had a pecuniary interest–passengers barred from entering the U.S. had to be returned to their point of origin at the expense of the carrier which brought them to the U.S. in the first place.