On this day in 1921, Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act. The Act was formulated mainly in response to the large influx of Southern and Eastern Europeans and restricted their immigration to the United States. Although intended as temporary legislation, it “proved, in the long run, the most important turning-point in American immigration policy” because it added two new features to American immigration law: numerical limits on immigration and the use of a quota system for establishing those limits, which came to be known as the National Origins Formula.
The Emergency Quota Act restricted the number of immigrants admitted from any country annually to 3% of the number of residents from that country living in the United States as of the 1910 Census. That meant that people from Northern and Western Europe had a higher quota and were more likely to be admitted to the US than those from Eastern or Southern Europe or from non-European countries.
Based on the new formula, the number of new immigrants admitted fell from 805,228 in 1920 to 309,556 in 1921–22. The act did not apply to countries with bilateral agreements with the US or to Asian countries listed in the Immigration Act of 1917, known as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act.
Immigrants on a ferry – 1910
Who picked the name???
Look at that Van Gogh!!
(Thanks, Debra)
Today is the birthday, in 1949, of Dusty Hill, bass, keyboardist, and co-vocalist with ZZ Top, who had the 1984 US No.8 and 1985 UK No.16 single ‘Legs’. ZZ Top has had global album sales in excess of 50 million as of 2014. Along with his brother Rocky Hill and future fellow ZZ Top member Frank Beard, Hill played in local Dallas bands the Warlocks, the Cellar Dwellers, and American Blues. He died on 28 July 2021 at his home in Houston, Texas, at the age of 72. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae829mFAGGE
