SOC 2280 Lecture Notes - Socalled, Pseudoscience, Carl Brigham

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 2280
• Professor: Linda Hunter

Document Summary

Italian americans: italian explorers, including christoforo colombo (christopher columbus), played a major role in opening the americas to european colonization and exploitation. An italian navigator, amerigo vespucci, made a number of voyages to the americas shortly after colombo"s voyages. Because of his early maps, the continents came to be named after him: since 1820, more than 5 million italians have migrated to the united states. Between 1880 and 1920, immigration was heavy, with more than 4 million immigrants. Prior to 1880, most immigrants were from northern italy; after 1880 very large numbers came from southern italy: as with the irish, land and agricultural problems triggered much of the italian emigration. National unification under a government controlled by northern italians had brought heavy taxes to southern. Low income, poor soil, a feudal land system, unreasonable taxes, and government corruption were important push factors.