Center for Technology and Teacher Education - Social Studies Module: Death and Dying

German and Irish Immigrants
In Antebellum America

Materials Needed

Historical Background:

The years between 1830 and 1860 brought a huge wave of German and Irish immigration to the United States. During this period, over 1.9 million Irish and 1.5 million Germans migrated to America. The Irish exodus was largely the result of the "potato famine" of the mid-1840s. The famine reduced Ireland's population from around 8 million to only 5 million. Although much of this reduction was the result of emigration, around 1 million died from starvation or starvation-related diseases. Germans left their homelands for more varied reasons. Many sought an escape from poverty, and others fled the political repression that followed the failed democratic revolutions of 1848.

Center for Technology and Teacher Education, University of Virginia,

This module created by Alice Carter of the University of Virginia..