ECW is pleased to welcome back Patrick Young, author of The Reconstruction Era blog

This 1886 advertisement promoted a washing machine as a replacement for Chinese laundries.
Americans’ fear of non-white, non-Christian immigrants began in 1848 with the arrival of the first ship full of Chinese in San Francisco Bay. The Chinese came to wash the clothes of gold miners, transport supplies to mining camps, and provide sweat labor, but some Americans thought they were part of an invading force sent by the “Celestial Empire” to destroy America.
These fears did not die during the Civil War. Andrew Johnson explained that he vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 in part because it recognized that the children of Chinese immigrants were U.S. citizens if born in this country. Similar concerns were raised over the 14th Amendment’s Birthright Citizenship Clause.
For all the fear the Chinese aroused, they never made up more than a small percentage of the total immigrant population during the Civil War Era. Continue reading →