They came from every part of the globe, speaking a babble of tongues and carrying little but hope as luggage. From 1840 on, they arrived in a wave that was perpetually at flood tide, furnishing the growing U.S. with the sinew and spirit to build its railroads and create its industries. Often they faced a grinding struggle for survival in the New World's harsh slums and wind-whipped prairies, but somehow the immigrants managed to take root. Out of their extraordinary exodus which John F. Kennedy called "the largest migration of people...
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