VOA慢速英语2010年-THE MAKING OF A NATION - American Hist

Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English.

In our last program, we told you the story of the Statue of Liberty. It was given to the United States by the people of France. Lady Liberty holds a bright torch high over the harbor of New York City. Millions of immigrants coming to America passed the statue as ships carried them to the immigration processing center on Ellis Island.

This week in our series, Leo Scully and Maurice Joyce tell the story of immigration in the United States during the eighteen hundreds.

LEO SCULLY: American life was changing. And it was changing quickly. Before eighteen sixty, the United States had an agricultural economy. After eighteen sixty, the country began to change from an agricultural to an industrial economy.

In eighteen sixty, American shops and factories produced less than two thousand million dollars' worth of goods. Thirty years later, in eighteen ninety, American factories produced ten thousand million dollars' worth. By then, more than five million persons were working in factories and mines. Another three million had jobs in the building industries and transportation.

MAURICE JOYCE: Year after year, production continued to increase. And the size of the industrial labor¹ force continued to grow.

Horse-drawn wagons² and electric trolley³ cars share the streets in 1897 Philadelphia during a time of revolutionary change in transportation and industry

A great many of the new industrial workers came from American farms. Farm work was hard, and the pay was low. Young men left the family farms as soon as they could. They went to towns and cities to look for an easier and better way of life. Many of them found it in the factories. A young man who worked hard and learned new skills could rise quickly to better and better jobs.

This was not only true for farmers, but also for immigrants who came to the United States from foreign countries. They came from many different lands and for many different reasons. But all came with the same hope for a better life in a new world.

LEO SCULLY: In the eighteen fifties, America's industrial revolution was just beginning. Factories needed skilled workers -- men who knew how to do all the necessary jobs. Factory owners offered high pay to workers who had these skills.

British workers had them. Many had spent years in British factories. Pay was poor in Britain, and these skilled workers could get much more money in America. So, many of them came. Hundreds of thousands. Some factories -- even some industries -- seemed completely British.

MAURICE JOYCE: Cloth factories in Fall River, Massachusetts, were filled with young men from Lancashire, England. Most of the workers in the shipyards of San Francisco were from Scotland. Many of the coal miners in America were men from the British mines in Wales.

Many were farmers who came to America because they could get land for nothing. They could build new farms for themselves in the rich land of the American west.

LEO SCULLY: One of the best-liked songs in Britain then was a song about the better life in America. Its name: "To The West." Its words helped many men decide to make the move to America.

"To the West, to the West, to the land of the free

Where mighty⁴ Missouri rolls down to the sea;

Where a man is a man if he's willing to toil⁵.

And the poorest may harvest the fruits of the soil.

Where the young may exult⁶ and the aged⁷ may rest,

Away, far away, to the land of the west."

MAURICE JOYCE: To another group of immigrants, America was the last hope. Ireland in the eighteen forties suffered one crop failure after another. Hungry men had to leave. In eighteen fifty alone, more than one hundred seventeen thousand people came to the United States from Ireland. Most had no money and little education. To those men and women, America was a magic name.

LEO SCULLY: Throughout Europe, when times were hard, people talked of going to America. In some countries, organizations were formed to help people emigrate⁸ to the United States. A Polish farmer wrote to such an organization in Warsaw:

"I want to go to America. But I have no money. I have nothing but the ten fingers of my hands, a wife, and nine children. I have no work at all, although I am strong and healthy and only forty-five years old. I have been to many towns and cities in Poland, wherever I could go. Nowhere could I earn much money. I wish to work. But what can I do. I will not steal, and I have no work. So, I beg you to accept me for a journey to America."

An 1880 drawing of immigrants arriving at Castle Garden, New York

MAURICE JOYCE: As the years passed, fewer people were moving to America for a better job. Most were coming now for any job at all. Work was hard to find in any of the cities in Europe.

A British lawmaker told parliament in eighteen seventy that Englishmen were leaving their country, not because they wanted to, but because they had to. They could not find work at home. He said that even as he spoke⁹, hundreds were dying of hunger in London and other British cities. They were victims of the new revolution in agriculture and industry.

Small family farms were disappearing. In their places rose large modern farms that could produce much more. New machines took the place of men. And millions of farmers had to look for other work. Some found it in the factories. Industry was growing quickly -- but not quickly enough to give jobs to all the farmers out of work.

LEO SCULLY: In the next ten years, millions of people made the move from Britain, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries. But then, as industry in those countries grew larger, and more jobs opened, the flood of immigration began to slow.

The immigrants now were coming from southern and eastern Europe. Anti-Jewish feeling swept Russia and Poland. Violence against Jews caused many of them to move to America.

In the late eighteen eighties, cholera¹⁰ spread through much of southern Italy. Fear of the disease led many families to leave for the United States.

Others left when their governments began building up strong armies. Young men who did not want to be soldiers often escaped by moving to America. Big armies were costly¹¹, and many people left because they did not want to pay the high taxes.

Whatever the reason, people continued to emigrate to the United States.

MAURICE JOYCE: These new immigrants were not like those who came earlier. These new immigrants had no skills. Most were unable to read or write.

Factory owners found that these eastern and southern Europeans were hard workers. They did not protest because the work was hard and the pay was low. They did not demand better working conditions. They did not join unions or strike.

Factory owners began to replace higher-paid American and British workers with the new immigrants. Business leaders wanted more of the new workers. They urged the immigrants to write letters to their friends and relatives in the old country. "Tell them to come to America, that there are plenty of jobs."

LEO SCULLY: Letters from America brought many more immigrants. The big steamship¹² companies also helped industry to get more of the new workers. They paid thousands of agents throughout Europe to sell tickets for the trip to America. Their efforts meant that steamships¹³ bringing grain to Europe could return to America filled with immigrants.

They came by the hundreds of thousands. People of all religions, from all across Europe. Many remained in New York and other eastern cities. But many others moved westward¹⁴. They took jobs in the steel factories of Pennsylvania and the coal mines of West Virginia. They worked in the lumber¹⁵ camps of Michigan and in the stockyards and meat-packing plants of Chicago.

MAURICE JOYCE: Within a few years, foreign-born workers held most of the unskilled jobs in many American industries. American workers began to protest. They demanded an end to the flood of immigration.

That will be our story in the next program of THE MAKING OF A NATION.

(MUSIC)

BARBARA KLEIN: Our program was written by Frank Beardsley. The narrators were Leo Scully and Maurice Joyce. You can find our series online with transcripts¹⁶, MP3s, podcasts and images at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.

 

1 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

2 wagons   

n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车

参考例句：

• The wagons were hauled by horses. 那些货车是马拉的。
• They drew their wagons into a laager and set up camp. 他们把马车围成一圈扎起营地。

3 trolley   

n.手推车，台车；无轨电车；有轨电车

参考例句：

• The waiter had brought the sweet trolley.侍者已经推来了甜食推车。
• In a library,books are moved on a trolley.在图书馆，书籍是放在台车上搬动的。

4 mighty   

adj.强有力的；巨大的

参考例句：

• A mighty force was about to break loose.一股巨大的力量即将迸发而出。
• The mighty iceberg came into view.巨大的冰山出现在眼前。

5 toil   

vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事

参考例句：

• The wealth comes from the toil of the masses.财富来自大众的辛勤劳动。
• Every single grain is the result of toil.每一粒粮食都来之不易。

6 exult   

v.狂喜，欢腾；欢欣鼓舞

参考例句：

• Few people would not exult at the abolition of slavery.奴隶制被废除了，人们无不为之欢乐鼓舞。
• Let's exult with the children at the drawing near of Children's Day.六一儿童节到了，让我们陪着小朋友们一起欢腾。

7 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

8 emigrate   

vi.移居国外（或外地）

参考例句：

• They planned to emigrate.他们打算移民。
• The family decided to shake the dust off their feet and emigrate to Australia.这一家人愤然离开，移居澳洲。

9 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

10 cholera   

n.霍乱

参考例句：

• The cholera outbreak has been contained.霍乱的发生已被控制住了。
• Cholera spread like wildfire through the camps.霍乱在营地里迅速传播。

11 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

12 steamship   

n.汽船，轮船

参考例句：

• The return may be made on the same steamship.可乘同一艘汽船当天回来。
• It was so foggy that the steamship almost ran down a small boat leaving the port.雾很大，汽艇差点把一只正在离港的小船撞沉。

13 steamships   

n.汽船，大轮船( steamship的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Berths on steamships can be booked a long while in advance. 轮船上的床位可以提前多日预订。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The sailing ships were superseded by the steamships. 帆船已被汽船所取代。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

14 westward   

n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西

参考例句：

• We live on the westward slope of the hill.我们住在这座山的西山坡。
• Explore westward or wherever.向西或到什么别的地方去勘探。

15 lumber   

n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动

参考例句：

• The truck was sent to carry lumber.卡车被派出去运木材。
• They slapped together a cabin out of old lumber.他们利用旧木料草草地盖起了一间小屋。

16 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句