Rockford. and dozens of other northern Illinois cities were settled by New Englanders. while at the other extremity the influence of the South was everywhere prominent. in accent. tradition. and architecture. With the opening of the railroad era in the 1850s. and the first faint rumblings of industrialization. there entered a new element. By 1856. onefourteenth of all the immigrants landing at New York City were moving on to Illinois. By 1860 their total had passed 300.000. with Irish and Germans predominating. and almost half of Chicago was foreignborn. As Chicago boomed. many of the foreignborn remained in the city. easily finding jobs in the countless new industrial plants.
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immigrants