The Steerage Act of 1819
The Steerage Act aimed to help ease the ocean passage for immigrants and organized the first collection of immigrant demographics.
As the nation expanded west, it needed people who were willing to settle the land and occupy it as Americans. The Steerage Act of 1819 was an attempt to encourage immigration by improving the unhealthy, unsafe, and often lethal conditions that many immigrants experienced during their crossings to the US, especially from Europe. Importantly, it also required ship captains to collect passengers’ demographic information, which established a precedent for and tradition of federal interest in immigrants’ ethnicities.
