What prompted many people in Southern Italy to immigrate to the U.S. between 1880 and 1920?
natural disasters
disintegration of the Italian nation state
an invasion of Italy
religious persecution at home
Explanation: Many people from the Southern part of Italy immigrated to the U.S. between 1880 and 1920 because of natural disasters. Natural disasters happened in southern Italy in early 1900. Mount Vesuvius exploded and destroyed a town close to Naples. Mount Etna also erupted. In 1908, tidal wave and an earthquake in the Strait of Messina, killing thousands of people.
Land shortage, famine, rising taxes, and crop failures are some of the other reasons Italians immigrated in America to get the economic opportunity.
Between around 1880 and 1924, more than four million Italians immigrated to the United States, half of them between 1900 and 1910 alone—the majority fleeing grinding rural poverty in Southern Italy and Sicily.
