Panel 28

Newly discovered! This painting was previously known to scholars only through a black and white image and was recently located in a private art collection.


Immigrants admitted from all countries: 1820 to 1840—115,773, Panel 28, 1956, Jacob Lawrence, from Struggle: From the History of the American People, 1954–56, Private collection, © 2021 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Read Closer

Published in one of Lawrence’s sources, this graph lists the number of immigrants arriving in America by country. Lawrence used a different total number from the data listed here for the painting’s title caption. According to this table, the number of immigrants who came to the U.S. between 1820 to 1840 would have been much higher.

Richard B. Morris, ed., Encyclopedia of American History, Harper & Brothers, 1953

Look Closer

This image in one of Lawrence’s sources depicts a romantic representation of 19th-century immigration to America. Masses of people hold belongings and look after each other as they frantically board tall ships. The man in the center of the picture looks back and waves.

The Great Tide of Immigration: Embarkation for New York, engraving illustrated in Alan C. Collins, The Story of America in Pictures, Doubleday & Company, 1953. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM
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