Read the passage. The official class naturally disliked to see people leave the country and were disposed to sneer at almost everything American. Being well educated at the university and holding their offices for life, they were looked up to with great respect by the common country-people. NO wonder, therefore, that to the official class many things in America seemed bizarre. Just think, a railsplitter being president and a tailor vice-president! Besides, was not almost everybody in America carrying revolvers, and quick on the trigger on slight provocation? Was not justice administered by mobs or vigilance committees? In addition to that, there was negro slavery and so much humbug—"American humbug!” Why should any one go to a country like that?

Some had gone, however, following the Sloopers of '25 from 1836 on, but they were mostly tenants or very poor farmers who had barely scraped up enough to pay the passage on sailships and canal boats as far as Chicago or Milwaukee. Of some of the few educated persons leaving it was said they were no longer safe at home and that for them America was a safer and more suitable place. Letters were coming back from the poor emigrants, telling how much land they had acquired for little or nothing, how much stock they had and how they fared on pork, eggs, and white bread every day, instead of in Norway (as they used to say) "one day on soup and herring and the next day on herring and soup,” or "one day mush and milk and the next day milk and mush.”

–"Recollections of a Norwegian Immigrant,”
Andreas Ueland

European immigrants coming to the United States after the Civil War

consisted of a variety of people with varying levels of skills, education, and wealth.
were almost all poor in their home countries and lacked skills and education, leaving factory work as one of few employment options.
were mostly farmers who moved quickly away from their cities of entry to settle in the West.
overwhelmingly remained in America only temporarily, returning to Europe after increasing their wealth.