In the mid-nineteenth century, immigrant culture began to dramatically change the character of the settling of Michigan. Using a practice known as chain migration, the first wave of immigrants largely consisted of Germans seeking farmland, while other groups from Ireland and the Netherlands also immigrated en masse to preserve community and family ties. With the industrialization of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries, immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe and Scandinavia looking for work in lumbering industries, mines, and factories. The twentieth century also saw immigrants and refugees from Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, who came to Michigan seeking political freedom, education, and economic opportunities.
