Thorne: sorry but we don't live in the 19th century anymore - the immigration policies of the United States, and the amount of land, or easy work (factory, shoeshining, farmhand or house maid) you could find just by passing Ellis Island, to single out just those two things, have changed radically since then. Nothing is easier than saying "it worked in my great-great-grandfather's day so it must still be like that now".