I came here to post this. My uncle arrived in Canada (c. 1968) with $200, the maximum you could take out of Pakistan (Legally). Now he’s worth (conservatively) $10-20M. He makes it sound like he did it all in his own.
What he omits to mention is that he arrived with an MBBS (medical degree) and an acceptance to a fully funded program to complete studies that would qualify him as a Canadian doctor.
He complained constantly about high Canadian taxes, and moochers who live off the government. But his Medical education in Pakistan was almost free, provided by the government of course, and so was his education and training in Canada!
It is literally true that it was recorded on immigration forms how much money the person was carrying. For example, a relative of mine arrived at the port of Philadelphia in 1896 with $2.00.
The form also records that he was going to join an aunt, who had paid for his passage. Later his two younger sisters also travelled to the US, and his name was on the form as the person they were joining in the US.
I can share a link to the form, but you will probably need to sign up (free) to FamilySearch to be able to see it.
I hope y’all won’t mind if I ask a related question: Many of those immigrants came without their families, and were able to save up enough money that they would send it “back home” to their families who could then either live off that money or purchase passage to the New World.
I’m wondering how efficient international banking was back then - not to mention the postal system.
I imagine a person in 1880 - or even 1930 - who writes a personal check, or gets some sort of document from his bank, and mails it to his wife in some small village in the Old World. How long would it take to arrive? What are the odds that it would indeed arrive at all? What did the wife do with this thing when she got it? Did the typical village have a bank that was able to deal with such things?
I suppose some people might have actually sent the family a prepaid transportation voucher of some sort, but the way I usually hear the story, what they sent was some form of money. Not actual cash, but something that could be converted to cash back home. And the logistics boggle my mind. Any ideas?
From my grandfather’s experience in the 1920s who went from Portuguese Goa to Macau. He sent a letter back to his wife in Goa, which she took to some local businessman who handed over some money. My grandfather in turn handed over some money in Macau to a local trader. Presumably the two traders were connected in some way.
No banks were involved. My grandfather did not have an account in any bank at the time, apparently. Very few people did.
Western Union started its wire service in 1872 and was moving several million dollars per year by the end of the decade, so that was one option that didn’t rely on international banking. I don’t know the specifics of what people used in practice though, or how popular that was for regular people. I would wager that by the 1930 time frame international banking was developed enough that getting USD to someone in Europe was no big deal, but not sure about before that.
What were the transaction costs for sending money back home? If I sent $100 back to the old country and then they took what they received and sent it back to me, how much would I have left after the round trip cost?
Also remember that even if there were no relatives waiting - for example Ellis Island arrivals, these guys spend a week or two in steerage with several hundred fellow countrymen. Unless they were a total asshole personality, they’d probably make some good friends and got at least a few leads on what to do from those who did have contacts or had stories they’d gotten (by letters) from previous arrivals.