Institutionalized prejudice existed against white practitioners of Roman Catholicism who immigrated from countries such as Ireland, Germany, Italy and France. Other efforts included the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and the 1924 National Origins Act. The Immigration Act of 1924 was aimed at further restricting the immigration of Southern and Eastern Europeans who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s. By limiting the immigration of non-Northern Europeans, according to the U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian, the purpose of the 1924 act was "to preserve the ideal of American homogeneity".