Immigration and Urbanization: America is growing

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Immigration and Urbanization America is growing

• 1865-1893

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Gilded Age in American History

• Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
• Record economic and population growth after the
  Civil War
• US economy grew at fastest rate in American
  history
• New inventions
• Titans of industry-gtaides America becoming an
  industrial center
• Required more workers-gt turned to immigrant labor
• Ended with Panic of 1893 and ushering in of the
  Progressive Era

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Why Come to America?

• Immigrants- somebody who leaves their home
  country to live in another country
• Key Idea America could offer them something
• they could not have access to in their home
  country.
• American Dream
• Economic opportunities
• Job, food, modern technology, etc.
• Unrest in home country
• Violence, famine, religion etc.
• Family already in America
• Birds of Passage
• Low cost of coming to America -gt steam ship

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Immigration by Area Europe

• 1870-1920 20 million Europeans
• Before 1890-gtWest and Northern Europe
• After 1890 -gt Central and Eastern Europe
• What led to such an increase in number of
  immigrants coming from Europe?

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Immigration by Area Europe

• Ellis Island
• An immigration station in New York Harbor
• Not every immigrant was admitted (disease,
  criminal records, money/job)
• 17 million immigrants passed through
• Closed in 1954, now a museum
• Clip on Ellis Island

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Ellis Island circa 1900s
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Ellis Island Museum Present Day
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Immigration by Area Asia

• 1851-1883 about 300,000 Chinese immigrated
• Gold and railroads
• By 1920 more than 200,000 Japanese lived on the
  West Coast (California mainly)
• Due to annexation of Hawaii which had many
  Japanese laborers b/c of Dole fruits.

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Immigration by Area Asia

• Angel Island
• An immigration station in San Francisco Bay
• 1910-1940-gt 50,000 Chinese
• Treatment harsh and often detained

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Angel Island circa 1916
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Interrogation
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A Day in the Life of a New Immigrant

• Imagine you go to a foreign country and have to
  provide for the following on your own!
• Language barrier
• Living arrangements
• Jobs/money
• Food, clothing, basic items

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Idea of Nativism

• Nativists- supported American born people, mainly
  against immigrants
• believed that immigrants brought European
  radicalism with them to America
• blamed the newcomers for instigating the labor
  unrest that characterized much of the period.
• Immigrants hold on to beliefs/customs. Against
  idea of melting pot
• Social Darwinism with races
• Eugenics Europeans the greatest race

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Nativist Groups

• American Protective Association (APA)
• 1887 papal conspiracy against liberty
• Against Roman Catholics (mainly those coming from
  Eastern and Central Europe)
• Immigration Restriction League
• 1894 America should be populated with people of
  Germanic origins because of their energy and
  intelligence.
• Organized by Harvard graduates

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APA Poster
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Restrictions on Immigration

• Chinese Exclusion Act 1882
• Resulted from many workers and labor unions in
  the west concerned about job competition
• Banned all Chinese immigrants except students,
  teachers, merchants, tourists, and government
  officials
• Lasted till 1943
• Gentlemens Agreement 1907
• Prior to agreement Japanese children were being
  forced to attend segregated school in San
  Francisco
• Limited emigration of Japanese unskilled workers
  to US in exchange for repeal of segregation in
  schools.

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Political Cartoons of Discrimination

• Thomas Nast
• German-American editorial cartoonist
• Drew Uncle Sam and Santa Claus
• Famous for commentary on Gilded Age

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"The Chinese Question." (February 18, 1871).
Thomas Nast. (Columbia defends disconsolae John
Chinaman from nativist Attacks)
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Circa 1889
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People Move to Major Cities

• Urbanization
• Growth of cities in Midwest and Northeast
• Why?
• 1)Farming more efficient (less jobs on farms)
• 2)African Americans move from South
• 3)Immigrants live in cities (cheapest
  convenient)
• By 1890 2x as many Irish in NYC than in Dublin,
  Ireland
• By 1910 immigrants were more than half of total
  population in 18 major US cities
• Ethnic communities develop in cities

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Challenges of City Life Disease and Fire

• Housing issues
• Many middle class families left cities as a
  result of mass transit systems
• As a result, their old houses were often divided
  up for multiple families
• Tenements
• Airshafts filled with garbage
• Drinking water
• Development of piped water and filtered water
  slow to come in larger cities
• Unclean water cholera and typhoid fever

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Challenges of City Life Disease and Fire

• Lack of Sanitation (spread disease)
• Sewage often in streets
• Smoke from factories unfiltered
• Garbage in streets
• Fires Spread Easily
• Buildings made of wood
• Lighting by candles and kerosene in homes
• Frequent occurrences in large cities
  (1870s-1880s)
• 1871 Great Chicago Fire
• Lack of fire departments till 1900

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Living Conditions of Immigrants and Urban Poor

• Jacob Riis How the Other Half Lives 1890
• Riis's reform argument targeted six major areas
  men, women, children, workplaces, living and
  housing conditions, and improvements, real and
  imagined.
• Inspired investigative journalism
• Tenement Housing and slums
• Crime, disease, fires
• Clip on Jacob Riis
• For following photos
• Write the one adjective that comes to mind to
  describe the condition of the people portrayed.

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Photo by Jacob Riis portraying tenements
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Entitled Children Sleeping in Mulberry Street
1890
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Entitled A Cave Dwellar, One of 4 Peddlars Who
Slept 1890
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Homeless Children, 1890
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Living Conditions for women
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Tenement housing from the outside view
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Society Assists Urban Poor and Immigrants

• Americanization Movement
• Attempt to give immigrants opportunities such as
  classes in English to help them assimilate.
• Social Gospel Movement
• Salvation through service to urban poor
  Protestant ethics
• Later contributed to Progressive Movement in
  early 1900s

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Jane Addams

• Inspired middle class women to get involved in
  community
• Basis Believe that poverty and the lack of
  opportunity breed the problems of the ghetto.
  Ignorance, disease, and crime are the result of
  economic desperation and not the result of some
  flaw in moral character.
• First woman to win Nobel Peace Prize

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Jane Addams 1860-1935
Hull House Chicago, Illinois Founded 1889
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Jane Addams Founder of Hull House

• Settlement houses
• Community centers in urban, slum areas
• Toynbee Hall London, England
• Purpose social responsibility taken for urban
  poor
• Hull House Chicago
• Paid for by her inheritance
• One of first American settlement houses
• Assisted many immigrants and brought attention to
  problems of urbanization
• Offered dance, school, day-care, music, health
  services, etc.