Causes of Immigration

1. Push Factors 1. Persecution 2. Economic Hardships 3. Lack of Jobs 4. War Pull Factors 1. Religious and Political Freedom 2. Cheap Land 3. Factory Jobs 4. Family in the U.S. Causes of Immigration

2. “New” Immigrants – individuals from southern and eastern Europe. Unskilled, poor, Catholic or Jewish, and settled in cities. • Steerage – the part of the ship that the immigrants made the long journey across the ocean.

3. Ellis Island • Europeans crossed the Atlantic Ocean and arrived in New York at Ellis Island. • They left their particular homelands for various reasons: religious persecution, population growth and limited farming area, political freedom, and employment. • Immigrants would travel on cargo ships, the conditions were unsanitary and disease was a common occurrence aboard these ships.

4. Angel Island • Asians Immigrants (mostly Chinese) crossed the Pacific Ocean and arrived in San Francisco at Angel Island. • This trip took two weeks and was as unsanitary as the Atlantic crossing. • The processing at Angel Island for the immigrants was more difficult than Ellis Island. The questions were more harsh, the detention was longer and the conditions were more filthy.

5. Immigrants Face A Difficult Life • America was becoming a melting pot, a mixture of people of different cultures and races who blended together by abandoning their native languages and customs. • Many Americans were not happy with the large number of immigrants coming to America.

6. Nativism • One response to the growth in immigration was nativism, or overt favoritism toward native-born Americans. These groups led to a demand for immigration restrictions. • Immigration Restriction League or IRL – this group was formed by Prescott F. Hall. They did not object to immigrants from the “right” countries.(British, German and Scandinavian) They believed their problems were caused by immigrants from the “wrong” countries. (Slav, Latin and Asiatic races)

7. Anti-Asian Sentiment • In 1882, Congress created the Chinese Exclusion Act, this act banned entry to all Chinese except students, teachers, merchants, tourists, and government officials. • In 1906, the local board of education in San Francisco segregated Japanese children by putting them in different schools. This lead to the Gentlemen’s Agreement, Japan ‘s government agreed to limit immigration of unskilled workers to the U.S. in exchange for the repeal of the San Francisco segregation order.

8. Urbanization • The technological boom of the 19th century lead to urbanization, or growth of cities, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest. • The new immigrants settled into cities because of affordable housing and steady employment. • Improvements in farming technology meant fewer laborers were needed on the farm. • Americanization Movement – supported by the government this movement was designed to assimilate people of wide-ranging cultures into the dominant culture.

9. Urban Problems • Housing Problems - City governments faced the problem of providing residents with needed services and safe living conditions. • Tenements – (multifamily urban dwellings) these were one-family residents that were occupied by 2 or 3 families.

10. Transportation – advancements in mass transit, transportation systems designed to move large numbers of people along fixed routes, assisted people in reaching their jobs. Water – unsafe drinking water was the norm in most cities. People had to boil water for bathing purposes. Indoor plumbing was a luxury that most people did not possess. Sanitation – people would throw their garbage out onto the streets. Crime – as the population grew in the cities so did the crime rate. Law enforcement agencies were to small to be effective. Fire – limited water supply in the cities contributed to the spread of fires.

11. Skyscrapers – ten-story or taller buildings that had steel frames. • Louis Sullivan - Designed one of the first skyscrapers. He was able to build it because of the invention of elevators and the internal steel skeletons to bear the weight of the buildings. Skyscrapers solved the problem of how to make the best use of limited and expensive space. • Elisha Otis – developed a safety elevator that would not fall if the lifting rope broke.

12. Electric Transit – this allowed cities to spread outward. They were put below and above ground. • Engineering Marvels – Steel-cable suspension bridges (Brooklyn Bridge), connected cities.

13. Suburbs – middle and upper class people who could afford transit fares moved away from the city. • Frederick Law Olmsted – a landscape architect who lead a movement for planned urban parks. He is credited with planning Central Park in New York. • Daniel Burnham - planted parks and beaches along Lake Michigan.

14. Social and Cultural Trends • Mark Twain wrote the novel “The Gilded Age” • Historians refer to the last decades of the nineteenth century as the Gilded Age.

15. Mass Culture American Leisure– the middle class had more free time for leisure activities. 1. Amusement Parks 2. Bicycling & Tennis 3. Spectator Sports (Boxing & Baseball) 4. Baseball (two leagues) 5. Vaudeville (entertainment theaters)

16. Newspapers – used sensational headlines to captivate its readers. • Joseph Pulitzer – Hungarian immigrant who developed innovations such as the large Sunday edition, comics, sports coverage, and women’s news. • William Randolph Hearst – Pulitzer’s main competition in the newspaper industry. He tried to outdo Pulitzer with the lies.

17. Fine Arts – every large city had at least one art gallery by the turn of the century. • Popular Fiction - most people preferred light reading books that cost 10 cents (dime novels). • Mark Twain – his real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. He wrote “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”

18. Selling All The New Goods • Urban Shopping – store started to be built by one another. • Department Store – Marshall Field brought the concept to America. “give the lady what she wants” • Chain Store – sold goods for less by buying in quantity and offering less personal service. F.W. Woolworth discovered people would buy on the spur of the moment.

19. Advertising – ads went into magazines, newspapers and on trains. • Catalogs – Montgomery Ward introduced the catalog in 1872. Soon Richard Sears started his company and developed his catalog. • Rural Free Delivery (RFD) – the post offices would deliver the packages directly to the merchants home.

20. Most states did not establish public education until after the Civil War. • At first children from ages 8 to 14 only had to go to school for 12 to 16 weeks a year. • High Schools – with the new industrial age, the economy demanded advanced technical and managerial skills.

21. Racial Discrimination – most African Americans were not allowed in the public high schools. • Immigrants – unlike the African Americans, immigrants were encouraged to go to school. This way the children could become Americanized.

22. Higher Education • Between 1880 and 1920, college enrollments quadrupled. • African Americans established their own universities so they could pursue a higher education. • Booker T. Washington – headed the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. He believed racism would end when blacks acquired useful labor skills and proved their economic value to society.