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The Rise of Urban America. Ch.15 notes. Europeans flood into the U.S. By the 1890s over half of all immigrants in the U.S. were eastern and southern Europeans, including Italians, Greeks, Poles, Slavs, Russians, and Armenians.
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The Rise of Urban America Ch.15 notes
Europeans flood into the U.S. • By the 1890s over half of all immigrants in the U.S. were eastern and southern Europeans, including Italians, Greeks, Poles, Slavs, Russians, and Armenians. • Moving to the U.S. offered immigrants a chance to break away from Europe’s class system and move to a democratic nation where they had a chance to move up the social ladder.
Ellis Island • The eastern and southern Europeans who came to America in the last half of the 19th century had to endure a difficult voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Upon arrival they would have to pass an inspection and be processed on Ellis Island in New York Harbor. • Many of those who passed the Ellis Island inspections settled in NYC, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Detroit.
Asian Immigration to America • As Europeans were coming to America via a voyage across the Atlantic, many Asian immigrants began crossing the Pacific to arrive on America’s west coast in the mid-1800s. • The 1848 discovery of gold in California began to lure Chinese immigrants to the U.S. initially, and then the Taiping Rebellion took around 20 million lives and caused such great suffering that many Chinese fled to the U.S.
Angel Island • In Jan. 1910, CA opened a barracks on Angel Island to accommodate the Asian immigrants. Most of these immigrants were young males in their teens or twenties. • From Angel Island many Chinese immigrants spread out into western cities where they worked as laborers or servants in skilled trades. Some worked as merchants.
Resurgence of Nativism • Eventually the large amount of immigrants to America led to an increased feeling of Nativism, which is an exteme dislike for immigrants and a desire to limit immigration. • Nativism led to the creation of two anti-immigrant organizations. One, the American Protective Association, and the second was the Workingman’s Party of CA.
The Chinese Exclusion Act • The passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 was an obvious result of increased Nativism. The law barred Chinese immigration for ten years and prevented Chinese already in the U.S. from becoming citizens. • Chinese immigrants protested the exclusion act arguing the white Americans didn’t oppose immigration by Italians, Irish, or Germans.
Americans Migrate to the Cities • During the three decades following the U.S. Civil War, the urban population of the U.S. grew from 10 million in 1870 to over 30 million in 1900. NYC alone grew from around 800,000 in 1860 to around 3.5 million by 1900. • Chicago grew even faster than NYC going from about 109,000 in 1860 to more than 1.6 million by 1900.
Americans Migrate to Cities cont. • Much of the U.S. city growth during the last half of the 1800s could be attributed to European and Asian immigration. The main reason was that many of the immigrants moving into America’s large cities lacked the money to buy farms. • Many rural Americans also began moving to the large cities during the late 1800s in order to find higher paying jobs than could be found in rural areas.
Mass Transit • Mass transit developed in the late 1800s in order to move large numbers of people around cities quickly. • In America’s largest cities traffic congestion became so bad that engineers began looking for ways to move mass transit off the streets. Chicago responded by building an elevated RR, while Boston and NYC built the first subway systems.
America’s Working Class • The majority of American city dwellers around 1900 were working class people who lived in tenement housing, which consisted of dark and crowded multi-family apartments. • To supplement the average industrial worker’s annual income of $445, many families sent their young children to work in factories.
Urban Problems • City living posed threats such as crime, violence, fire, disease, and pollution, especially for the working class family. The rapid growth of cities only helped to multiply these problems. • Jacob Riis, who documented slum life in his 1890 book How the Other Half Lives, accused saloons and alcohol of breeding poverty and creating corruption in society.
The Gilded Age • In 1873 Mark Twain and Charles Warner wrote a novel together entitled The Gilded Age.Historians later adopted the term and applied it to the era in American History that covered the 30 year period from about 1870 to 1900. • By calling this era the Gilded Age, Twain and Warner were sounding an alarm. Something is gilded if it is covered with gold on the outside but made of cheaper material on the inside.
