Coming Over, Spreading Out, and Rushing for Gold

1. Coming Over, Spreading Out, and Rushing for Gold

2. The country’s population in 1860 was 31.4 million,nearly four times more than it had been at the start of the 1800s.

3. Of the world’s predominantly white nations, only France, Russia, and Austria had larger populations

4. Many of the new Americans were immigrants

5. Immigrant – a person who leaves one country to settle permanently in another.

6. The number of immigrants in 1830 was about 25,000The number of immigrants in 1855 was close to 450,000

7. The immigrants came from close as Mexico and Canada and as far away as China and Japan

8. When the immigrants first arrived, they tended to stay with their fellow expatriates, where the language, food, and culture were more familiar, creating mini-nations.

9. Immigrants also increasingly stayed in cities, even in they had come from a farm backgroundIn 1840, there were 10 Americans living on farms to every one that lived in a townBy 1850, the number was 5 to 1, and many of the new city dwellers were immigrants

10. Urbanization

11. The Germans, the Irish, and the Know-Nothings who opposed them

12. The immigrants lived in parts of the city that were dark, smelly, filthy, and violentMany were so appalled that reality did not match their vision of land of opportunity and went back home

13. Since immigrants wanted any type of job when they first arrived, wages in the larges cities were pitifully low

14. In New York City, for example, it was estimated it took a minimum of $10.37 a week to support a family of five (that did not include money for medical needs or recreation)The average factory worker, laboring six days a week or 10 or 11 hours a day might make $5 a week

15. Because they were newcomers and because most native-born Americans still lived in smaller towns or farms, there was little demand for reforms or cleaning up the cities

16. And still the immigrants came!From 600,000 in the 1830s to 1.7 million in the 1840s to 2.6 million in the 1850s.More than 70 percent of the immigrants between 1840 and 1860 were from just two areas in Europe: Ireland & the German states

17. For the Irish, it was come or starve. A fungus all but wiped out Ireland’s potato crop in 1845, and there was widespread famine.

18. More than 1.5 million Irish scraped up the $10 or $12 one-way fare and piled into America-bound ships for an often hellish two-weektrip in a cargo hold

19. Many of the ships had brought Southern cotton to Britain, and in a way they were bringing back the North’s cash crop – cheap labor to work in factories and build railroads

20. What is this land, America, so many travel there?

21. What is this land America, so many travel thereI'm going now while I'm still young, my darling meet me thereWish me luck my lovely, I'll send for you when I canAnd we'll make our home in the American land

22. Over there the women wear silk and satin to their kneesAnd children, dear, the sweets, I hear, are growing on the treesGold comes rushing out the river straight into your handsWhen you make your home in the American land

23. There's diamonds in the sidewalk, the gutters lined in songDear, I hear that beer flows through the faucets all night longThere's treasure for the taking, for any hard working manWho'll make his home in the American land

24. I docked at Ellis Island in the city of light and spireI wandered to the valley of red-hot steel and fireWe made the steel that built the cities with the sweat of our two handsWe made our home in the American land

25. There's diamonds in the sidewalk, the gutters lined in songDear, I hear that beer flows through the faucets all night longThere's treasure for the taking, for any hard working manWho'll make his home in the American land

26. The McNicholas, the Posalskis, the Smiths, Zerillis tooThe Blacks, the Irish, Italians, the Germans and the JewsThey come across the water a thousand miles from homeWith nothing in their bellies but the fire down below

27. They died building the railroads, they worked to bones and skinThey died in the fields and factories, names scattered in the windThey died to get here a hundred years ago, they're still dying nowTheir hands that built the country we're always trying to keep down

28. There's diamonds in the sidewalk, the gutters lined in songDear, I hear that beer flows through the faucets all night longThere's treasure for the taking, for any hard working manWho'll make his home in the American landWho'll make his home in the American landWho'll make his home in the American land

29. Many of the Irish settled in New York City or Boston.They were harshly discriminated against in many places, and “N.I.N.A.” signs hung in many employers’ windows. It stood for “No Irish Need Apply”

30. Almost as many Germans as Irish came during this period, although they were more likely to spread outThe Germans also came because of food shortages or other tough economic conditions

31. The Germans were generally better off financially and better educated than other immigrant groups (they brought the idea of “kindergarten” or “children’s garden” with them).Many Germans pushed away from the Eastern cities to the Midwest, especially Wisconsin

32. The rise in immigration also increased anti-immigrant feeling, especially in areas where immigrants were competing with people born in America for jobs

33. In 1849, an organization surfaced called the NativistsNativism – the policy of protecting the interests of native inhabitants against those of immigrants

34. They were better known as the Know-Nothing Party, because members supposedly replied,“I know nothing” when asked by outsiders what was going on at their meetings

35. “I know nothing but my country, my whole country, and nothing but my country.”

36. The Know-Nothings demanded an end to immigration, a prohibition on non-natives voting or holding office, and restrictions on Roman Catholics

37. The Know-Nothings made a lot of noise for a while. Renamed the American Party, they attracted more than 1 million members.By 1855, they managed to elect several governors and scores of congressmen.

38. Their 1856 presidential candidate was MillardFillmore.Fillmore was previously a Whig and had been vice president under Pres. Taylor and served as president from 1850 to 1853 after Taylor died in office. Fillmore did carry one state, Maryland, as a Know-Nothing candidate in the 1856 election

39. But the Know-Nothings faded awayas the Civil War approached, torn apart by the differences between Northern and Southern members over the dividing issue of slavery

40. Making waves: The Mormons

41. Americans in the mid-1800s were generally tolerant when it came to religionAbout ¾ were regular churchgoers, and there were so many denominations that no one church dominatedBy 1860, almost every state had repealed laws against Jews or Catholics holding public officeThe question “What can you do?” was more prevalent than “How do you worship?”

42. The Church of Jesus Christ of LatterDay Saints began in 1830 with the publication of the Book of Mormon by a New York man named Joseph Smith

44. To escape persecutions, Smith moved his headquarters to Ohio, and then Missouri and then to Nauvoo, Illinois, on the banks of the MississippiNauvoo became one of the most thriving cities in the state

45. But the Mormon’s habits of working hard, sticking to themselves, and having more than one wife at a time troubled outsiders, and the persecutions began again.This Smith and his brother were killed by a mob, and Mormon leaders decided they needed some distance between themselves and the rest of America

46. Led by a strong and capable lieutenant of Smith’s, BrighamYoung, the Mormons moved west, many of them pushing two-wheeled carts for hundreds of miles

47. Finally, the Mormons settled in the Great SaltLake Basin, a forbidding region in Utah that most other people thought of as uninhabitable

50. Establishing a strictly run society and economic system, the Mormons thrivedBy 1848, there were 5,000 living in the area, many of the Europeans who had been converted by Mormon missionaries