THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 1877-1945

THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 1877-1945 SEMINAR 5 THE GOLDEN DOOR-THE NEW IMMIGRATION

REVIEW QUESTIONS • What factors made the American Industrial Revolution possible? • What was the symbol of the era and why? • Name leading business figures or industrialists • In what way can trusts develop? • What were the foundations of the early information systems?

MIX AND MATCH • Which historical periods, or events can you associate the following terms with? • Sutter, Glidden, Muir, Custer, • Wounded Knee, Sand Creek Massacre, • railroads, Model T • Ghost Dance Movement, mass production, conservation movement, Little Big Horn, American Industrial Revolution, Gold Rush, barbed wire, Indian wars and treaties,

THE GOLDEN DOOR • 1886: Statue of Liberty • Give me your tired, your poor, • Your huddled masses yearning to breath free • The wretched refuse of your teeming shore • Send these, the homeless tempest-tossed to me • I lift my lamp beside the golden door (Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus)

SOURCE ANALYSIS • Why is the poem titled The New Colossus? • Explain: huddled, tempest-tossed, • Wretched refuse, teeming shore, • What does the golden door symbolize? • What is the message of the poem?

EXPLAIN • They said in America the streets are paved with gold, but when we arrived there were no streets, we had to build them, we had to mine the gold, and we had to do the paving…. • How is the myth and reality of immigration conflicted in the quote? • Myth: Statue of Liberty, reality: Ellis Island, the hard conditions of immigrants, nativism

WAVES OF IMMIGRATION • 1607-1787 Colonial period: WASP groups, African slaves • 1820-1860: Old Immigration: WASP, Mexicans, Chinese • 1880-1924: New Immigration, non-WASP, Central, Eastern, Southern Europe • 1945- : Latin America, Southeast Asia

JEWISH IMMIGRATION • Colonial America: involved in trade and commerce • European roots • Ashkenazi community: Holland, England • Sephardic community: Spain, Portugal • 1780-1850 Population growth • Jews settle in Boston, Buffalo, Baltimore, Cleveland, Chicago

IMMIGRATION AND INTEGRATION • 1881: Start of pogroms in Russia • (discrimination, anti-Jewish hysteria,) • In America: face anti-Semitism • 1890s: 600,000 arrive Immigrants found a haven instead of a home, their children turned a haven into a home • 1880-1925: 2 million Jews immigrate • Reason: religious and political tolerance

MAIN FEATURES OF JEWISH IMMIGRATION • Successful immigrants—integration • Iconic figure: Jewish peddler • Strength of the family • Respect for tradition • Importance of education • Observation of religion • Value of hard work

ELLIS ISLAND • From Liberty Island to Ellis Island • Official entry point • Reasons for refusal of entry: membership in radical organizations, fear of prostitution • Medical tests, fear of disease is also a cause for exclusion

METAPHORS FOR AMERICAN CULTURE • Melting pot • Salad bowl • Symphony • Rainbow • Kaleidoscope

MELTING POT • Israel Zangwill: The Melting Pot (1908) • America is God’s crucible • The Great Melting Pot: where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming. God is making the American-fusion of all races, the coming Superman • National, cultural heritages are melted into a new ”American identity” • Madison Grant: The Passing of the Great Race

MELTING POT • The dominantparadigmuntilthe 1960s • St. Jean de Crévecoeur: promiscuousbreed: ”a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes” (1782) • ”Whatthen is the American, thisnew man? He is neither an European, nor a descendant of an European; hence thatstrangemixture of bloodwhichyouwillfindin no other country […] He is an American, who, leavingbehindhimallhisancientprejudices and manners, receivesnewonesfromthenewmode of life he has embraced, thenewgovernment, he obeys, and thenewrank he holds. He becomes an American by being receivedinthebroad lap of ourgreat Alma Mater. Here individuals of allnationsaremeltedinto a newrace of men,whoselabours and posteritywillonedaycausegreatchangesintheworld”

BEYOND THE MELTING POT • ”The alien, whocomes here from Europe is nottherawmaterialAmericanssupposehimto be. He is not a blanksheetto be writtenonasyousee fit, he bringswithhim a deep-rootedtradition, asystem of culture, taste, and habitsthatcomesintoconflictwithAmericaassoonas he landed.” (Marcus RavageEli) • Saladbowl, mosaic: groupswithsimilarnational and ethnicbackgroundslivingsidebysidepreserving old identities, cultures, customs (Chinatown, Little Italy)

BEYOND THE MELTING POT • Otherexplanations: static, constantchange is notindicated • Lawrence Fuchs: Kaleidoscopetheory, reflectingthedynamics of ethnicity: ”American ethnicity is kaleidoscopic: complex and varied, changingform, pattern, color… continuallyshifting fromoneset of relations toanother, rapidlychanging” • Virágos: a dynamicsystementailingtheinteraction of a primarycore and severalsecondarycores, parallel cultures

NATIVISM • John Higham: oppositiontoaliens, theirinstitutions, ideas, a rejection of an internalminoritybasedonitsforeignconnections • Three main currents: • -anti-Catholicism 1830-1850s • -fear of foreignradicals (post World WarOne Red Scare) • -racialnativism (basedonAnglo-Saxonsuperiority)

NATIVIST VOICES • ”men of thesturdystocksofthenorthof Europe made upthe main force of immigrants, butnow ‘multitudesofmenofthelowestclassfromthesouthofItaly and men of themeaner sort out of Hungary and Polandwho had neitherskillnorenergynor an initiative of quickintelligencewerecoming.” (Woodrow Wilson 1901) • ”wideopen and unguarded stand ourgates, and throughthempresses a wild, amotleythrong, whobringwiththemunknowngods and rites.” (Thomas BaileyAldrich 1892)

EXAMPLES OF NATIVISM • Indianresistancetosettlers • William Bradford-mixedmultitude • Benjamin Franklin -”WhyshouldthePalatineBoorsbe sufferedtoswarmintoourSettlements?” -”wehaveso fair and opportunity of increasingthelovelywhite” (ObservationsConcerningtheIncrease of Mankind) • Know-Nothings (American Party)

IMMIGRATION RESTRICTION • 1795: Citizenship restricted to whites • 1798: Alien and Sedition Acts allow the president to deport dangerous aliens • 1808: Prohibition on slave trade • 1850s : Know Nothing Party seeks restriction on immigration • 1882: Chinese Exclusion Act

IMMIGRATION RESTRICTION • 1907: Gentlemen’sAgreement • 1921: EmergencyQuotaActImmigrantadmission is restrictedto 3% of thetotalrepresentationofthegivennationalityrecordedbythe 1910 census • 1924: Johnson Reed Actlimits annual European immigration to 2% of thetotalrepresentation of thegivennationalityrecordedbythe 1890 census

MULTICULTURALISM TODAY • David Hollinger: ethnic identities form into Euro-America-Post-Ethnic America • Erasure of diversity • Declining significance of race, racial oppression superseded by class oppression (William J. Wilson)

MULTICULTURALISM TODAY • Multiculturalism undermines the American Creed • Post 1960s, non-English speaking mass immigration, dual identities • ”If someone calls America a nation of immigrants he forms lies from half truths.” (Who are we?: Challenges to the American Identity, Samuel P. Huntington 2005)

THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 1877-1945