America Moves to the City

1. America Moves to the City Immigrants and Others Decide to Urbanize

2. Consequences of Urban Development • Lure of industry jobs draws farmers and immigrants • Mass transit in cities (trolleys, subways) • different social groups no longer lived close together • Inadequate water and sewer systems • By the end of the 19c cities • cities built better sewers and supplied purified water • Death rate declined

3. Consequences of Urban Development cont. • Outbreaks of deadly diseases such as cholera and tuberculosis • Crowded tenements & ‘flophouses’ • Increasing segregation of social groups by income • Poor treatment of water, sewage, and waste

4. Writing About the City • How the Other Half Lives • Jacob Riis portrayal of American Urban Slums • The Shame of the Cities • Lincoln Steffensmuckraking novel concerning the poor living conditions in the cities • Muckrackers? Investigative journalists who worked to expose urban decay & corruption

5. JACOB RIIS: DOCUMENTING POVERTY AND HOPELESSNESS

10. Evicted

11. “New” Immigrant Origins • Most of the immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe • Russian Jews escaping religious persecution • Italian peasants • Greeks, Slovaks, and Poles • Unemployed Europeans seeking factory jobs in U.S. cities “Old Immigrants”? -Irish & Germans of 1840/50’s also fled poverty of Europe, but culturally closer to being ‘American’

12. Immigration Characteristics • most immigrants were unskilled day laborers. • immigration increased steadily during these years. • immigrants tended to be Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Jewish. (“Old Imm. were?”) • Chinese immigrants were excluded by law during most of these years

13. Immigration Centers • Ellis Island (European, mainly)- New York • Angel Island (Asian, mainly- San Francisco • Ellis Island- http://www.ellisisland.org/default.asp • Angel Island- http://www.angel-island.com/beck.html

14. Nativist sentiment against the New immigrants • practiced different religions • had different languages and cultures • were willing to work for lower wages than were native born workers • were not familiar with the United States political system • Blamed by “Nativists” for degradation of the cities (they work for less, aren’t ‘American’ enough)

15. Immigration Restrictions • The Rise of Nativism • Melting pot – in U.S. people blend by abandoning native culture • New Immigrants don’t want to give up cultural identity • Nativism – overt (obvious) favoritism torward native-born Americans • Nativists believe Anglo-Saxons (whites) superior to other ethnic groups • Some object to immgrts. religion; many imgrnts. are Catholic, Jewish

16. What group is targeted? What is the justification?

17. Immigration Advocates • Tammany Hall • Political machine in New York, headed by Boss Tweed • Runs on graft, corruption, $$$ • PATRONAGE JOBS- only the well connected get help/jobs • Trade $$ & favors for jobs • Help immigrants adjust to city life • In return for votes and support • poor urban immigrants biggest supporters

18. Immigration Advocates • Settlement Houses (Jane Addams and Hull House) • Located in poor working-class and immigrant neighborhoods • Staffed by college-educated, middle-class men and women • Taught English to immigrants • Helped to educate immigrant children

19. Immigration Issues • The American educational system could not absorb the numbers of immigrant children • Chinese Exclusion Act 1882 • Denied citizenship to Chinese in the U.S. and forbid further immigration of Chinese • Supported by American workers who worried about losing their jobs to Chinese immigrants who would work for less pay • American Protective Association • A Nativist group of the 1890s which opposed all immigration to the U.S

20. Who is the subject? What two groups are being depicted & how are they depicted? What purpose would this cartoon serve?