Immigration after 1880

1. Immigration after 1880

2. TN Curriculum Standards: • 1.0-Understand how industrial development affected the United States culture. • Understand how the influx of immigrants after 1880 affected U. S. culture. SPI 6.4- Identify patterns of immigration and the causal factors that led to immigration to the U.S. SPI 6.5- Distinguish the differences in assimilation of “old” vs. “new” immigration. SPI 6.6- Read and interpret a primary source document reflecting the dynamics of the Gilded Age of American Society.

3. Melting Pot: theory vs. reality

4. The “Old” Immigrants • From 1800-1880, more than 10 million immigrants came to the U.S. • They were mostly Protestants from Northwestern Europe. • This group would be referred to as the “old” immigrants. • They were accepted into American culture.

5. “Old” Immigrants The “old” immigrants were accepted because: • They looked the same • Spoke the same languages as the Americans who were already here • Worshipped the same .

6. The “New” immigrants • From 1891-1910, a new wave of immigrants came to the U.S. • They came from Southern or Eastern Europe (Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Russian, and Slovaks, Arabs, Armenians, Chinese, French Canadians, and Japanese). • They were not as accepted as the old immigrants.

7. The “New” Immigrants • They looked different. • They worshipped differently. • They spoke different languages.

8. Reasons for Coming to the U.S. • Plenty of land and work • Higher standard of living • Democratic political system • Opportunity for social advancement

9. The Journey

10. Immigrants (Below deck) in the steerage

11. Reaching America

12. Arriving in America

13. Nativist political cartoon

14. A New Life • Many immigrants found that that the U.S. offered them a better life than in their homeland. • Others that settled in crowded cities faced many hardships. • They could only find low-paying (unskilled) jobs. • As a result of this, they were generally forced into poor housing in/near neighborhood slums.

15. Tenement Housing

16. A New Life • Immigrant/Ethnic Communities- pockets of diverse immigrant communities where they were able to find institutions and neighbors that help them make the transition financially and culturally into American life. • Religious institutions- neighborhood churches, synagogues, and temples provided community centers that helped immigrants maintain a sense of identity and belonging.

17. A New Life

18. Immigrant labor

19. Settling into Ethnic Communities

20. Ethnic Communities

21. Chinese Immigration

22. Chinese laborers (late 1800s)

23. Nativism

24. Nativism

25. Reasons Nativists were against Immigration • They believed that there were more Catholic immigrants coming in than there were Protestant Americans. • They feared that they would undermine the labor unions by working for less. • Nativists began to form anti-immigrant organizations. These organizations agreed not to hire or vote for any Catholics.

26. Anti-Catholic political cartoon

27. Anti-Irish Sentiment

28. Anti-Irish Ads/political cartoons

29. Chinese Exclusion

30. Chinese Exclusion • Legislators (particularly in CA) passed laws that banned Chinese immigration for 10 years. Chinese immigrants that were already in the country were banned from becoming citizens. • Although the Chinese protested by campaigning and suing in court, Congress did not lift the ban until 1943 (41 years later). • When Japanese immigration increased, the San Francisco Board of Education required Chinese, Japanese, and Korean children to attend racially segregated schools.

31. Chinese Exclusion • Before, this had only applied to Chinese school-age children. • When Japanese officials in Japan found out about the forced segregation, they were furious. They voiced their concerns with then president Theodore (Teddy Roosevelt) and he struck a deal with the school board. • He agreed to pass legislation to limit Japanese immigration in exchange for them integrating the school for Asian immigrants. This deal became known as the Gentlemen’s Agreement. • Legislators would later propose giving immigrants literacy tests before they could be admitted to the U. S.

32. Chinese Exclusion

33. Separation by Class (pg. 224 in text) • The wealthy, the middle class, and the working class (poor) lived in separate sections of town (much like today). • Because of industry, more Americans moved from working class to middle class. The middle class was mostly made up of doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, social workers,…etc. • As they began to make more money, they began to move further away from the city (to escape crime and pollution). • Most middle class families at this time had at least one live-in servant.

34. The Working Poor

35. Jacob Riis forced poverty awareness with his writings and his pictures about the slums

36. Jacob Riis’s photos

37. Riis’s photos