Immigration & Urbanization

1. Immigration& Urbanization • Bell Ringer - Explain why immigration is such a problem today. • Objective • Analyze and explain how American urban life changed between 1875 and 1914

3. Strangers in the Land: Urbanization and Immigration Q: Was the experience of “Second Wave” immigrants significantly different from that of earlier immigrants?

4. Analyze the impact of any TWO of the following on the American industrial worker between 1865 and 1900.: Government actions; Labor Unions; Immigration; Technology changes • Identify and analyze the factors that changed the American city in the second half of the nineteenth century. • Americans have been a highly mobile people. Describe and account for the dominant population movements between 1820 and 1900. • Although the economic growth of the United States between 1860 and 1900 has been attributed to a governmental policy of laissez-faire, it was in fact encouraged and sustained by direct governmental intervention. Assess the validity of this statement.

5. I. Overview • Cities = source of hope, conflict, adjustment, especially for “New Immigrants” • New urban environment created challenges • Farm=self-sufficient, city=buy everything (food); sprawl (unplanned growth, cost center city); mass transit suburbs; inadequate housing (tenements crime, disease) • City central to US life (Esp. true new immigrants) • 51% of Americans urban (1920) • Source of diversity & pluralism (class, race, ethnicity) • Cities = centers of industrial growth • Provided capital, workers, & consumers • Often specialized in 1 product (NYC: clothing; Chicago: meat)

6. II. Urban Population Growth A. Internal Migration • 1870: 10 million Americans in cities; 1920: 54 million (550% increase) • Biggest factor = migration countryside + immigration. That is where the money was • Rural populace declined: Low crop prices & high debts (sharecropping) Jobs & escape isolation (blacks + Hispanics: hopes for rights) • Blacks: limited to service jobs (esp. women) • Hispanics: unskilled labor, esp. construction

7. B. Second Wave Immigration • 1820-1860: 5 million immigrants (95% N+W Europe) very little restriction • 1890-1914: 15 million (S+E Europe) • Push: pop., land redistribution, & industrialization, religious persecution (esp. Russian Jews: pogroms) • Pull: “streets paved with gold” propaganda • Foreign-born & native-born of foreign parents formed majority in many US cities • Many native-born whites (old immigrant heritage) resented “new” immigrants (they were unskilled and overcrowded the cities) • Old Immigrants were Irish and German

8. Ellis Island

9. Angel Island

10. Inspection room – sick people would be quarantined, some sick were sent back. Those who had family went by train, ferry, or foot to find them. Those who did not, were in for a surprise. Crooks used scams to offer fake housing and jobs to get a chance at stealing their luggage or money.

11. C. The Melting Pot • Initial crowding multi-ethnic “urban borderlands” • But, white immigrants move up + out (limited mobility) • Movies, newspapers, magazines, sports, circuses, vaudeville, education, consumerism (American= buying) mass culture

12. Restrictions • 1. Asian Exclusion: • Chinese: 1849-1882: 250,000 Chinese (RxR + mining) organized labor leads charge gov’t caves (despite promise to China) 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act (10 yr suspension, ineligible citizenship)

13. New language? • But native language papers, ethnic stores, internal social services pluralism • Racism urban segregation (restrictive covenants): ghettos w/few jobs • Race riots: Atlanta (1906); East St. Louis, IL (1917) • Hispanics lose land barrios far from center • Nativists: “failure” melting pot restrict immigration • Immigrant change America – industrial growth, citizenship, politics, and culture • Became members of labor unions for protection from nativism • Political leaders who backed them became powerful

14. D. Nativism • Who? 1) Labor unions, 2) “reformers”: Immigration Restriction League (1894 Harvard grads): literacy test weed out potential criminals + welfare cases (pass 1917) Rationales • 1. Anti-Catholicism, Anti-Semitism • 2. Anti-Revolution: fear of radicalism (esp. socialists + anarchists): 1886 Haymarket; 1892 H. Frick attacked some businessmen join anti-immigration • Almost all strikes/violence/radical politics led by + made up of native born • 3. Social Darwinism: “race suicide”: immigrants’ high birth rate drown out WASPs

15. 2. Quotas • Quota Act, 1921: 3% total # from country in 1910 census • Immigration Act, 1924: 2% total # from country in US based on 1890 census fewer S+E • 1907: 685,000+ from S+E • 1924 and on: approx. 20,000/year • Did not affect Canada or Mexico greater % immigration (esp. 1910 Mexican Revolution)

16. Cities Expand & Change

17. 1. Housing • Jacob Riis (photojournalist, How the Other Half Lives): environment dehumanizing, focus social services on children • Rear house tenements: mortality rate 61.97/1,000; infant morality 204.54/1,000 (29.03/1000 mortality for single home on a lot) • 1901 NYC outlaws dumbbell tenements (poor ventilation, no light, terrible fire protection)

18. Riis: “If there is an open space between them, it is never more than a slit a foot or so wide, and gets to be the receptacle of garbage and filth of every kind; so that any opening made in these walls for purposes of ventilation becomes a source of greater danger than if there were none…The sun cannot reach them. They are damp and dark, and the tenants, who are always the poorest and most crowded, live ‘as in a cage open only toward the front.’”

19. 2. Settlement Houses • Jane Addams & Hull House (Chicago): education, health care, public playgrounds/parks • Often seen as outsiders (mid/upper class, WASP, undermine bosses), but made advances • Acceptable avenue for college-educated women: still “in the home” but active, outside male control the “New Woman” • Influence over social policy expand to higher levels of gov’t + politics

24. B. Civic Reform • Disorder, corruption, poverty, high taxes (costs inflated by corruption) middle/ upper classes opposed bosses run city like a company: city managers & city commissions to create efficient government run by experts • Little success late 1800s: loyalty to boss b/c boss helped w/ real problems [e.g. built needed infrastructure (water, sanitation, housing), although at high cost] • Major issue of Progressives

25. C. Social Reform • Traditional belief: poor= lazy & immoral, aid dependence • New attitude: 1) Sociology: urban environment + capitalism systemic poverty gov’t action to solve social problems (later vanguard Progressives) • 2) Social Gospel: apply teachings of Jesus to society (spread to other religions) • Reformers: young, middle class, often female (rise college education of women) • Tried to help urban newcomers w/ problems (housing, poverty) and Americanize them (education)

26. C. Social Reform • New forms of amusement • Amusement Parks • Outdoor events – Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show • Vaudeville – Precursor to movies • Movies – The Great Train Robbery • Thank goodness - BASEBALL

27. Sherwood Park, Seattle

29. Advertising Vaudeville shows on Market Street in St. Louis

30. The plan is made Stupid conductors Conductor shot AHH Sheriff “Go Get’”em Hunt’n em down!

32. In groups of 4 • Each person come up with an answer to one of the following questions: • Analyze the impact of any TWO of the following on the American industrial worker between 1865 and 1900.: Government actions; Labor Unions; Immigration; Technology changes • Identify and analyze the factors that changed the American city in the second half of the nineteenth century. • Americans have been a highly mobile people. Describe and account for the dominant population movements between 1820 and 1900. • Although the economic growth of the United States between 1860 and 1900 has been attributed to a governmental policy of laissez-faire, it was in fact encouraged and sustained by direct governmental intervention. Assess the validity of this statement. • Discuss with your group • Now lets discuss with the class • The test covering this information will be Sept 2&3. Please see Wiki For Study Guide. Under discussions tab