Immigrantsin the
Gilded Age
Why Immigrants Came
• Work - factories, mines, railroads, farms
• Free Land - Homestead Act• Education – free public schools• Freedom - democracy, no
forced military service, religious tolerance
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How Many Came
• Between 1865 and 1920• Estimated 30 million• Nearly doubled the U.S.
population
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Where They Came From
1865 - 189010 million
• Germans (2.8)
• English (1.8)• Irish (1.4)
1890 – 192010 million
• Italians (3.8)• Russian Jews
(3.0)• Slavs• Greeks• Armenians
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Russian-Jewish Immigrants 1911
Chinese Immigrants 1900
Hungarian Immigrants 1920
Violent massacres of Jews in Russia in the late 1880’s
Pogroms
1818
How They Came
•Steam powered ships•Crossed the Atlantic in 2 – 3
weeks•The poor traveled in
steerage
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A typical steamship from 1900
Steerage
• Large open area beneath a ship’s deck near the steering mechanism
• Cheap tickets• Limited toilet facilities• No privacy• Poor food
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1875 Steerage Rates
from England to New York
Typical Steerage Accommodations
What happened when they arrived
•Most Europeans came in through the port of New York – Ellis Island
•Subjected to physical exams and quarantined or sent back if found to be diseased.
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Ellis Island
•Huge reception area in New York harbor near the Statue of Liberty
•Opened by federal government in 1892 for steerage passengers entering the country
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Ellis Island, New York
Ellis Island Registry Room, 1905
Where They Settled
• Asians settled on the west coast.
• Many worked on RR’s • Others in mining, fishing,
farming, laundry and factory work
• Willing to work for extremely low wages.
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Chinese immigrants working on the Central
Pacific Railroad
Where They Settled continued
• Mexicans settled largely in the Southwest because of the irrigated land there.
• Agricultural jobs• Built RR’s in the South• Willing to accept hard jobs for low
wages.• Because of immigration restrictions
on Asians, many jobs open for Mexican immigrants.
Where They Settled continued
• Europeans settled mainly in cities in which they arrived, or headed west to mining towns.
• Usually settled with the same ethnic groups in ghettos.
Ghettos
Ethnic communities within a city
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How Americans Responded
•Nativism•Restrictive Covenants•Chinese Exclusion Act•Movement to Suburbs
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Nativism
•An attitude favoring native-born Americans over immigrants
•Nativists demanded the teaching of only the English language and American culture in schools
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Restrictive Covenants
•Agreements among homeowners not to sell real estate to certain ethnic groups or nationalities
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Chinese Exclusion Act
• 1882 - Law passed that prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the U.S.
• Labor unions claimed that American wages were dropping because Asian immigrants accepted such low pay.
• Law was in effect until 1943
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Suburbs•Residential communities
that began to develop on outskirts of major cities
•Public rail carriages were used for transportation to and from the city by those who could afford it.
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Horse Drawn Trolley
How Immigran
ts Affected American
Cities
Urbanization
The growth of cities (urban areas)
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New York City
c. 1900
Philadelphia Street
Scene c.1890
Tenements
•Low-cost apartment buildings designed to house as many families as an owner could pack into them.
•Generally associated with slums.
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New York Tenement,
c.1890
Tenement living
c.1890
Urban Living Conditions
• Pollution - soot made the air dark and foul
• Poor sanitation - open sewers, rats and other vermin
• Contaminated drinking water• Diseases spread rapidly - TB,
malaria, typhoid• Fire danger - 18,000 buildings
burned in Chicago and 250 died in 1871 fire
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Great Chicago Fire 1871
Urban Politics
• Political Divisions - as cities grew, so did public pressures for sanitation, taxes, transportation, etc. Many people looked to the city gov’t to take care of the problem.
• Graft—people using office for personal gain
• Political machines develop
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Political Machines
•Corrupt city gov’t, used immigrants for votes
•Usually run by a “boss” who either held office himself or hand-picked an individual to hold office
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Tammany Hall
•A club that ran the NY Democratic Party
•Controlled by “Boss” Tweed in the 1850’s -1870’s
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“Boss” William Tweed
Caption reads:
“As long as I count the
votes, what are you
going to do about it?”
Social Reform
•Efforts to improve society by–Aiding and educating the poor– Eliminating evil or destructive
elements
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Jacob Riis
• Immigrant from Denmark 1870•Lived in NYC tenements•Became a newspaper reporter•Wrote, How the Other Half
Lives, exposing terrible conditions in tenement slums
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Prohibition
•Movement to legally abolish alcohol in the U.S.
•Supporters blamed immigrants for a large portion of the alcohol-related problems in the nation.
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Social Gospel Movement
•Churches sought to address problems like drinking and gambling by applying Jesus’s teachings to society.
•Sought labor reforms and improved living conditions for workers
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Education
•Schools aimed at assimilating immigrants into society.
• Immigrants sought literacy and civic skills needed to gain citizenship.
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Settlement Movement
• Reformers who believed that hand-outs did not help the poor
• They would settle among the needy to witness their plight first-hand and offer social services through “settlement houses.”
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Hull House
• A “settlement house” in Chicago• Opened by Jane Addams and Ellen
Gates Starr in 1889• Provided child-care, playgrounds,
clubs and children’s summer camps, legal offices and a health clinic
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Jane Addamsc. 1896
Hull House
Hull House
Museum in
Chicago today
Purity Crusaders
• Sought to end the vices (immoral behavior) such as alcohol, drugs, prostitution and gambling
• Formed societies that supported candidates for office and sought legislation to end vice and corrupt political machines
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