The New Immigrants

Through the Golden Door19th-20th centuries millions of immigrants am to

the USCame for many reasons

“birds of passage” – immigrants who came temporarily to earn $ and return home.

Europeans

•1870-1910•20 million came to the U.S.

•Many came to escape religious persecution• increased population

• independence

Chinese and Japanese

•1851-1883•300,000 Chinese arrived

•Seek fortunes in gold• helped build railroads

• worked farming, mining, and domestic service

• 1882 Chinese immigration was limited by Congress.

West Indies and Mexico

•1880-1920•260,000

•People from W. Indies came because jobs were scarce.

•Mexicans came because work was scarce and political turmoil at home.

Life in the New Land

• Immigrants faced new adjustments to a sometimes

unfriendly culture.

Most traveled by steamshipTrip lasted 1-3 weeksImmigrants were usually crowded below in the cargo holdUsually slept in lice infested bedsDisease spread quicklyMany died on the ship

DIFFICULT JOURNEY

Processing took 5 or more hours.

- must pass a physical exam.

- - government inspectors checked documents and questioned immigrants

Ellis Island

• Immigrants had to pass inspection at immigration stations.

• 1st was Castle Garden in NY and later moved to Ellis Island.

17 million immigrants passed through its facilities.http://player.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm?guidAssetId=7c994a75-4f2c-4579-b4dc-691b55b6d905&blnFromSearch=1&productcode=US

Immigrants could not have been convicted of a felony in

the past.

Must be able to work.

Needed to have some money.

Angel Island

Located on the West Coast

Immigrants processed were mostly Chinese.

1910 – 1940 50,000 immigrants entered the U.S. through Angel Island.

Immigrants here endured:

Harsh questioning

Long detention in ramshackle

conditions while they waited to see

if they would be admitted or not.

Competition for Survival

• Many immigrants sought people who:

– shared their cultural values– Practiced their religion– Spoke their native language– They thought of themselves as – Americans

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFgCXqVjfBA&list=PL03082916D172BF33&index=3

• Immigrants pooled their money together to:– Build churches

• Social clubs• Old people’s homes• Orphanages• Cemeteries• Start newspapers

Click to edit Master text styles

Native born people often disliked immigrants and viewed them as a threat to the American

way of life.

Immigration Restrictions

• Many Americans saw America as a melting pot – mixture of different cultures and races who blended together by abandoning their native languages and customs.

• Many immigrants did not want to give up their cultures.

Response to Immigration

Nativism – favoritism to native-born Americans

Gave rise to anti-

immigration

groups.

Led to a demand for immigration restrictions.

Nativists – considered themselves

superior.

Accepted British, German, and Scandinavian immigrants.

Did not accept

Slavs, Latin, and

Asiatic immigrants.

• Rejected religious beliefs more than their ethnic backgrounds.

• Did not want Catholics or Jews because they thought they would undermine democratic institutions.

• 1887 – The American Protective Association was formed.• Anti-Catholic

Many colleges, businesses, and social clubs refused to admit Jews.

• 1897 - Congress passed a bill requiring a literacy test for immigrants.

• Must read 40 or more words in English or in their own language to be admitted.

• President Cleveland vetoed

Anti-Asian

• 1873- pressure to restrict Asian immigration.• Jobs were scarce• Asians would work for less• 1882- Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act

– Closed immigration for 10 yrs.– Extended in 1892– Finally restricted indefinitely– Not repealed until 1943

The Gentlemen’s Agreement

• 1906 - Japanese children were segregated and placed in separate schools.– Japan protested the treatment of its emigrants.– Gentlemen’s Agreement- 1907-1908

• Japan agreed to limit emigration of unskilled workers to the U.S. in exchange for desegregation.

The Challenges of Urbanization

• 1870 – 1920 the urban population changed from 10 million to 54 million.

Urban Opportunities

• Urbanization – – growth of cities– Mostly regions of the

Northwest and Midwest.

Immigrants Settle in Cities

• Cities were the cheapest and most convenient place to live.

• Offered unskilled workers steady jobs.

• 1910 – more than ½ the total population of 18 major cities included immigrants.

Americanization Movement

• Designed to assimilate people to the dominate culture.

• Sponsored by government and by concerned citizens.

• Education was provided to help w/assimilation• Many immigrants still did not want to change• Ethnic communities became overcrowded.

Migration From Country to City

• New farm equipment = less workers needed• People moved to the city to find work• Many farmers who lost their livelihoods were

African Americans

– 1890-1910 – 200,000 moved north and west

African-American Migration

• Many moved to escape:– racial violence– economic hardship– political oppression– Segregation– Discrimination

• Found all of these things in the northern cities also.

• Job competition between black and white.

Urban Problems

Housing

• 2 options:

– 1. House on outskirts of town.

• Transportation problems

– 2. Rent cramped rooms in a boarding house in central city.

• 2-3 families may live in one house

5 cent rooms

Men’s Dwellings

Women’s Dwellings

Immigrant Family Dwelling

Jacob Riis

U.S. journalist and social reformer.

Wrote that the multi-family urban dwellings called tenements, were

overcrowded and unsanitary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzT8EqhuYxA&feature=related

Transportation

• Mass transit – transportation systems designed to move large numbers of people along fixed routes.

• enabled workers to travel easier.

1873

San Francisco – 1st street cars were invented.

Water

• Problem of safe drinking water• NY and Cleveland built water works• 1860’s residents still had inadequately piped

water or none at all.• NY homes seldom had indoor plumbing

– Residents had to collect water in pails from faucets on the street.

– Water improvements were needed to control cholera and typhoid fever.

• 1870 – filtration of water was introduced.• 1908 – chlorination was introduced.

Sanitation

• Garbage multiplied in streets.

• Sewage flowed in open gutters.

• Factories spewed smoke• Trash collection was not

dependable.• 1900’s sewer lines were

developed.• Sanitation departments

were created.

Crime

• Pickpockets and thieves flourished.

• 1844 NY – 1st organized police force.– Too small for much

impact.

Fire

• Occurred due to lack of water.

• 1870s-1880s – a fire occurred in almost every large American city.

• Causes:– Wood dwellings. Use of

candles, kerosene heaters.

• Firemen were volunteers and not always available.

• 1853 – Cincinnati, Ohio established the first fire

department.

• 1900s – most cities had them.

Reformers Mobilize

• The Settlement

House Movement –

Social Gospel

Movement

– Preached salvation

through service to

the poor.

Settlement Houses

• Community centers established by reformers.

• In slum neighborhoods.• Provided assistance to

people in the area, especially immigrants.

Many settlement workers lived at the houses so they could learn 1st hand of urbanization problems and help create solutions.

-Run by college-educated, middle-class women.

-Provided educational, cultural, and social services.

Sent visiting nurses into the homes of the sick.

1886 -Charles Stover and Stanton Coit founded settlement houses in NY.

1889 – Jane Addams and Ellen Gates founded Chicago’s Hull House.

Jane Addams Hull House

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mDcgQDY2k4&list=PL03082916D172BF33&index=5http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfqbPW3MDVk&list=PL03082916D172BF33&index=4

1910 – about 400 settlement houses were operating in cities across the country.

Helped cultivate social responsibility toward the urban poor.

Section 3

Politics in the Guilded Age

Mark Twain

• Wrote a book called the Guilded Age.

• Describes the glittering exterior of the age, but hides a political core and growing gap between few rich and many poor.

The Emergence of Political Machines

• Government – inefficient• Cities – rapid growth• Receptive to the political machine

The Political Machine

• an organized group that controlled the activities of a political party in a city.

• Offered services to voters and businesses in exchange for political or financial support.

• Gained control of govts. In Baltimore, NY, San Francisco, and other major cities.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSH1EIvTDGw&list=PL03082916D172BF33&index=8• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSH1EIvTDGw&feature=autoplay&list=PL03082916D172BF33&playnex

t=1

Elected Candidates

City Boss

Controlled activities of political party throughout

the city.

Ward BossHelped poor

Gained support by doing favors or

providing services Precinct Workerscaptains

Gained voter support of city-block or neighborhood.

Reported to ward boss

Role of The Political Boss

• Controlled access to municipal jobs and business licenses.

• Influenced courts and other municipal agencies.

Roscoe Conkling

• NY• Used power to build:

– parks – Sewer systems– Water works

• Gave money to schools, hospitals, and orphanages.

• Could provide government support for

new businesses.

Immigrants and the Machine

• Many precinct captains and political bosses were 1st or 2nd generation immigrants.

• Few educated beyond grammar school.

• Understood immigrants

• Entered politics at the bottom and worked their way up.

• Helped immigrants w/naturalization, housing, and jobs.

• Immigrants gave them votes in exchange.

Big Jim PendergastIrish saloonkeeper

Precinct captain -> Democratic city boss in Kansas City by aiding Italian, African American, and Irish workers.

Municipal Graft and Scandal

• Some turned to fraud• Party faithfuls voted many times using fake

names.• Once the machine candidate was in office, it

could take advantage of graft.– Graft - the illegal use of political influence for

personal gain.

Advantages of Graft

• Granted favors to businesses in return for cash

• Accepted bribes to allow activities, such as gambling, to flourish.

• Police rarely interfered because they were hired and fired by political bosses.

Tweed Ring Scandal

• William M. Tweed –– “Boss Tweed”

– Head of Tammany Hall – a NY Democratic political machine.

– Led the Tweed Ring – a group of corrupt politicians that defrauded the city.

• One scheme involved the construction of the NY courthouse.

– Taxpayers paid $13 million, but the actual cost of construction was $3 million.

– The difference went into the pockets of Tweed and his followers.

– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YildL_ilQFY&list=PL03082916D172BF33&index=7

Thomas Nast

• Political cartoonist

• Helped arouse public outrage against Tammany Hall’s graft and the Tweed Ring

“A Group of Vultures Waiting for the Storm to ‘Blow Over’—‘Let Us Prey

• Tweed - was indicted on 120 counts of fraud and extortion and sentenced to 12 years in jail– His sentence was later reduced to 1 year.

– He was quickly arrested again and escaped from jail.

– He was captured in Spain when officials recognized him from a Thomas Nast cartoon.

Civil Service Replaces Patronage

• Patronage Spurs Reform –

– Patronage – giving of government jobs to people who helped the candidate get elected

– Reforms began to press for patronage to end• They wanted a merit system for hiring.

Reform Under Hayes, Garfield, and Arthur

• Rutherford B. Hayes – elected in 1876– Could not get Congress to support reform– Elected independents to his cabinet– Set up a commission to investigate the nation’s

customhouses– As a result of investigation, Hayes fired 2 of NY’s

top officials employed by the customhouse.– Angered Republicans and Roy Conklin and his

Stalwarts.

• When Hayes decided not to run for re-election a fight broke out at the Republican convention between the Stalwarts and reformers.

• They decided on an independent candidate, James A. Garfield.

• The Republicans nominated Chester A. Arthur for V.P.

• 7/2/1881 – President Garfield walked through the Washington D. C. train station and was shot two times by a mentally unstable lawyer named Charles Guiteau, whom Garfield had turned down for a job.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6USyilfk6w&feature=related

• Garfield lived until September 19.

• Chester A. Arthur became president and despite his ties to the Stalwarts, he turned reformer when he became president.– His first message to Congress urged legislators to

pass a civil service law.

Pendleton Civil Service Act

• 1883• Authorized a bipartisan civil service

commission to make appointments to federal jobs through a merit system based on candidates’ performance on an exam.

• 1901 – more than 40% of all federal jobs had been classified as a civil service positions.

Good/Bad

Good – government officials became more honest and efficient.

Bad – politicians turned to other sources for donations.

Business Buys Influence

• Politicians turned to wealthy businessmen for campaign contributions.

• The alliance between government and business became stronger than ever.

• Big business– Wanted government to raise tariffs to protect it

from foreign competition.

– Democratic govt. did not want to raise tariffs because they increased prices.

– 1884 – Dem. Won presidential election – Grover Cleveland.

– He tried to lower tariffs, but could not get support from Congress.

• 1888 – Benjamin Harrison was elected president.– He had about 100,000 less popular votes than

Cleveland, but had the majority of electoral votes.– McKinley Tariff Act – 1890

• Raised tariffs to highest level yet.

• 1892 – Cleveland was elected again.

– The only president to serve 2 non-consecutive terms.

– He supported a bill for lowering the McKinley tariff, but refused to sign it because it provided for a federal income tax.

– 1894 – The Wilson Gorman Tariff became law without the president’s signature.

– When McKinley became president he raised tariffs once again.