Great Migration &1918 Flu Pandemic

Melissa Escher

U.S. History 5th period

Mr. Connor/Hunt

Great Migration• The Great Migration was the movement of 2

million blacks out of the Southern states to the Midwest, Northeast and West from 1910 to 1930. African Americans migrated to escape racism and to find jobs in cities.

• When the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, about eight percent of the African American population lived in the northeastern or Midwestern United States. In 1900 a little more than90 percent of blacks still lived in Southern states.

• Between 1910 -1930, African Americans grew by about 40% in Northern states, mostly in the major cities. Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Cleveland had some of the biggest increases in the early part of the century. The changes were concentrated in cities, urban tensions rose as African Americans and new or recent European immigrants, both groups chiefly from rural societies, competed for jobs and housing with the white ethnic working class. Tensions were often most severe between ethnic Irish, and recent immigrants and blacks due to that the Irish didn’t want their positions from work taken from them.

https://amsuenglish.wikispaces.com/Their+Eyes+Were+Watching+God

How this affected America?• As African Americans migrated, they became increasingly

integrated into society. As they lived and worked more closely with European Americans, the divide existing between them became increasingly bad. This period marked the transition for many African Americans from lifestyles as farmers to urban industrial workers

• While the Great Migration helped educated African Americans receive jobs, the migrants encountered significant forms of discrimination. Because so many people migrated in a short period of time, the African American migrants were often resented by the European-American working class. They were fearing their ability to negotiate rates of pay or secure employment, they felt threatened by the influx of new labor competition.

• The Great Migration of African-Americans created the first large, urban black communities in the North. It is conservatively estimated that 400,000 left the South during the two-year period of 1916-1918 to take advantage of a labor shortage created in

the wake of the First World War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bronxhub1.jpeg

Examples • Human migration is physical movement by humans

from one area to another, sometimes over long distances or in large groups. The movement of populations in modern times has continued under the form of both voluntary migration within one's region, country, or beyond.

• Another example of this is Mexicans crossing over our boarder illegally and taking our jobs.

http://www.uic.edu/educ/bctpi/historyGIS/greatmigration/gmdocuments.html

Long- term affects?• This affected our country in the fact that people were

coming over to our country and taking our jobs and putting us out of work. They are able to work more then we are and they brought more ideas to us.

• We also deal with racism with employees now and in general daily life. Blacks, Asians, and Mexicans all deal with the fact that they are from other places in the world and some people don’t think they are good enough to work for them. Its not right but it’s a fact of life

• Chicago has the most African-American workers there today and everything there is more compacted there and they have had to deal with most of the affects in my opinion.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://oznia.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/purple_chicago_skylineresized2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://oznia.wordpress.com/2008/04/&usg=__LA5Tby2wAfz4--X4GAnJi01XWIg=&h=926&w=1200&sz=981&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=ZkOHcrdQB1RQNM:&tbnh=158&tbnw=205&ei=Q51RTfnoDI-0sAOt14zNBg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dchicago%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D832%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C171&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=568&vpy=291&dur=541&hovh=197&hovw=256&tx=116&ty=80&oei=Q51RTfnoDI-0sAOt14zNBg&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:13,s:0&biw=1280&bih=832

Bibliography• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American)

• http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/545.html

• http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=443

1918 Flu Pandemic• The 1918 flu pandemic which was also known as

the Spanish flu was an unusually severe and deadly influenza pandemic that spread across the world. Historical and epidemiological data are not able to identify the geographic origin, though some suspect an Army cantonment in central Kansas. Most victims were healthy young adults, most influenza outbreaks which predominantly affect juvenile, elderly, or weak people. The flu pandemic was implicated in the outbreak of encephalitis lethargica in the 1920s.

• The pandemic lasted from June 1917 to December 1920 spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands.

• Between 50 and 100 million died, making it one of

the deadliest natural disasters in human history • Although the first cases were registered in the

continental U.S. and the rest of Europe long before getting to Spain, the 1918 pandemic received its nickname "Spanish flu" because Spain, a neutral country in WW.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/CampFunstonKS-InfluenzaHospital.jpg/280px-CampFunstonKS-InfluenzaHospital.jpg

Affects from this…• Even in areas where mortality was low, so many were

incapacitated that much of everyday life was hampered. Some communities closed all stores or required customers to leave orders outside. There were reports that the health-care workers could not tend the sick nor the gravediggers bury the dead because they too were ill.

• There are many reasons why the Spanish flu was "forgotten". The rapid pace of the pandemic, which killed most of its victims in the United States, for example, within a period of less than nine months, resulted in limited media coverage.

• After the second wave struck in the autumn of 1918, new cases dropped quickly, almost to nothing after the peak in the second wave. In Philadelphia for example, 4,597 people died in the week ending October 16, however by November 11 influenza had almost disappeared from the city. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/

5/50/1918_flu_outbreak2.jpg/300px-1918_flu_outbreak2.jpg