SS- Chapter 15

Chapter 15: Immigration and Urbanization

From 1870 to 1920, a new wave of immigrants came to the US. Many different types of immigrants came:
1. Asian- they looked different. They came through Angels Island, which is in California.
2. Eastern Europeans- they came through Ellis Island. They also looked different. The eastern European immigrants came from Russia, Czechoslovakia…

To get through these immigration centers, they had to pass through a series of tests: literacy and a physical exam. They had to have an address of wear they were going, at least twenty five dollars, and be able to prove that they would be an asset to the country.

Once they finally got through, the immigrants experienced a culture shock. They would often live in ghettoized areas. The children got accustomed much quicker than the adults. This led to difficulties for the parents because there was now a gap between them and their children.

Sociologists have different theories on how Americans blended in this country:
1. Melting Pot- immigrants came and all their cultures blended and formed the new Americans.
2. Assimilation- when you totally blend.
3. Pluralism (Salad Bowl) - when an immigrant comes and they don’t give up on their culture, living happily, side by side with other cultures. Some times, some cultures rub off onto another, but the original culture is still highly visible.

There was an extreme reaction against immigrants because they dress and act differently:
1. Chinese- Yellow Peril. They felt that little, yellow men had descended upon their country. Americans weren’t welcoming. In 1882, after much pressure from California, the US issued the Chinese Exclusion Act, which didn’t allow for any more Chinese immigrants.
2. Japanese- the Japanese complained that they were being discriminated against. The Japanese government complained that the Japanese weren’t being treated nicely. Japan said, we modernized just like you, so the US government passed the Gentleman’s Agreement in 1907. It said that Japan won’t send anymore immigrants, but those that already in the US will be treated very nicely.

In 1921, they passed the Emergency Quota Act- sharply limited the amount of immigrants that the US was willing to take in.

In 1924, the National Origins Act was passed, stating that especially from eastern Europe immigrants shouldn’t be allowed in.

Immigrants built this nation.

Urbanization-

The cities exploded over night because of:
1. Flood of immigrants
2. Factories drew people from the south and from the farms

The cities exploded over night. Immigrants flooded the cities. The factories were in the cities so they got jobs and made money. Blacks and farmers came to the cities in search of jobs.

Who lived in the cities?
1. The poor- they had a hard life. They lived in slums and worked in factories with horrible conditions. They could hardly enjoy the benefits of the city.
2. Middle class- they were able to benefit. They were the doctors, lawyers, teacher… Some of the middle class were able to own their own homes and have appliances. The middle class had some leisure time to enjoy the benefits of the city.
3. Wealthy- lived very well.

This period in history is sometimes called the Gilded Era. It looked like America was getting very rich. Really, there were many poor people and the gap between the rich and poor was widening.

Cities offered a lot in the way of culture. They had:
1. Concert halls
2. Libraries
3. Music halls
4. Parks- Fredrick Olmstead designed Central Park.

The cities offered better education. There were high schools, colleges and philosophers. John Dewey was an educator and philosopher who wanted to improve education.

Cities had:
1. Subways (elevated train)
2. Streetcars
3. Skyscrapers
4. Electricity
5. Street lights

There were many problems in the cities:
1. Housing- there were now so many people. The middle class lived in row houses. If they moved out, seven immigrant families would move in. The government tried to help these families by building apartment buildings called tenements. They were built with many windows for air. The tenements were good, but they weren’t great.
2. Sanitation issue- there was no formal system of disposing of waste. Now there was much more garbage because of new objects such as tin cans.
3. Water- now was the start of indoor plumbing, but there wasn’t enough water.
4. Fires- there was no fire department. Almost every city experienced a fire at this point, but there were no firemen or water to put out the fire.
5. Crime- cities were full of crime. Little children without parents watching them led to crime. Poverty also leads to crime. There was no official police dept at this time. There were some reformers who tried to minimize crime and improve the situation. They set up community centers which served lunch and taught people how to read. Two community centers:
a. Hull House- settlement house in Chicago that was set up by Lillian Wald.
b. Henry Street Settlement House- in NYC. It was set up by Jane Adams.
6. Political machines- an organized group of men that control the activities of a political party. Every city had at least one political machine. At the head of the political machine is the party boss. This group of men controlled the city by being very in touch with the people, especially the poor. If there was a problem, they were on the scene helping and they would tell people to remember them and vote for them. The poor were very loyal so they voted for them. They got the vote and they had the power. Once you have power, it leads to corruption.
“Boss” Tweed was a very powerful party boss in NYC. He controlled the city and was corrupt. He built a town hall- Tammany Hall- headquarters of the party. He rebuilt the headquarters on NYC tax dollars. He taxed people tons to build the town hall and he pocketed the extra money. This is one example of the types of corruption that occurred. Graft means to steal money.
Eventually the political machine was destroyed. A cartoonist by the name of Thomas Nast helped destroy the political machines by writing many of cartoons showing how corrupt the political machines were. The government made little effort to improve corruption.
President Cleveland tried to pass laws to minimize corruption, but he was killed in office and didn’t manage to pass the law. Vice president Chester Arthur managed to pass the act. The Pendleton Act ended the spoils system and began the implementation of the civil service exams- tests that had to be taken before working in the government. This helped corruption in general but not the political machine issue.

America felt that now, at the end of the 1800s, the frontier was closed. Fredrick Jackson Turner wrote an essay,”The Significance of the American Frontier”. He said that the frontier made America into the powerful nation that it will become.

During these yrs, America changed majorly from farm life to city life. America shifted to fads and styles. They went from making things on their own to shopping in department stores. Even people still living on the farms could get whatever they needed by ordering from catalogs.

Blacks didn’t benefit much from the change. They were still poor and discriminated against. In the south, they were extremely discriminated against and in the north, they were discriminated against too.

People who helped blacks:
1. Ida B. Wells- worked to fight against lynching- a method of killing blacks by hanging them, which took place in the south.
2. Marcus Garvey- a black man. He formed the United Negro Association- for blacks to form their own economic community. The blacks don’t need the whites- they can be self sufficient.
3. Booker T. Washington- He felt that all blacks should learn a vocation- a skill. He opened up a vocational school, Tuskegee Institute. He felt that if you establish yourself on an economic level, you’ll have money and you’ll be ok. He felt that education was the key to African success.
4. W.E.B. Dubois- felt that being educated will lead to success. He encouraged people to get a formal education- go to college, universities… He formed the Niagara Movement- spoke about his ideas of education. An outgrowth of this movement was the NAACP, a powerful black education which helps blacks until today. Provides them with services when in need.