Chapter 7

1. Chapter 7 Immigration and Urbanization

2. Immigrants Decide to Leave Home • Beginning in the 1870’s, Irish and Germans were joined by “new” immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. They arrived in increasing numbers until the outbreak of World War I. • Push factors are those that compel people to leave their homes • Chinese, Mexican, and Polish farmers left as a result of land reform and low food prices. • Chinese and eastern Europeans experienced repeated wars and political revolutions. Russian and eastern Europeans Jews settled in the United States to escape religious persecution. • Pull factors are those that draw people to a new place. • The US offered plentiful land and employment (Homestead Act) • Many other immigrants were “chain immigrants” coming to the US because they already had family members living here. -> many families lured their other family members here because of the religious and political freedom the US offers.

3. The Immigrant Experience • The first task to come to America is gathering up enough money for a hard and costly journey. • Next immigrants would pack only what they could carry. (clothes, photographs, musical instrument, or tools of their trade) • After they were packed immigrants would make their way to the port of departure. Finding a ship in war-torn countries was the hardest. • By the 1870s, steamships made the trip across the Atlantic safer and faster than ever before. However, it was a terrible voyage for immigrants since most would travel in steerage, the worst accommodations on the ship, which were crowded and dirty. Healthy immigrants often fell ill, while frail passengers often died.

4. The Immigrant Experience • The first stop for ships once in America was the processing station where immigration officials decided who could stay in the United States. To enter, immigrants needed to be healthy and show they had money, a skill, or a sponsor to provide for them. Most European immigrants arrived in New York Harbor. Beginning in 1892, they were processed at Ellis Island. Chinese and other Asian immigrants were processed at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay.

6. The Immigrant Experience • Inspection • (New York) First and second class passengers were inspected on the ship and released if they had no medical problems. Immigrants in steerage went through medical and legal inspection. Since ship-owners did a preliminary screening before heading to the US, only 2% of immigrants were denied entry in the US once they had arrived. Those passing inspection would take a ferry into New York City. • (San Francisco) Angel Island was tougher than Ellis Island as it was always formidable and designed to filter out Chinese immigrants. After 1882, Chinese immigrants were turned away unless they could prove they were US citizens or had relatives living in America. Officials often assumed that the Chinese would often misrepresent themselves in order to gain entry. While most immigrants left Ellis Island in hours, Chinese immigrants at Angel Island were often held for weeks or even months in poor conditions.

7. Opportunities and Challenges in America • Most immigrants had to learn a new language and a new job. Some immigrants had agents that spoke their language and helped them find jobs and housing but many agents took advantage of the newcomers to make money. Lucky immigrants already had contacts through their family members living in the US already. • Most new immigrants stayed in cities close to industrial jobs in factories. There they often lived in ethnic neighborhoods called ghettos, with people who share their native language, religion, and culture. • By 1890, many cities had huge immigrant populations. In San Francisco and Chicago, immigrants made up 40% of their population. Four out of five inhabitants of New York City were foreign born or had foreign born parents.

8. Opportunities and Challenges in America • In many cities, volunteer institutions called Americanization programs helped newcomers learn to speak English and adopt American dress and diet. • Immigrants started to believe America was a “melting pot” in which white people of all nationalities blended to create a single culture. There was a discrimination towards Chinese immigrants. • Nativism was a challenge newcomers were faced with. Nativism is the idea many native born Americans had in which they were prejudice towards any newcomer. Many nativism views stemmed up from concerns about immigrants filling jobs and willing to accept lower pay.

10. Immigration Restriction • Nativist intellectuals backed up their prejudices with dubious scientific research that linked immigrants’ physical characteristics to criminal tendencies or lower intellectual abilities. Extreme hostility toward Chinese laborers led Congress to pass the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 which prohibited immigration by Chinese laborers, limited the civil rights of Chinese immigrants already in the US, and forbade the naturalization of Chinese residents. • In 1882 as well, Congress passed another act that prohibited the entry of anyone who was a criminal, immoral, a pauper, or likely to need public assistance. The law was used to bar many poor or handicapped immigrants. • These acts marked the beginning of immigration restriction into the United States. Immigration became a constant topic of conversation through America.

11. Immigrants Change America • Immigrants fueled industrial growth, acquired citizenship, elected politicians, and made their traditions part of American culture. • Mexican-Americans developed effective ranching techniques, while Chinese, Irish, and Mexican laborers built the railroads. • Immigrants labored in coal mines, steel mills, textile mills, and factories. • Immigrant women worked in factories, as seamstresses, as laundresses, and doing piecework. Others became domestic servants. • Thought the conditions were harsh and immigrants received few benefits, their labor helped the United States become a world power. • Increasingly, immigrants will demand a voice, becoming more active in labor unions. The political leaders they support become powerful. Union leaders demanded reforms that helped immigrants as well as all laborers. Immigrants expanded the definition of America.

12. Cities Expand and Change • In the late nineteenth century, America experienced a period of urbanization in which the number of cities and people living in them increased dramatically. • Cities offered advantages to the immigrants as they offered jobs, were easy to transport into, and offered those with little money the opportunity to open shops. Educated women could find jobs in cities as teachers or in offices as secretaries and typists. • City churches, theaters, social clubs, and museums offered companionship and entertainment in the cities. Transportation out of cities was easily accessible and many immigrants would travel city to city to try to grow their fortunes.

14. Farmers Migrate From Country to City • Many rural-to-urban migrants moved to the cities in the 1890s. The move was tough as they would need to get adjusted to dim lighting, narrow confines, and rigid schedules in the factories. However, factory work paid wages in cash, which was sometimes scarce on family farms. The increasing difficulty of living on the farm, combined with the excitement and variety of city life, sparked a vigorous rural-to-urban migration

15. Technology Improves City Life • Electric trolleys, subways, building codes, and other innovation kept crowded cities from slipping into pollution and chaos. • Skyscrapers were being built for the first time allowing Elisha Otis’ invention of an elevator to be used at a larger scale. Central heating systems were also improved and used in these skyscrapers. • Mass transit or public systems that could carry large numbers of people fairly inexpensively – reshaped the nations’ cities. • Suburbs developed due to more transportation into the city.

16. Urban Living Creates Problems • Growing cities faced many problems caused by overcrowding and poverty. In New York’s Lower East Side, in 1890, there was a population of more than 700 people per acre. • Most urban workers lived in tenements, which are low-cost multifamily housing designed to squeeze in as many families as possible. Sometimes several families would live in one apartment or one room. Tenements were often unhealthy and dangerous.

18. Improving City Conditions • Water and sanitation would often pose risks in the cities. Trash and waste often filled the streets. During the 1880’s, city planners attempted to regulate housing, sanitation, sewers, and public health. New filtration systems will be developed to insure clean drinking water. • Fires and crime were causing problems in the overpopulated cities. New professional, trained police officers were now a part of city life instead of the lone constable and the neighborhood watch. Police would continue to battle racial violence in the cities.

19. Social and Cultural Trends • Americans become consumers. Due to increased immigration and urbanization, products were more readily available and at lower prices. Americans practiced conspicuous consumerism, in which people wanted and bought the many new products in the market. • Advertising for products increased – department stores, like Marshall Field in Chicago, develop. • Living in the suburbs became a sign of wealth • All but the very poorest-working class laborers were able to do and buy more than they would have in the past.

20. Mass Culture • Mass culture becomes prominent. Mass culture can be described as a uniform culture. Rich and poor could wear the same clothing styles, household gadgets, toys, and food preferences were often the same from house to house. • Newspapers, such as those started by Joseph Pulitzer and his competitor William Randolph Hearst, became circulated to large populations. The newspapers could be sold for cheap due to the advertisements in them which would pay for the newspaper.

22. Mass Culture • Authors like Stephen Crane, Horatio Alger, Henry James, and playwrights like John Augustin Daly became popular figures. • Newspapers and literature flourished because more and more people in the United States could read. Public education grows, as well as specialized colleges. • New forms of entertainment develop • Coney Island and other amusements parks open with their main attraction being roller coasters. • Rodeos, circuses, concerts (especially ragtime music), and outdoor religious rallies are becoming more popular • Performing arts in theater, movie cinemas, and vaudeville shows (medleys of musical drama, songs, and off-color comedy) become popular • Spectator sports like Baseball, horse-racing, bicycle racing, boxing, basketball and football are becoming a popular pastime. “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” was written in 1908. Basketball was invented in Massachusetts in 1891. Many immigrants would cheer for and idolize boxers of their ethnicity.