Immigrants in the Gilded Age

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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