Chapter 10 Notes

Urban America

IMMIGRATIONSection 1

Why Immigrants Came…

• Between 1865 and 1915, 25 million immigrants moved to the United States. Why?

• Push Factors: conditions that drive people from their homes

• Pull factors: conditions that attract immigrants to a new area

Why Immigrants Came

Push Factors• Scarce Land• Farm jobs lost to new

machines• Political and religious

persecution• Revolution• Poverty and hard lives

Pull Factors• Promise of freedom• Family or friends already

settled in the United states• Factory jobs available

A Difficult Journey

• Most immigrants could only afford the cheapest tickets, which were in steerage– Steerage were the airless rooms below deck. – On the return voyage home from America, cattle

or cargo filled the same places the immigrants had stayed in to get to America

• Disease spread rapidly in such places

On the East Coast

• For most European immigrants, the voyage ended in NYC at Ellis Island

• Immigrants were subject to a dreaded medical inspection and physical exam– those with contagious diseases

were quarantined or deported• Where Immigrants settled –

Poles and Italians went to Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, and Milwaukee

On the West Coast

• After 1910, most Asian immigrants were processed on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay

• Because Americans wanted to discourage Asian immigration, new arrivals often faced long delays.

• Worked on railroads, worked through labor contracts

• Mainly settled in western cities

Old and New Immigrants

• Early Immigrants were Protestants from Northern and Western Europe.– English, Irish, Germans,

and Scandinavians

• 2.8 million from Germany, 1.8 million from Great Britain, and 1.4 million from Ireland b/w 1865-1890

• New Immigrants arrived from Southern and Eastern Europe.– Italians, Poles, Greeks,

Russians, and Hungarians.

– Also had Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Indians, and immigrants from the Philippines

1871-1880

1881-1890

1891-1900

1901-1910

1911-1920

0

1,000,000

2,000,000

3,000,000

4,000,000

5,000,000

6,000,000

7,000,000Old New

1,593,000181,18802,753,00926,0001,110,0001,847,0001,069,0005,780,000540,0002,928,000

Old = England and GermanyNew = Southern Europe: Italy, Russia, Poland

Opposing Immigration

• Nativists sought to limit immigration and preserve the country for native-born white Protestants…– Formed the American Protective Association in 1887

• targeted immigration, and called for a teaching of only American culture and English language in schools, and tighter rules for citizenship and employment of aliens

• Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 barred Chinese laborers from entering the country– Was the first law to exclude a specific national group from

immigrating to the US.– Congress renewed the original 10 year ban several times.

Finally repealed in 1943 (during WWII)

URBANIZATIONSection 2

Urban Populations Boom• Urbanization-the movement of

population from farms to cities – In 1860, 1 in 5 Americans lived

in cities– In 1890, 1 in 3 Americans lived

in cities• Why?

– Jobs drew people to cities– New city dwellers took jobs in

steel mills, meatpacking plants, and garment factories.

– Cities gave people access to new technologies and ended the monotony of living on a farm.

Living Conditions in the Cities

• Conditions were uncomfortable, crowded, and dirty.• Builders devised a new kind of house to hold more

people.– They divided the buildings into small apartments called

tenements• Tenements often had no windows, heat, or indoor bathrooms

• In New York, 1,231 people lived in only 120 rooms in one part of the city.

• In Chicago in one year, over 60% of newborns never reached their first birthdays. Many babies asphyxiated in their own homes.

Jacob Riis

• An immigrant himself, Jacob Riis was well known for his photographs.

• Documented the lives of immigrants & the urban poor in his book How the Other Half Lives.

“Five Cents a Spot” Rooms

• Many immigrants had no home and slept in 5 cents a spot rooms where people paid for a small space to spend the night.

Mass Transit

• Various kinds of mass transit developed in the late 1800s to move huge numbers of people around cities quickly– Cities like San Francisco began installing cable cars to

transport people– Electric trolley cars were invented in 1887 by Frank

Sprague – In some cities, where congestion became intolerable,

engineers found ways to move mass transit off the streets altogether• Ex. Chicago’s el and NYC’s subway

Separation by Class

• High society: established fashionable districts in the hearts of cities– Lived lavishly

• Middle-Class Gentility: American industrialization created a new middle class– Often lived in “streetcar suburbs” and took public

transportation to work• The Working Class: 3 out of 4 residents in NYC lived in

tenements– Families sent their young children to work in hopes of

making enough money to move into better housing

Examples of High Society

Middle-Class “Streetcar Suburbs”

Working Class Tenements

Urban Problems

• Crime, violence, fire, disease and pollution were major problems in cities, especially for the urban poor. – Between 1880 and 1900, the murder rate jumped

from 25 per million to over 100 per million• In 1999, US murder rate was 57 per million

– Pollution remained a huge problem in the late 1800s• Horse waste left in streets and smoke/soot from

factories polluted the air

Urban Politics

• Political machines were informal political groups designed to keep and gain power– In exchange for votes, political machines would provide

jobs, housing and police protection to working class citizens• Tammany Hall: the New York Democratic political

machine– Ran by William M. “Boss” Tweed

• Used fraud to build their wealth• Controlled public services, like the police department• Although corrupt, did provide necessary services and helped

assimilate the masses of new city dwellers.

THE GILDED AGE Section 3

Gilded Age Explanation

• Mark Twain and Charles Warner wrote a novel entitled The Gilded Age in 1873– Gilded – “covered with a thin layer of gold”– Historians would later use this term to describe the

period in American history from about 1870-1900• Gilded Age – thin but glittering layer of prosperity

covered the poverty and corruption of much of society

• Prosperity for industrialists hides the problems of immigrant, laborers, and farmers

The Idea of Individualism

• Individualism-the belief that no matter how humble a person’s origins, he or she could rise in society and go as far as their talents and commitment would take them– One of the strongest beliefs of the Gilded Age• Is still popular today

Horatio Alger

• Minister from Massachusetts

• Wrote over 100 “rags to riches” novels– Embodied the idea of

individualism

Social Darwinism

• “Survival of the fittest”– Another powerful idea from the Gilded Age– Developed from Charles Darwin’s theory of

evolution and natural selection• Herbert Spencer applied Darwin’s theory to human

society– Industrial leaders embraced the idea of Social Darwinism

– Many Christians, however, rejected the idea of evolution b/c they contradicted the Bible’s account of creation

Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth

• Carnegie tried to soften the harsh philosophy of Social Darwinism with the Gospel of Wealth– The belief that wealthy Americans should engage

in philanthropy to help the less fortunate• Philanthropy: providing money to support social goals

– Carnegie donated more than $350 million during his lifetime to build schools, libraries and support education throughout the US.

Realists vs. Mark Twain

• Writers that tried to show the harsh side of life as it was were called realists– Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage– Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

• Mark Twain used homespun characters to poke fun at serious issues– Huckleberry Finn, Twain uses local color to show

that slavery is wrong

Painting Everyday Life

• Like writers of the period, many artists sought to capture local color and the gritty side of modern life.

• Thomas Eakins, for example, learned anatomy and dissected bodies to be able to portray the human body more accurately

• Henry Tanner, an African American painter, won fame for pictures of black sharecroppers.

Painting Everyday Life

Popular Culture

• Popular Culture changed considerably in the late 1800s– Industrialization improved the standard of living

for many people, enabling them to spend money on entertainment and recreation• Therefore, people began looking for things to do

outside the home and began “going out” to public entertainment

Americans at Play

• Sports provided a great escape from the pressures of work. – Baseball was the most popular sport in the nation

• First played in New York in 1849• First professional team: Cincinnati Red Stockings (1869)

• Football– Grew out of European soccer

• Players did not wear helmets and were often hurt in the early years of football

• In 1908 alone, 33 college football players died from injuries

• Basketball– Invented by James Naismith in 1891

• He nailed two bushel baskets to the gym walls at a Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and players tried to throw a soccer ball into the baskets

Sports

A New World of Theater and Music• Music and other kinds of entertainment brought

Americans together– Variety Shows:

• People went out to see orchestras and opera companies• City dwellers went to see vaudeville shows

– Vaudeville was a show that included comedians, song-and-dance routines, and acrobats

– Popular Music• Ragtime was a new kind of music…it had a lively, rhythmic

sound• Scott Joplin, an African American composer, helped make

ragtime popular

Variety Shows

THE REBIRTH OF REFORMSection 4

Social Criticism

• Changes brought on by industrialism and urbanization triggered a debate among Americans as to how address society’s problems.– Some Americans argued the only way the

problems could be solved was if the government took a more active role in the economy and helping those in need

Reform Darwinism

• Dynamic Sociology– Lester Frank Ward– Believed that people had succeeded in the world

because of their ability to cooperate, not because of their ability to compete• These ideas became known as Reform Darwinism

– Ward argued that the government should regulate the economy to end poverty and promote education

Naturalism

• Naturalists argued that some people failed in life simply because they were caught up in circumstances they could not control.

• Do you agree? Why or why not?

Helping the Urban Poor

• Some critics of industrial society began working for reform, or change– Their efforts gave rise to the Social Gospel

movement, the Salvation Army, YMCA, women’s clubs, settlement houses, and temperance movements.

Social Gospel

• Social Gospel applied Christian laws to solve social problems

• Social Gospel leaders like Washington Gladden inspired churches to expand their missions.– Some of the projects included building gyms and

providing social programs and offering day care to working class families

The Salvation Army and the YMCA

• Salvation Army– Offered practical aid and religious counseling to

the urban poor. • YMCA– Young Men’s Christian Association– Tried to help industrial workers and the urban

poor by organizing Bible studies, prayer meetings, citizenship training, and group activities

The Settlement House Movement

• Settlement houses were institutions located in poor neighborhoods that provided a variety of services to the urban poor– Provided medical care, – Recreation programs, – English classes to help immigrants assimilate

Addams and her Hull House

Jane Addams The Hull House

Hull House

• Jane Addams• Established the Hull House in an old mansion in

Chicago in 1889– Taught classes in American government and the

English language– Gave instruction in health care – Operated day cares for children whose mothers

worked outside the home– Provided recreational activities for young people such

as sports, choral groups and theater.

Public Education

• As the US became increasingly industrialized and urbanized, it needed more workers who were trained and educated– The demand for skilled workers led to a much

greater focus on building schools and colleges in the late 1800s

The Spread of Schools

• Public schools were often critical to the success of immigrant children– Schools helped Americanize immigrant children– In other words, schools helped immigrant children

understand American culture• Students were taught English, American history and the

responsibilities of citizenship

A Few Rules for Students

• Schools emphasized discipline and obedience– Emphasized timely attendance, neatness and efficiency

• Necessary skills for success in the workplace

• Punishments for insubordination were swift and severe:– A cuff on the head for whispering– Paddling for arriving late

• Schools tried to instill discipline and a strong work ethic, which were considered important to the nation’s progress

Higher Learning

• New private colleges opened for both women and men– Ex. Vassar, Wellesley and Smith were all private colleges

for women that opened during the Gilded Age. • Many states built universities that offered free or

low-cost education– By 1890 there were approx. 157,000 students attending

college• Trade schools also open

– Provided students with skills required for specific trades