Chapter 7: Immigrants and Urbanization

Section 1: The New Immigrants

  1. Through the Golden Door
  2. Immigrants wanted to escape famine, land shortages (pop of Europe doubled in 100 years), religious, and/or political persecution (Russia drives out Jews), and some intended to earn money and return home (birds of passage)
  3. Old immigrants: 1800 – 1880 10 million immigrants came from northern and western Europe (GB, Ireland, Germany, Scandinavian countries)
  1. Mostly Protestants
  2. New Immigrants: 1891 – 1910 70% of the 12 million immigrants entering the US came from southern and eastern Europe (Hungary, Russia, Italians, etc)
  1. Mostly Catholic, Jewish, Greek Orthodox
  2. Also thousands of Chinese, Japanese, Arabs
  3. Businesses lied to foreigners about the advantages in the US

a. Businesses wanted cheap labor and profits and competed with the rest of the world for the immigrants

4. Many Natives blamed immigrants for all of society’s ills

a. Scared of their beliefs (religion and culture)

b. Cheap labor robbed them of jobs (work for less than a Native born American)

5. Adolphus Busch left Germanyin 1857 with three of his brothers and moved to St. Louis,Missouri

a. Adolphus Busch Co-founder of Anheuser-Busch with his father-in-law, Eberhard Anheuser

b. Anheuser-Busch's best known beers include brands such as Budweiser, the Busch and Michelob families

c. One of the reasons prohibition was passed under the 18th Amendment (Jan 29, 1919) is based on the fact that some of the founders of beer companies in the U.S. were from Germany (WW I fought the Germans)

  1. 1851 – 1883 300,000 Chinese immigrants arrived b/c of the California Gold Rush (1848)
  2. Helped build nation’s railroads (transcontinental-1869 completed)
  3. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882: banned entry to all Chinese except students, teachers, merchants, tourists, and gov’t officials
  1. 1902 Congress banned all Chinese from entering America
  2. Law was not repealed until 1943
  3. 1884 Japanese gov’t allowed Hawaiian planters to recruit Japanese workers
  1. U.S. annexed Hawaii in 1898 and then more immigrated to the U.S. mainland
  1. Life in the New Land
  2. A difficult Journey
  3. Steamship trip to cross Atlantic took one week, crossing the Pacific took three weeks
  1. Steerage section: lowest level of the ship were the strings for controlling the rudder ran
  2. Cheapest price, louse-infested bunks, poor food, disease, and death
  3. Contract Laborers: worked as slaves in exchange for their passage being paid to reach the U.S.
  1. Ellis Island
  2. Once the immigrants arrived at immigration stations, they had to pass inspection(s) before they could enter the U.S.
  1. Ellis Island, in New YorkHarbor, was the chief entry ports from 1892 to 1924 (17 million immigrants passed through)
  2. 20% were detained for a couple days and only 2% were denied entry
  3. First, a medical exam was performed; Second, a gov’t inspector checked documents and questioned immigrants
  1. Medical requirements (no diseases – TB)
  2. Meet legal requirements (no felonies, able to work, needed some money)
  3. AngelIsland
  4. Asians (West coast-primarily Chinese) gained admission through AngelIsland in San FranciscoBay
  1. Harsh questioning, extended detentions in cruddy buildings
  2. Cooperation for survival
  3. Immigrants sought out people with similar cultural values, ethnic background, religious beliefs, and language
  1. ChinaTown and Little Italy
  2. Benevolent societies: support organizations to aid newcomers
  1. Some organizations offered immigrants loans to start businesses
  2. Some set up insurance plans that provided money when the breadwinner (s) were sick or died
  3. Foreign language papers and their local church helped them make the transition
  1. Immigration Restrictions
  2. The Rise of Nativism: favoritism toward native-born Americans
  3. Nativists didn’t object to immigration, if they came from the “right”countries (Anglo-Saxons – Germanic ancestors of the English)
  1. Immigration Restriction League (1894), founded by Prescott Hall, identified the “desirable immigrants and the undesirables
  2. Native born Protestants thought Roman Catholic and Jewish immigrants would undermine democracy (Founding Fathers were Protestants)
  1. IRL convinced Congress (1897) to pass a bill that required immigrants to be literate in order to enter the U.S. (vetoed by President Cleveland)
  2. 1917 a similar bill passed b/c President Wilson’s veto was overridden by Congress
  3. Anti-Asian Sentiment

1. In California, the Chinese were attacked and killed in the Panic of 1873 (no jobs)

a. Chinese asked authorities for help, and in return they were told they could not own property or work at certain jobs

b. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882: banned entry to all Chinese except students, teachers, merchants, tourists, and gov’t officials

  1. 1902 Congress banned all Chinese from entering America
  2. 1906 the local San Francisco board of education segregated Japanese students into separate schools
  3. Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907 – 1908):Japan’s gov’t limited # of unskilled workers entering the U.S. in exchange for President TR repeal of the boards order

Section 2: The Challenges of Urbanization

  1. Urban Opportunities
  2. Urbanization: growth of cities, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest
  3. Urban population grew by 44 million b/w 1870 and 1920
  1. By 1910 immigrant families made up more than 50% of the total population in 18 major American cities
  2. Americanization movement:effort to assimilate various cultures into the dominant American culture
  1. Ethnic communities provided social support for immigrants arriving from the same country (China town in DC, Little Italy in NYC)
  2. Benevolent societies: support organizations, created to aid newcomers
  3. The McCormick reaper and John Deere steel plow made farming easier, but many still could not succeed
  4. Fewer laborers needed as technology mechanized farming
  5. African Americans moved North and West to escape racial violence, economic hardship, and political oppression

a. Still encountered many of the same problems in the North (whites vs. blacks in the job market)

II. Urban Problems

  1. Working class families could buy houses on the outskirts of town (transportation problems) or they could rent in town
  2. Once working class families could afford to get out of the inner city, immigrants moved in (what was once considered decent is now the ghetto/slum, still today)

a. Tenements: multifamily urban dwellings packed with mass numbers of immigrants (shared one bathroom for an entire floor, sewage on the streets, next to polluting factories, no windows)

b. New York City had 43,000 tenement buildings which housed 1.6 million poor people

c. Jacob Riis described conditions in the tenements and helped lobby NYC to pass laws that set standards for housing

B. Mass transit allowed people to live farther from their job (extended families)

1. Street cars introduced in San Francisco in 1873

2. Electric subways introduced in Boston in 1897

C. Water and Sanitation (Problems in the cities and a large income gap)

  1. 1/3 of Chicago’s streets not paved
  1. Streets became pools of sewage, grease, and dead animals floated down the Chicago River (manure and water mixed)
  2. Rich would not drink from cities water supply (too many chemicals)

2. New York homes seldom had indoor plumbing, had to boil water

a. Filtration (1870s) and chlorination (1908) introduced

b. Scavengers: hired to clean outhouses, streets, collect garbage (often didn’t do their job)

c. Sewer lines and sanitation departments created by 1900

3. By 1890 almost 70% of wealth controlled by 10% of pop

a. 50% of industrial workers lived below poverty line

D. Crime and Fire

1. NYC organized its first full-time, salaried police force in 1844

2. Cities had limited water supplies, many wood dwellings, used candles and kerosene for heating (open flames)

a. Fires often occurred after earthquakes (San Francisco-1906)

b. Cincinnati, Ohio est the first full-time fire department in 1853

c. Automatic sprinklers introduced in 1874 and new heating and building material used

III. Reformers Mobilize

  1. Relieving urban poverty was targeted
  1. The Social Gospel movement preached salvation (Christian principles) through service to the poor

a. The church had a moral obligation to help the poor

b. In 1880 the Salvation Army, an evangelical group founded in Great Britain, offered food, clothing, shelter, and work opportunities to the poor

  1. Settlement houses: community service centers in poor neighborhoods that focused on helping the immigrants

a. Jane Adams and Ellen Gates Starr founded Chicago’s Hull

House in 1889

b. Middle class, college educated women tried to train women instead of just give them aid (“give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime”)

  1. Gospel of Wealth: Andrew Carnegie believed the rich had been chosen as stewards of wealth. The rich are obligated to use their money for the common good. (Handout)

a. Built universities and libraries($350 million)

Section 3: Poitics in the Gilded Age

  1. The Emergence of Political Machines
  2. Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner titled a post civil war novel The Gilded Age (represents the time period b/w the 1870s to the 1890s)
  1. The beauty of gold gilded picture frame covers ugly material underneath, which in similar to politics

a. Image stuck and became known as Gilded Age

2. Political corruption

a.Spoke of the privileges of being in office(a real honor)

b.More interest in robbing the public treasury

  1. Corruption occurred at the state and local level b/c the state and city gov’t didn’t have the resources needed to help the public
  1. Political Machines (NYC – Tweed,Louisiana – Huey Long, etc.): unofficial system/political organization that controls the activities of “true” politicians behind the scenes

a. Sometimes they were serving in a real political fashion, other times they unofficially had the power (access to jobs, business licenses, courts)

b. Offered services to voters (newly arriving immigrants) and businesses in exchange for their vote

c. Bosses occasionally need to resolve urban issues to retain voter loyalty

2. Precinct captains (dirty work), Ward boss (secured votes in all the precincts in a ward, City boss (controlled the activities of the political party throughout the city)

a. Immigrants were excellent targets b/c they needed the basics to survive once they arrived in America (food, shelter, work)

b. Many members of the political machine were 1st or 2nd generation immigrants (ability to speak an immigrants native tongue created an automatic bond)

II. Municipal Graft and Scandal

  1. Graft: the illegal use of political influence for personal gain
  2. It is illegal today for a politician to accept bribes and/or offer bribes (Tom Delay)

a. Kick back(s): in exchange for finding a job on a city construction project, the political machine could ask the worker to bill the city for more than the cost of the project

b. The police never intervened b/c up until 1890 they were often hired by the political boss

B. William M. Tweed (Boss Tweed) was the leader of The Democratic political machine called Tammany Hall in NYC (1869 – 1871)

1. It’s believed the Tweed Ring robbed NYC of more than $200 million

2. Indicted on 120 counts of fraud and extortion, but only served one year

a. Arrested again, escaped, but caught in Spain(Recognized from a Thomas Nast cartoon)

  1. Civil Service Replaces Patronage
  2. 1872 presidential race
  3. Republican party split because of Grant’s scandals

a. Liberal Republican Party and Democrats supported Horace Greeley

b. Rest of Republicans supported Grant and he won the presidency and Greeley died depressed

2. Grant won because he was never found guilty of the crimes

B. 1876 Presidential race (Grant did not run because scandals got the best of him)

1.Democrats nominated Samuel Tilden (thought they would win because of Grant’s scandals)

2.Republicans rode to victory with Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881)

3.Hayes’ set up a commission to investigate the nation’s customhouses (major areas of patronage)

a. Hayes’ fired two of NYC’s top customhouse officials (Republicans)

4.Hayes’reform efforts split Republicans over the issue of patronage/spoils (civil service-most qualified gets the job)

a. Stalwarts (controlled by Senator Roscoe Conkling) supported tough Reconstruction policy and liked the patronage system (big business Republicans)

b. Half-breeds/Reformers (controlled by James G. Blain) supposedly supported Reconstruction and pretended to dislike the patronage system (merit system)

C. Redeemers unlike the KKK did not try to hide their identities or actions and focused on the 1876 presidential election

1.Senator Ben Tillman of SC said “we stuffed ballot boxes and shot them blacks”

2.Election results in Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and SC were challenged

  1. Electoral commission set up to rule on the validity of the returns, which consisted of 7 Dem, 7 Rep, and 1 independent (replaced by a Rep)
  2. It was determined that Hayes won by one electoral vote (185 to 184), but Tilden had 250,000 more popular votes

c. Compromise of 1877: in return for accepting Hayes as president, Republicans promised withdraw remaining troops in the South

D. Hayes did not run for reelection in 1880

1. Half-breeds/Reformers nominated James Garfield (Blain’s friend/Half-breed) and he won the ticket,

a. The Half-breeds satisfied the Stalwarts by placing Chester Arthur (Conklin’s friend/Stalwart) on the ticket as Vice President

2. Garfield won but he was shot June 2, 1881 and died Sept 19

a. Charles Guiteau killed Garfield, b/c he believed killing him would further the Stalwart cause (Guiteau was denied a job by Garfield)

b. The plan backfired b/c President Arthur became sympathetic to reform after his boss (Garfield) was assassinated

3. Arthur helped pass the Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883: est a civil service commission to administer competitive examinations to those seeking gov’t jobs (only covered 10% of federal jobs)

a. Public Administrators became much more honest, but now officials running for office can’t expect a campaign donation from PA’s (go elsewhere for campaign contributions – big business)

E. Remember Chester Arthur (Republican) was suppose to not support reform (a Stalwart, 1881-1885), but he was a reformer so the Stalwarts wouldn’t support him in the 1884 election

  1. Republican reformers (mugwumps/half-breeds/reformers) threw their support to the Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland
  2. Cleveland won (Democrat) and was a reformer (opposed Tammany Hall and spoils system, 1885-1889)

a. Tried to lower tariffs (encourage competition), but Congress would not support it

b. Interstate Commerce Act (1887): railroads ordered to establish “reasonable and just” rates and refrain from charging more for short halls and giving rebates to large companies (hurt Rockefeller)

  1. Business Buys Influence (1888 Presidential election)
  2. Cleveland won Democratic nomination
  3. Ran on a low tariff platform
  4. Received 100,000 more popular votes
  5. Republicans chose Benjamin Harrison (won)
  6. Campaign financed by large contributions from companies that wanted higher tariffs
  7. Harrison won electoral votes, thus winning (1889-1893)

a. Harrison rewarded his supporters thus weakening the efforts of Cleveland

b. McKinley Tariff Act of 1890: raised tariffs on manufactured goods to their highest level up to that time

C. 1893-1897 Cleveland (Democrat) was reelected

1. The only president to serve two non-consecutive terms

a. Supported a bill to lower the McKinley Tariff, but wouldn’t sign it b/c it provided a federal income tax

2. Wilson-Gorman Tariff (1894): the act imposed a modest income tax of 2% on all income over $4,000 (about $40,000 today)

a. In 1895 the Supreme Court declared this measure unconstitutional (even the judicial branch supported big business)

D. William McKinley (Republican) became president in 1897 (raised tariffs again)