Strangers in the Land: Urbanization and Immigration

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Strangers in the Land Urbanization and
Immigration

• Q Was the experience of Second Wave immigrants
  significantly different from that of earlier
  immigrants?

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• Compare and contrast the attitudes of THREE of
  the following toward the wealth that was created
  in the United States during the late nineteenth
  century. Andrew Carnegie Horatio Alger Ida M.
  Tarbell Eugene V. Debs Booker T. Washington
  (94)
• Analyze the impact of any TWO of the following on
  the American industrial worker between 1865 and
  1900. Government actions Labor Unions
  Immigration Technology changes (98)
• Identify and analyze the factors that changed the
  American city in the second half of the
  nineteenth century. (02B)
• Americans have been a highly mobile people.
  Describe and account for the dominant population
  movements between 1820 and 1900. (82)
• Although the economic growth of the United States
  between 1860 and 1900 has been attributed to a
  governmental policy of laissez-faire, it was in
  fact encouraged and sustained by direct
  governmental intervention. Assess the validity
  of this statement. (88)

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I. Overview

• Cities source of hope, conflict, adjustment,
  especially for New Immigrants
• New urban environment created challenges
• Farmself-sufficient, citybuy everything (food)
  sprawl (unplanned growth, cost center city) mass
  transit? suburbs inadequate housing (tenements?
  crime, disease)
• City central to US life (Esp. true new
  immigrants)
• 51 of Americans urban (1920)
• Source of diversity pluralism (class, race,
  ethnicity)
• Cities centers of industrial growth
• Provided capital, workers, consumers
• Often specialized in 1 product (NYC clothing
  Chicago meat)

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II. Urban Population Growth

• A. Internal Migration
• 1870 10 million Americans in cities 1920 54
  million (550 increase)
• Biggest factor migration countryside
  immigration
• Rural populace declined Low crop prices high
  debts (sharecropping)? Jobs escape isolation
  (blacks Hispanics hopes for rights)
• Blacks limited to service jobs (esp. women)
• Hispanics unskilled labor, esp. construction

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B. Second Wave Immigration

• 1820-1860 5 million immigrants (95 NW Europe)?
  very little restriction
• 1890-1914 15 million (SE Europe)
• Push pop., land redistribution,
  industrialization, religious persecution (esp.
  Russian Jews pogroms)
• Pull streets paved with gold propaganda
• Foreign-born native-born of foreign parents
  formed majority in many US cities
• Many native-born whites (old immigrant heritage)
  resented new immigrants

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C. The Melting Pot

• Initial crowding? multi-ethnic urban
  borderlands
• But, white immigrants move up out (limited
  mobility)
• Movies, newspapers, magazines, sports, circuses,
  vaudeville, education, consumerism (American
  buying)? mass culture

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• But native language papers, ethnic stores,
  internal social services? pluralism
• Racism? urban segregation (restrictive
  covenants) ghettos w/few jobs
• Race riots Atlanta (1906) East St. Louis, IL
  (1917)
• Hispanics lose land? barrios far from center
• Nativists failure melting pot? restrict
  immigration

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D. Nativism

• Who? 1) Labor unions, 2) reformers Immigration
  Restriction League (1894 Harvard grads) literacy
  test weed out potential criminals welfare cases
  (pass 1917)
• Rationales
• 1. Anti-Catholicism, Anti-Semitism
• 2. Anti-Revolution fear of radicalism (esp.
  socialists anarchists) 1886 Haymarket 1892 H.
  Frick attacked? some businessmen join
  anti-immigration
• Almost all strikes/violence/radical politics led
  by made up of native born
• 3. Social Darwinism race suicide immigrants
  high birth rate? drown out WASPs

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• Restrictions
• 1. Asian Exclusion
• Chinese 1849-1882 250,000 Chinese (RxR
  mining)? organized labor leads charge? govt
  caves (despite promise to China)? 1882 Chinese
  Exclusion Act (10 yr suspension, ineligible
  citizenship)
• Japanese 1907 SF School Board order segregated
  schools
• 1908 Gentlemans Agreement TR gets J to agree
  to ban migration

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2. Quotas

• Quota Act, 1921 3 total from country in 1910
  census
• Immigration Act, 1924 2 total from country in
  US based on 1890 census? fewer SE
• 1907 685,000 from SE
• 1924 and on approx. 20,000/year
• Did not affect Canada or Mexico? greater
  immigration (esp. 1910 Mexican Revolution)

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III. Gilded Age Politics

• A. The Machine
• Politics reflected pluralism different groups
  competed for power formed fragile coalitions
• Native-born Protestants (Republican)? active
  government-enforced morality (Sabbath laws)
  immigrants Catholics (Democrat) opposed?
  personal freedom
• National equilibrium? focus swing states (CT,
  NY, NJ, OH, IN, IL), voter fraud, spoils system,
  factionalism
• Local party machine dominanceorganize voters
  bribery, graft, violence, gambling, prostitution,
  construction, jobs, social services, police
  protection, ethnic/racial bias? enormous loyalty
  despite/because corruption (Boss Tweed, Tammany
  Hall)

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B. Civic Reform

• Disorder, corruption, poverty, high taxes (costs
  inflated by corruption)? middle/ upper classes
  opposed bosses? run city like a company city
  managers city commissions to create efficient
  government run by experts
• Little success late 1800s loyalty to boss b/c
  boss helped w/ real problems e.g. built needed
  infrastructure (water, sanitation, housing),
  although at high cost
• Major issue of Progressives

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C. Social Reform

• Traditional belief poor lazy immoral, aid?
  dependence
• New attitude 1) Sociology urban environment
  capitalism? systemic poverty? govt action to
  solve social problems (later vanguard
  Progressives)
• 2) Social Gospel apply teachings of Jesus to
  society (spread to other religions)
• Reformers young, middle class, often female
  (rise college education of women)
• Tried to help urban newcomers w/ problems
  (housing, poverty) and Americanize them
  (education)

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1. Housing

• Jacob Riis (photojournalist, How the Other Half
  Lives) environment dehumanizing, focus social
  services on children
• Rear house tenements mortality rate 61.97/1,000
  infant morality 204.54/1,000 (29.03/1000
  mortality for single home on a lot)
• 1901 NYC outlaws dumbbell tenements (poor
  ventilation, no light, terrible fire protection)

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• Riis If there is an open space between them, it
  is never more than a slit a foot or so wide, and
  gets to be the receptacle of garbage and filth of
  every kind so that any opening made in these
  walls for purposes of ventilation becomes a
  source of greater danger than if there were
  noneThe sun cannot reach them. They are damp and
  dark, and the tenants, who are always the poorest
  and most crowded, live as in a cage open only
  toward the front.

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2. Settlement Houses

• Jane Addams Hull House (Chicago) education,
  health care, public playgrounds/parks
• Often seen as outsiders (mid/upper class, WASP,
  undermine bosses), but made advances
• Acceptable avenue for college-educated women
  still in the home but active, outside male
  control? the New Woman
• Influence over social policy? expand to higher
  levels of govt politics