america moves to the city immigrants and others decide to urbanize
TRANSCRIPT
Consequences of Urban Development
• Lure of industry jobs draws farmers and immigrants
• Mass transit in cities (trolleys, subways)– different social groups no longer
lived close together• Inadequate water and sewer systems• By the end of the 19c cities
– cities built better sewers and supplied purified water
– Death rate declined
Consequences of Urban Development cont.
• Outbreaks of deadly diseases such as cholera and tuberculosis
• Crowded tenements & ‘flophouses’
• Increasing segregation of social groups by income
• Poor treatment of water, sewage, and waste
Writing About the City• How the Other Half Lives
– Jacob Riis portrayal of American Urban Slums
• The Shame of the Cities – Lincoln Steffens muckraking
novel concerning the poor living conditions in the cities
– Muckrackers? Investigative journalists who worked to expose urban decay & corruption
“New” Immigrant Origins• Most of the immigrants came from
southern and eastern Europe– Russian Jews escaping religious
persecution – Italian peasants– Greeks, Slovaks, and Poles– Unemployed Europeans seeking
factory jobs in U.S. cities
“Old Immigrants”?
-Irish & Germans of 1840/50’s also fled poverty of Europe, but culturally closer to being ‘American’
Immigration Characteristics
• most immigrants were unskilled day laborers.
• immigration increased steadily during these years.
• immigrants tended to be Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Jewish. (“Old Imm. were?”)
• Chinese immigrants were excluded by law during most of these years
Immigration Centers
• Ellis Island (European, mainly)- New York
• Angel Island (Asian, mainly- San Francisco
• Ellis Island- http://www.ellisisland.org/default.asp• Angel Island- http://www.angel-island.com/beck.html
Nativist sentiment against the New immigrants
• practiced different religions
• had different languages and cultures
• were willing to work for lower wages than were native born workers
• were not familiar with the United States political system
• Blamed by “Nativists” for degradation of the cities (they work for less, aren’t ‘American’ enough)
Immigration Restrictions• The Rise of Nativism
– Melting pot – in U.S. people blend by abandoning native culture
• New Immigrants don’t want to give up cultural identity
– Nativism – overt (obvious) favoritism torward native-born Americans
– Nativists believe Anglo-Saxons (whites) superior to other ethnic groups
– Some object to immgrts. religion; many imgrnts. are Catholic, Jewish
Immigration Advocates
• Tammany Hall– Political machine in New York, headed
by Boss Tweed • Runs on graft, corruption, $$$• PATRONAGE JOBS- only the well
connected get help/jobs• Trade $$ & favors for jobs
– Help immigrants adjust to city life • In return for votes and support
– poor urban immigrants biggest supporters
Immigration Advocates• Settlement Houses (Jane Addams and
Hull House)– Located in poor working-class and
immigrant neighborhoods– Staffed by college-educated, middle-
class men and women– Taught English to immigrants – Helped to educate immigrant children
Immigration Issues
• The American educational system could not absorb the numbers of immigrant children
• Chinese Exclusion Act 1882
– Denied citizenship to Chinese in the U.S. and forbid further immigration of Chinese
– Supported by American workers who worried about losing their jobs to Chinese immigrants who would work for less pay
• American Protective Association
– A Nativist group of the 1890s which opposed all immigration to the U.S