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Immigration and Urbanization. Chapter 15. Rise in Immigration. Beginning in about 1890, huge waves of immigrants came to America Instead of coming from Great Britain, however, they came from eastern Europe They were Catholic and culturally very different. Rise in Immigration.
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Immigration and Urbanization Chapter 15
Rise in Immigration • Beginning in about 1890, huge waves of immigrants came to America • Instead of coming from Great Britain, however, they came from eastern Europe • They were Catholic and culturally very different
Rise in Immigration • The new Europeans came for new reasons • Religious persecution • Increased population • Regional wars • Russian pogroms • Population in 1850 – 23.2 million • Population in 1900 – 76.2 million
Rise in Immigration • Immigrants who came with money, like the Germans, moved west and bought farmland • Poorer immigrants moved to cities and factory towns to take non-skilled, low-paying jobs • People from Latin America settled in the east and southwest
Ellis Island • Immigrants were given physicals for diseases, tests for intelligence and a criminal background check • About 17 million immigrants came through Ellis Island • Asians entered through Angel Island
Nativism • The new immigrants were not as eager to become “Americanized” as earlier immigrants • Nativists believed that Anglo-Saxon Protestants were superior to all other ethnic groups • The Immigration Restriction Act, 1897, required literacy tests in English before entry into the US
Nativism • Nativist treatment toward Asians was more insulting • The Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882, forbid all Chinese admittance except a few select groups
Nativism • T. Roosevelt agreed to the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” – urging California to lessen its discriminatory policies toward Japanese (they were made to attend segregated schools)
Urbanization • Unskilled immigrants moved to large cities, like NY and Chicago, settling in ethnic neighborhoods • Groups attempted to “Americanize” them by offering classes in English, child rearing and citizenship
Urbanization • Farmers who could not compete moved to northern industrial cities to find work • New arrivals faced tenement housing and low paying jobs • Often, the entire family worked long hours only to end up poor
Urbanization • They moved to divided homes and apartments of the wealthy who moved to the suburbs • Some tenements housed over 4,000 people per city block • Some apartments were so small, they did not have windows
Tenement Living • NYC passed a law requiring that every bedroom have a window • Tenements were still crowded, unsanitary and filled with disease
Dumbbell Apartments • The apartments did have the required bedroom window – which was only feet away from the neighbor’s window and barely allowed for ventilation
Tenements and the Problems of Overcrowding • Tenement problems • inadequate sanitation • poor ventilation • polluted water • Urban problems • poor public health • juvenile crime
Dumbbell Apartments • Jacob Riis wrote “How the Other Half Lives” where he photographed tenement dwellers
Fire!! • Fire was a major problem for several reasons • Wooden construction • Closely spaced buildings • Kerosene heaters and candles • Lack of water • Lack of firemen
Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow • A cow was blamed for the Chicago fire which burned more than 3 square miles of the city in 1871 • After an earthquake shook San Francisco, the most devastating damage was caused by fire
Social Gospel Movement • Ministers preached that it was up to good protestants to help the poor • Some, like Jane Addams, set up settlement houses that fed, clothed, found jobs for and offered education for the poor and the immigrants
The Gilded Age • Mark Twain coined the term “gilded age” • Gilded is a thin layer of gold covering a cheap frame • Twain mocked the greed and indulgences of the new, wealthy industrials