Immigration and Urbanization

1. Immigration and Urbanization Chapter 5

2. Section 1: The new Immigrants

3. The New Immigrants • Immigration is a central theme in America • Between 1870 and 1900 foreign-born population doubled • Immigrants and Americans adopted parts of each others cultures

4. New Immigrants come to America • Economic opportunity and religious freedom drew many new immigrants • Family units • Farms / family/friends • Money • Educated • Skilled • “New” Immigrants – from southern and eastern Europe arrived in greater numbers until WWI

5. Immigrants Decide to Leave Home • Push Factors – things that compel people to leave their homes / famine, war, or persecution • Pull Factors – things that draw people to a new place / economic opportunity or religious freedom (worship and vote without fear of persecution) • Chain Immigrants – joining family or friends who have already settled in America

6. The Immigrant Experience • Themes: tough decision to leave home and family, hard and costly journey, uncertain end, new language and culture • The Long Journey • Brought only what they could carry (make a list) • Steerage – the worst accommodations of the ship

7. Immigrants Arrive at American Ports • To enter immigrants must show that they were healthy, had money, a skill or sponsor • Ellis Island – island in New York that served as an immigration station for millions (video) • Classes 1st, 2nd, and then… 3rd class passengers • Primary Source (pg. 131) • Angel Island – immigrant processing station that opened in San Francisco Bay in 1910 (serving mainly immigrants from China and other Asian nations)

8. Opportunities and Challenges in America • Assimilation into society • Americanization – programs to assist newcomers with English, dress, and diet • Most newcomers stayed in cities close to people who shared their native tongue, religion, and culture • “Melting Pot” – white people of all different nationalities blended to create a single culture

9. New Immigrants face Hostility • Nativism – a belief that native-born white Americans were superior to newcomers • Many workers worried that immigrants would work for lower pay • Chinese Exclusion Act – was passed by Congress because of extreme hostility toward Chinese laborers • Limited civil rights • Could not go back to China to “visit”

10. New Immigrants face hostility cont. • Congress passed an act that limited newcomers if they were criminals, immoral, or a pauper and likely needing public assistance • Law bared handicapped and poor

11. Immigrants change America • Fueled industrial growth, acquired citizenship, elected politicians, and made their traditions part of America

12. Cities expand and change section 2

13. America becomes a nation of cities • Urbanization – the number of cities and people living in them increased dramatically • Rural-to-Urban-Migrants – moved to cities from farms (what changed?) • Cities offered Advantages: • Manufacturing and transportation centers • Women’s Opportunities: factory work boarding, piecework, servants, teachers, and secretaries • Cities offered churches, theaters, social clubs, and museums

14. Technology improves city life • City growth put demands on water, sewers, schools, and safety • Building Skyward • Skyscrapers ten-story and taller buildings with steel frames • Elisha Otis – developed a “safety” elevator that would not fall if the lifting rope broke • Central heating

15. Electricity Powers Urban Transit • Mass Transit – public systems that could carry large numbers of people fairly inexpensively

16. City Planners Control Growth • City planners began to think about functionality and beautification • Zoning designated certain areas of the city for a particular use (i.e. homes, merchants, factories) • Frederick Law Olmsted – landscape engineer who designed Fairmount Park and Central Park

17. Urban Living Creates Problems • Growing cites faced overcrowding, and poverty, New York’s Lower East Side had more than 700 people per acre. • 62 square feet

18. Housing Conditions Deteriorate • Tenements – low-cost multifamily housing designed to squeeze in as many families as possible. (Primary Source – “Go into any of the ‘respectable’ tenement neighborhoods…you shall come away agreeing [that]… life there does not seem worth living… [T]he airshaft… seems always so busy letting out foul stenches… that it has no time to earn it name by bringing down fresh air…”)

19. Water and Sanitation Pose Risks • City planners began to understand the problems and benefits of proper sanitation. Water was “piped” from reservoirs, and company's began to compete for distribution contracts.

20. Fire, crime, and conflict • Fire was an ever present threat to cities • Crime gave rise to professional uniformed city police

21. Skyscrapers • (read pg. 143)

22. Section 3: Social and Cultural Trends

23. Americans Become Consumers • Gilded Age – the new lifestyle that middle-class Americans adopted during this period –shopping, sports, and reading • Conspicuous Consumerism – people wanted and bought the many new products on the market • Advertising attract customers • Higher standards of living

24. Mass culture • Mass Culture – household gadgets, toys, and preferences were often the same from house to house • Joseph Pulitzer – published the Evening World and placed advertisements in the pages • William Randolph Hearst – Morning Journal (sensational styles of journalism) • Literature and the Arts Flourished • Horatio Alger – wrote about characters who succeeded by hard work

25. New Forms of Popular Entertainment • Time and Money!!! Clubs, music halls, and sports venues • Amusement Parks • Outdoor Events • Sports