Immigration, Urbanization and Culture€¦ · •Tenements •Immigrant families and poor urban...
Transcript of Immigration, Urbanization and Culture€¦ · •Tenements •Immigrant families and poor urban...
Immigration, Urbanization and Culturein the Gilded Age
Immigrationin the Gilded Age
Why does it matter?
Reasons they Came
• Push Factors
• Reasons people wanted to leave their homelands, pushing them out
• Ex: Religious persecution in Europe, lack of available land in Europe
• Pull Factors
• Reasons people wanted to come to America, pulling them in
• Ex: Industrial jobs, available land, freedom/rights
European Immigrants
• Earlier, most immigrants had been Protestants from North and West Europe
• Late 1890s-early 1900s
• New immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe
• Many Jews, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox (different faiths)
• Largest countries• Italy, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Poland,
Greece
Ellis Island
• Largest immigrant processing station, 1892-1924
• Arrival after crossing the Atlantic
• Difficult journey, lots of disease, stayed below decks
• Inspections and processing usually took over 5 hours
• Physical Examinations
• Documents and Questioning (Work, Crime Record, Money)
• 20% held for over one day, 2% sent back
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s16sQ3xkvRY
Asian Immigration
• Mostly Chinese immigrants came, after 1848 Gold Rush
• Chinese Exclusion Act puts a halt to this from 1882-1943
• Arrived at Angel Island in San Francisco
• Much harsher questioning
• Longer wait times
• Higher numbers sent back
Immigrant Life in America
• Ethnic Neighborhoods and Communities
• Shared language
• Food shops and restaurants
• Customs, Traditions, Practices
• Religions
• This is where we get the development of Chinatowns, Little Italy, etc
Immigrant Life in America
• Work
• Mostly unskilled factory and mill work
• Dangerous work-mining and railroads
• Most immigrants were poor and just needed to find jobs quickly
Immigrant Life in America
• Discrimination and Nativism
• Many began to view Anglo-Saxon Americans > Slavic, Italian, Greek and Jewish newcomers
• Lots of anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic (anti-Jewish) feelings
First Day in America
• https://www.nps.gov/elis/learn/education/oral-history-ei-116a.htm
Urbanization and Culturein the Gilded Age
Growth of the Cities
• Urban population 8 million (1865) 30 million (1900)
• 20 big cities 80
• Due to
• Immigration
• Rural to Urban Migration
• Mechanization of farm machinery meant less people needed to work in agriculture
Urban Problems
• Housing
• Crowded cities because of need to be close to factories/jobs
• Transportation difficult if no money for horse or car
• Tenements
• Immigrant families and poor urban dwellers shared apartments
• Multiple families living in a space for one
• Social separation along ethnic and racial lines
• By 1900, 2/3 of New York was living in overcrowded housing
Urban Problems
• Poverty• Many worked long
hours in factories to make ends meet
• Little pay for dangerous working conditions
Urban Problems
• Water• Often not safe enough to
drink
• No plumbing
• Diseases like cholera and typhoid fever spread rapidly through water
• Filtration/chlorination developed later in 20th
century
Urban Problems
• Sanitation• Horse manure and
sewage flowed through streets
• With trash, nowhere else for it to go
• Development of sewer lines and sanitation departments around 1900
Urban Problems
• Crime
• Fire• Limited water supply
• Buildings made of wood
• Later made safer with sprinklers and other building materials (brick, stone, concrete)
Urban Solutions
• Settlement Houses• Community centers to provide
assistance to poor and immigrants
• Jane Addams, Hull House (1889)
• Run by middle class, college-educated women
• Provided educational, cultural, social services
Urban Solutions
• Skyscrapers• Possible because of new
steel technologies and elevators
• Solved problem of overcrowded cities
• If you can’t built out, build up
• Best use of limited space
Urban Solutions
• Electric Transit
• As cities spread out, people needed ways to move around
• Electric streetcars/subways created
• Urban Planning• Bridges allowed for better transportation
and connection
• Parks and green space
• Central Park (1857) by Frederick Law Olmstead
Leisure Time in the Gilded Age
• Leisure finally possible because of fixed hours/workday
• Vaudeville, Theater, the Arts
• Department Stores
• Amusement Parks
• Preservation of green space, playgrounds/parks
• Amusement Parks built outside cities, so railcars and subways would be used
• Coney Island (1880s) in NY was incredibly popular
Leisure Time in the Gilded Age
•Sports• Bicycling: “Safety Bicycle” came out in
1885
• Boxing was a huge spectator sport of the time
• Pedestrianism
Leisure Time in the Gilded Age
• BASEBALL!• Middle-class office workers needed
something to do after work
• Begins as social event to give young men something to do
• Develops into competition
• Cincinnati Redstockings first professional (paid) team in 1869
• Ethnic tensions
• Excelsiors vs. Atlantics
• “No Irish Need Apply”
• Gentleman’s agreement