Primary vs. Secondary Documents
Primary Source: a document or physical object which was written or
created during the time under study.
• ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS: Diaries, speeches, manuscripts, letters,
interviews, news film footage, autobiographies, official records
• CREATIVE WORKS: Poetry, drama, novels, music, art
• RELICS OR ARTIFACTS: Pottery, furniture, clothing, buildings
Secondary Source: interprets and analyzes primary sources. These
sources are one or more steps removed from the event.
• PUBLICATIONS: Textbooks, magazine articles, histories, criticisms,
commentaries, encyclopedias
http://www.princeton.edu/~refdesk/primary2.html
I.
Settlers moved to the west in the 1850s and conflicts arose with Indians
1. Reservations : areas of federal land put aside for Native
Americans
2. Sand Creek Massacre (1864):Cheyenne surrendered, US
killed over 200 men women and children
military
3. Battle of Little Bighorn (1876): gold discovered in the Black Hills (SD).
Sioux refused to leave. Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull led the Sioux to a
victory. “Custer’s Last Stand”
4. Wounded Knee (1890): (SD) After Sitting Bull is killed, Indians leave
the reservations. This is the last war on the Plains.
5. Dawes Act (1887): Gave Indians land ownership (160 acres). Also gave
Indians U.S. Citizenship
II. Reasons to move west:
1. Discovery of gold
2. Transcontinental RR
3. Offers of free land
a. Homestead Act: 160 acres of land for a
registration fee and a promise to live on the land
for 5 years.
b. Morrill Act: granted 17 million acres of land to
the states
4. Cattle kingdoms
a. New farming techniques (dry farming)
b. Farming inventions (John Deere steel plow)
III. Results
Increased population
Immigration
Immigration to the United
States
Pre 1800
England
Germany
Ireland
Scandinavia
Africa
Scotland
Ireland
•Skilled workers
•Spoke English
•Most were Protestant (except Irish)
•Settled outside cities on farms
1800-1900
Hungary
Czech
Greece
Poland
Russia
Slovakia
Chinese
Japanese
Armenia
Jews
•Unskilled workers industrial jobs in cities
•Spoke little English
•Different religious beliefs:
Greek Orthodoxy
Catholicism
Judaism
Buddhism
By the turn of the century (1900),
there were as many Italians living
in New York City as in Naples, as
many Germans as in Hamburg,
and twice as many Irish as in
Dublin. Immigrant populations
were large in other cities and in
rural areas across America.
Chinese Immigration
Came from China for the 1849 GOLD RUSH
young
single
peasants
Cheap labor
Construct RR’s
Peddlers
Agricultural work
Garment working
substitute for slave labor
Negatives:
Chinatowns
Did “dirty” jobs
Opium dens
Prostitution
Gambling
Restrictions on Chinese Immigration
Naturalization Act of 1870
restricted immigration to “white persons and
persons of African descent”
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
suspended Chinese immigration
prohibited Chinese from becoming citizens
Geary Act (2nd Chinese Exclusion Act) 1892
Irish Immigration - 1846
• Ireland ~ 4 million people
• Major industry is agriculture
• Major crop is the potato
• Blight AKA the “Irish Famine” in 1845
ruins ¾ of the crop of potatoes
• 1 million die from starvation, typhus
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAEireland.htm
Irish to the United States
•
•
•
•
•
2 million emigrate to the United States by 1854
Lived in cities (NYC, Philly, Boston*, Chicago)
Poor, did not own land
Built RR’s, coalminers, fought in the Civil War
Democrats – feared the slave
would compete for jobs
• Stereotypes:
Catholics that fought with others
Bought votes
Stuffed ballot boxes
Drunks
Animal-like (dogs, apes)
Italian Immigration
•Poverty
•Illiteracy (70%)
•Overpopulation
•Natural disaster
- Mt Vesuvias (buried a town
- Mt Etna (killed 100,000
people)
•Division between north and south
-relied on la famiglia (the
family) instead of Italians as a
cohesive ethnic group
Between 1880
and 1920,
4 MILLION
Italians entered
the U.S.
Italian Immigration
In America:
young, single men in their 20’s
stayed in cities (no farming)
construction work (bridges, roads, the first
skyscrapers)
began as migrant workers “birds of passage”
Negatives:
Catholics (seen as oppressive)
Fought with the Irish, Portuguese, Polish
“dirty” (menial jobs with little education)
Little Italy (clusters of ethnicity)
Anarchists
Organized crime
German Immigration
Jewish Immigration
http://www.census.gov/population/www/doc
umentation/twps0029/tab02.html