Name ___________________________________________
Immigration study guide
Population changes, growth of cities, and new inventions produced interaction and often conflict between different cultural
groups
Reasons for Increased immigration
Push (reasons to leave your country) BAD
 Religious persecution
Pull (reasons why you want to come to America) GOOD
 Religious freedom

Poverty
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Adventure

No jobs

More jobs (especially factories in the cities)

No available land

Homestead Act (available and affordable land in the U.S.)

Cannot afford land

A better life

Famine (crop failure)

Oppressive Government
•
Political freedom
“HEAR” (push/pull factors written in acronym form)
Hope for opportunity
 Jobs, Land, a Better Life
End to Oppression.
 Freedom from Tyranny
 Freedom from an oppressive government,
Adventure.
 The great unknown; stories of the “West.”
Religious Freedom.
 Escaping Discrimination.
 Southern & Eastern Europeans:
Problems Faced by immigrants
Immigrant challenges:
• In need of a job
• language barrier,
• discrimination
• poor living conditions, trouble adjusting to “city” life, or a new culture
Discrimination against immigrants
Chinese
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882:
• prohibited skilled and unskilled laborers from China to enter the United States
• Really….kept the Chinese out of the United States
Irish
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•
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Irish came to United States during the potato famine (1840s) and steadily to the United States
throughout the rest of the 1800s.
Irish were very poor, considered illiterate, and were mainly manual workers (unskilled and semiskilled)
Ended up at the bottom rung of American society
Efforts to solve problems faced by immigrants
1. Settlement Houses: The Hull House in Chicago run by Jane Addams.
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Jane Addams devoted her life to helping the new immigrants and the underprivileged
She also won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931
2. Political Machines: Powerful political parties who helped immigrants in exchange for vote
.
• Helped immigrants get jobs, housing, food, etc.
• Helped immigrants become Citizens
• Political Machines often accepted bribes and “kickbacks”
• The most famous of these political machines was “Tammany Hall” run by “Boss”
Tweed
• Used illegal ways to gain power.
Challenges faced by growing cities - Filth, disease, illness, fire, bad water, poverty, and homelessness
Tenements: Crowded, Small Apartments run by “slum lords.”
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Usually poorly built and dangerous.
Like several in many large cities, it was overcrowded, in disrepair, and often had only one bathroom with
running water per floor
Ghettoes: Run down city neighborhoods.
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These parts of the city are where the poorest of the poor lived.
Rapid industrialization and urbanization led to overcrowded immigrant neighborhoods.
Why did cities grow so rapidly
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Specialized Industries (like steel mills, meat packing, and textiles).
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Immigration to America increased.
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Migration from rural (farms) to urban (city) areas.
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(Sudden) rapid industrialization and urbanization led to overcrowded immigrant neighborhoods and
tenements