1910 US in
Historical
Context
• Structural Changes: Gilded Age & Progressive
Era (1870-1920)
• Demographic Changes: Age of Mass Migration
(1880-1920)
• Mark Twain, “Gilded Age”
• Modern Industrial Economy
• National Transportation and
Communication Networks
• Corporations
• Managerial Revolution
Gilded Age/ Progressive Era,
1870-1920
Second Industrial
Revolution:
Electricity
• Thomas Edison (1847-1931)
• Incandescent Light Bulb
• Direct Current (DC)
• Electrified Railcars
Changes in Manufacturing
• Artisanal Trades → two classes
• Hirelings/ wage workers
• Artisan Entrepreneurs / Industrialists
• Trusts that Controlled Markets
• Vertical Integration
• Horizonal Integration
Manhattan Inc
Source: Montoya et. al, Global Americans, p 470
Age of Mass Migration, 1880-1920
Factors of Migration (push v. pull)
Push
Pull
• Economic (Un-/ underemployment)
• Social (Religious persecution)
• Political (Political persecution)
• Environmental (Natural disaster
drought/ famine)
• Economic (Better/ More jobs)
• Social (Religious freedom)
• Political (Political Freedom)
• Environmental (Fertile land/
absence of natural disaster
600,000
500,000
Manhattan
1900
400,000
300,000
200,000
100,000
-
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
Germany
56,141
118,292
151,216
163,482
210,723
324,224
278,137
194,155
237,588
Ireland
133,730
203,740
201,990
198,595
190,418
275,102
252,672
203,450
220,631
467
1,151
4,551
48,790
180,432
484,193
479,800
442,432
1,464
2,794
12,223
39,951
145,433
340,770
390,832
440,250
521
4,101
12,222
31,516
76,627
64,393
59,883
175
787
2,048
6,080
3,936
4,001
6,629
Russia
Italy
708
Hungary
China
51
Source: Anbinder, City of Dreams, 355, 572-5 (Appendix)
Process Immigrants: Ellis island
Source: Jacob Riis, “Knee-pants" at forty five cents a dozen—A Ludlow Street Sweater's Shop,” How the Other Half Lives (New York, Charles Scribner, 1890).
Garment
Industry
• Citizenship
US
immigration
laws
• 1790 Naturalization Act (1870 Naturalization Act)
• 1868 14th Amendment (US v. Wong Kim Ark 1898)
• Racial
• 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act (1917 Asiatic Barred
Zone)
• 1924 Immigration Quota (Eugenics Movement &
Dillingham Report 1911)
• Political
• 1798 Alien & Sedition Act (1918 Act/ Palmer Raids)