CHAPTER 14
IMMIGRATION AND
URBANIZATION
How did American urban life
change between 1875 and 1914?
Standards
 SSUSH 12
 The student will analyze important
consequences of American industrial
growth.
 a. Describe Ellis Island, the change in
immigrants’ origins to southern and
eastern Europe, and the impact of this
change on urban America.
The New Immigrants
 Why did immigrants come to the U.S.,
and what impact did they have upon
society?
 Vocabulary:
“new” immigrant
steerage
Ellis Island
Chinese Exclusion Act
Americanization
“melting pot”
Angel Island
nativism
The New Immigrants
New Immigrants Come to America
Main Idea: In contrast to “old” immigrants, “new” immigrants were often
unskilled, poor, Catholic or Jewish, and likely to settle in cities rather than
on farms. Many native-born Americans felt threatened by these
newcomers with different cultures and languages.
Immigrants Decide to Leave Home
Main Idea: Two types of factors lead to immigration. Push factors are
those that compel people to leave their homes, such as famine, war, or
persecution. Pull factors are those that draw people to a new place, such
as economic opportunity or religious freedom. Many immigrants in the late
nineteenth century had both push and pull factors that helped them decide
to leave the familiar for the unknown.
The Immigrant Experience
Main Idea: Immigrant experiences varied greatly. However, there were
common themes: a tough decision to leave home and family, a hard and
costly journey with an uncertain end, and the difficulties of learning a new
language and adjusting to a foreign culture.
The New Immigrants (continued…)
Opportunities and Challenges in America
Main Idea: Once in America, immigrants immediately faced tough
decisions such as where to settle and how to find work. On top of that,
most had to learn a new language and new customs. Lucky immigrants
had contacts through family and friends who could help them navigate a
new and strange world.
Immigrants Change America
Main Idea: Despite opposition, immigrants transformed American
society. They fueled industrial growth, elected politicians, and made their
traditions part of American culture.
POLITICS IN THE GILDED AGE
During the late 1800s, big business and reform efforts
dominated American politics.
The Big Idea
• Period between 1877–1900 is known as ”the Gilded Age”
• Gilded means covered in a thin layer of gold
• During the Gilded Age, America‘s big businesses
prospered
• Beneath this layer of prosperity were the problems of
poverty, discrimination and corruption
• Term first used by American writer Mark Twain
The New Immigrants
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, immigrants from
around the world came to the United States in search of a
better life.
The Big Idea
Immigration to the United States by Region, 1871–1920
Northern and Central Europe
56%
Southern and Eastern Europe
32%
The Americas 9%
Asia 2 %
Oceania .2%
Africa .1%
Immigrants Decide to Leave
Home
Push Factors
 Land reform
 Low prices for grain
 Repeated wars and
political revolutions
 Religious persecution
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Pull Factors
Plentiful land and
employment
“Chain immigrants”
Freedom of religion
Political freedom
Better
opportunities in
U.S.
The Immigrant Experience
 Crossing the Ocean
 1-3 weeks on a ship
 Most traveled in steerage
 Almost 70% arrived through New York –
Ellis Island
 Most settled with their own kind
 Path of acceptance was more difficult for
Asians – Angel Island
 Chinese Exclusion Act 1882
 Japanese Segregation
Helping the Needy
 Charity Organization Movement
 Making charity scientific (like welfare system)
 Kept details of who received help so that they knew who
was worthy of help or not
 Many expected immigrant to adopt American middle
class standards of living
 The Social Gospel movement
 Applied religious principles of charity and justice for the
poor
 Supported labor reforms and improved living conditions
 Settlement Movement (Jane Addams/Ellen Gates Starr)
 Created “settlement houses” to offer social services and
to help the poor
TRANSPARENCY
Chinatown
Opportunities and Challenges
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Assimilation
Stayed in cities
Lived in ethnic
neighborhoods
Americanization
“Melting Pot”
Hostility
 Nativism
 Religion
 Chinese Exclusion
Act 1882
NOTE TAKING
Reading Skill: Main Ideas
ANALYZE
Political Cartoons: Keeping Foreigners Out
PM
TRANSPARENCY
Progress Monitoring Transparency
Cities Expand and Change
Section 2
 What challenges did city dwellers face
and how did they meet them?
 Vocabulary:
urbanization
mass transit
skyscraper
Frederick Law Olmsted
suburb
Elisha Otis
tenement
rural-to-urban migrant
Cities Expand and Change
America Becomes a Nation of Cities
Main Idea: In the late nineteenth century, America experienced a period of
urbanization in which the number of cities and city dwellers increased
dramatically. Over time, their urban values became part of American
culture.
Technology Improves City Life
Main Idea: As cities swelled in size, politicians and workers struggled to
keep up with the demands of growth to provide water, sewers, schools,
and safety. American innovators stepped up to the task by developing new
technologies to improve living conditions.
Urban Living Creates Problems
Main Idea: Growing cities faced many problems caused by overcrowding
and poverty. As immigrants and rural migrants arrived, they crowded into
neighborhoods that already seemed to be overflowing. Housing conditions
deteriorated, and risks arose from fire, crime, conflict, and lack of
sanitation.
CHART
Immigration, 1870-1910
From Farms to Cities
 Women were needed less for farmwork
 New farm machines replaced laborers
 1880-1910 population on farms fell from
72 to 54 percent
 African Americans migrated north
City Advantages
 Jobs in factories or service industries
 More opportunities for women: factory jobs,
piecework, domestic servants, teachers,
office workers
 Opportunity to move into middle class
 Education for children
 Theaters, social clubs, museums, churches
 Available transportation
How Cities Grew
 Suburbs – residential communities
 People that could afford it moved out and took horse
drawn carriages in
 Motorized Transportation
 Subways, trolley cars, elevated trains (El),
automobile
 Growing Upward
 Skyscrapers
 Chicago’s Home Insurance Company building was
the first 10 story building
Urban Living Conditions
 Tenements
 Speculators built tenements and packed many people in
them
 Created slums
 Slum Conditions
 Poverty, overcrowding, neglect, fire danger
 Great Chicago Fire 1871
 18,000 building burned, 250 dead, 100,000 homeless
 Property damage was $200 Million ($2 Billion today)
 Ghettos
 Slums where one ethnic or racial group dominated
 Restrictive covenants – don’t let certain people buy land
 Jacob Riis
 Worked to improve the lives of the urban poor
 NY passed first laws to improve tenements b/c of Riis
NOTE TAKING
Reading Skill: Identify Main Ideas
Cities Expand and Change
The arrival of millions of new residents brought progress,
poverty, and political changes to American cities.
The Big Idea: Political Machines
Political
machines work
to control city
politics
Machines
maintain
power over
city
governments
Run by
powerful
"boss“ who
has influence
with city
officials
Machines
hand out jobs,
contracts, and
favors to city
residents
Residents
vote for
candidates
supported by
machines
The Results of City Growth
Rise of Political Bosses
 Political Machine
 Unofficial city organization designed to keep a particular
party in power
 Usually headed by a powerful “boss”
 “Boss” would handpick candidates for local office in
return for economic favors
 Supported by immigrants and poor people
 Graft – using one’s job to gain profits
 William “Boss” Tweed
 Controlled Tammany Hall in New York
 Ran New York’s Democratic Party
Growth of Public Schools
 Immigrants and
education
 Uneven support
for schools
- segregated
schools
- minorities
received less
support
Higher Education Expands
 Many new colleges
opened
 Leland StanfordStanford University
 Women and higher
educationcoeducation
increased
 African Americansmost attended black
colleges
IDEAS FOR REFORM
THE BIG IDEA - The desire to improve
conditions in American cities led to the
formation of new reform groups
REACTIONS TO
IMMIGRANTS
Nativists
Try to restrict
immigration, believe
government should
support native-born
Americans over
immigrants
Temperance
Movement/
Purity Crusaders
Settlement
Movement
Try to ban alcohol,
drugs, gambling, and
prostitution
Try to help immigrants
improve their lives by
offering education,
child care, and health
care
TRANSPARENCY
Subway Systems Change Cities
CHART
Technology Advances
PM
TRANSPARENCY
Progress Monitoring Transparency
Social and Cultural Trends
Section 3
 What luxuries did cities offer to the
middle class?
 Vocabulary:
Mark Twain
Joseph Pulitzer
Gilded Age
Horatio Alger
conspicuous consumerism
William Randolph Hearst
mass culture
vaudeville
Social and Cultural Trends
Americans Become Consumers
Main Idea: As a result of industrialization and urbanization, more people
began to work for wages rather than for themselves on farms. At the same
time, more products were available than ever before and at lower prices.
This led to a culture of conspicuous consumerism, in which people wanted
and bought the many new products on the market.
Mass Culture
Main Idea: One of the effects of the spread of transportation,
communication, and advertising was that Americans all across the country
became more and more alike in their consumption patterns. This
phenomenon is known as mass culture.
New Forms of Popular Entertainment
Main Idea: Urban areas with thousands of people became centers for new
types of entertainment in the Gilded Age. Clubs, music halls, and sports
venues attracted large crowds with time and money to spend.
Americans Become Consumers
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Conspicuous consumerism
Advertising
Higher standards of living
Victorian Era
Public transportation
Commuters
Mass Culture
 Newspapers: Joseph Pulitzer and
William Randolph Hearst
 Literature: Horatio Alger
 Education
 Popular Entertainments: amusement
parks, vaudeville, movie theaters,
sports
NOTE TAKING
Reading Skill: Identify Main Ideas
INFOGRAPHIC
New Ways of Shopping
TRANSPARENCY
Mail Order Catalogs
CHART
U.S. Literacy Rates, 1870-1920
TRANSPARENCY
Educating Americans
PM
TRANSPARENCY
Progress Monitoring Transparency