The Gilded Age
Part 3: Immigration and
Urbanization
Learning Targets
• I can analyze the impact of immigration and
urbanization on American Culture in the late
19th century.
• I can explain the origins and impact of reform
movements of the Gilded Age.
Why do the cities grow?
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Steel
More work
Railroads
Immigration
Immigration and Urbanization
Old Immigration
• 1850-1880
• Northern & Western Europe
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Britain
Scandinavia
Germany
Ireland
• Mostly literate, middle and
upper classes
New Immigration
• 1880-1920
• Southern & Eastern Europe
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Russia
Croatia
Poland
Montenegro
Greece
Bosnia
Serbia
Italy
• Many Jews esp. from Russian
controlled areas
• Still, lots of Germans and Irish
• Mostly illiterate, lower class
Immigration and Urbanization
• Live in large cities, especially
ports of entry
– Ellis Island, NY
– San Francisco, CA
• Live in enclaves
• Many don’t assimilate
• Forced by circumstance to
take low paying jobs
• Reactions to Immigration
– Nativism
– Political Machines
– Reform
Immigration and Urbanization
Growth of the Cities
• Housing problems
• 1879 New York State
Tenement House Act
• James Ware’s Dumbbell
Tenement
Immigration and Urbanization
Reform:
The Social Gospel Movement
• “love thy neighbor as thyself”
• Religious response to
problems of urban poor
• Application of Christian
theology to social problems
• Social rather than spiritual
features:
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Gymnasiums
Libraries
Lecture rooms
Night schools
Walter Rauschenbusch,
Baptist minister
Immigration and Urbanization
Reform:
• Hull House, Chicago (1889)
• Jane Addams
• Staffed by young, middle-class
women
• Focused on practical needs of the
working poor
• Aid to immigrant poor:
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English lessons
Childcare for working mothers
Helped register children for school
Health clinics
Job training
• Began over time to organize
politically
The Settlement House
Immigration and Urbanization
Reform:
• Women’s Christian
Temperance Union (WCTU)
• Francis Willard
• Carrie Nation
Temperance and Prohibition
Immigration and Urbanization
Other Results
Mass media
• Rise of ‘yellow journalism’
• William Randolph Hearst &
Joseph Pulitzer
Other Results:
• Sports
Entertainment
Other Results:
Challenges to orthodox religion
• Darwin
• Robert Ingersoll
• spiritualism
1. Explain some of the difficulties labor unions
faced in the United States.
2. Explain some of the differing reactions
Americans had to the great wealth disparities
between wealthy industrialists and working class
immigrants and other laborers.