•The
Triumph of Industry
•Immigration & Urbanization
•The South & West Transformed
•Issues of the Gilded Age
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“new” immigrant
Steerage
Ellis Island
Angel Island
Americanization
“melting pot”
Nativism
Chinese Exclusion Act
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Southeastern Europe
◦ Italy, Poland, Bulgaria, Etc.
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Had a much harder time assimilating than the
“old immigrants”
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No
No
No
No
English
money
skills
desire to assimilate
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Reasons why you LEAVE
Bad economies
Religious Persecution
Wars
Political Revolutions
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Reason you want to move to a place
America’s Pull factors
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Land
Plenty of work
Family or friends already there
Religious/Political freedom
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The Journey
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Need money for a ticket and to start a life
Only brought what you could carry
Even trip to the ship to leave could be dangerous
Most traveled in steerage
 Crowded and dirty
 Many caught diseases
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Located in NYC
European immigrants
Medical & legal
inspections
Most immigrants were
passed on
Quickly processed
Ellis Island
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Located in San
Fransisco
Asian immigrants
Designed to filter out
Chinese immigrants
Could be held here for
weeks
Angel Island
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Blending into a culture
Most immigrants settled in the cities
◦ Close to jobs in factories
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Settled in ethnic neighborhoods called
ghettos
 Surrounded by people who spoke their native language
and had their same customs
 Discouraged many from assimilating into the
“American” culture
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Programs to help immigrants learn
◦ English
◦ American dress
◦ Diet
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“Melting Pot”
◦ Blending together of white people of different
nationalities
◦ Excluded Asians
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Nativism
◦ Belief that native born Americans are superior to
immigrants
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Competition for housing and jobs fueled
resentment
◦ Immigrants were believed to work for lower pay
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Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
◦ Prohibited immigration by Chinese laborers
◦ Limited civil rights of those already in U.S.
◦ Forbade naturalization of Chinese residents
*perceived threat that they would steal jobs from
whites
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Worked on RR, factories, and mines
Joined political parties and unions
Contributed pieces of their culture
◦ Became part of American culture
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Urbanization
Rural-to-Urban migrant
Skyscraper
Elisha Otis
Mass transit
Suburb
Frederick Law Olmstead
tenement
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Urbanization
◦ The number of cities and people living in them
increased dramatically
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Advantages of Cities
◦ RR connected here
◦ Offered jobs in factories and service industry
◦ Women’s opportunities
 Factory work, sewing, domestic servants, teachers, etc
◦ Entertainment
◦ Access to education for children
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steady paycheck
Variety of city life
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no slow season
Dark, confined space
to work
Rigid schedule
Job availability
◦ African Americans begin
to migrate to avoid
sharecropping
Advantages
Disadvantages
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Skyscrapers
◦ Changed the landscape
◦ Conserved land space
◦ Elevator: Elisha Otis
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Mass Transit
◦ Transportation system that carried large numbers
of people fairly inexpensively
◦ Street cars, trolleys
◦ Urban Sprawl
 People were able to move out of the crowded city into
suburbs
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Housing
◦ Tenements: small, multi family apartments
◦ Dangerous, unsanitary
◦ Fires swept through neighborhoods
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Crime rates high
Unsanitary street conditions
◦ Waste in the streets led to unsafe drinking water
The Gilded Age
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Mark Twain
Gilded Age
Conspicuous Consumerism
Mass Culture
Joseph Pulitzer
William Randolph Hearst
Horatio Alger
Vaudeville
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Mark Twain coins the term
American society has a “rotten core with a
gold covering”
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More people working for wages
◦ They had cash to spend
◦ More products available than before
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Became Conspicuous Consumers
◦ People wanted and bought new products on market
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Advertising
◦ Newspaper ads to attract customers to Department
Stores
◦ Mail-Order Catalogs
 Made products available country-wide
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Higher Standard of Living
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Consumption patterns across nation were
alike
Newspapers
◦ Joseph Pulitzer & William Randolph Hearst
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Literature
Education
◦ Children across the country were taking the same
courses
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Amusement Parks
Outdoor events
◦ The Wild West shows
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Religious-inspired shows
Vaudeville Shows
Motion Pictures
Spectator Sports
◦ Like baseball