Ch.15 notes
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By the 1890s over half of all immigrants in
the U.S. were eastern and southern
Europeans, including Italians, Greeks, Poles,
Slavs, Russians, and Armenians.
Moving to the U.S. offered immigrants a
chance to break away from Europe’s class
system and move to a democratic nation
where they had a chance to move up the
social ladder.
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The eastern and southern Europeans who
came to America in the last half of the 19th
century had to endure a difficult voyage
across the Atlantic Ocean. Upon arrival they
would have to pass an inspection and be
processed on Ellis Island in New York Harbor.
Many of those who passed the Ellis Island
inspections settled in NYC, Chicago,
Milwaukee, and Detroit.
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As Europeans were coming to America via a
voyage across the Atlantic, many Asian
immigrants began crossing the Pacific to
arrive on America’s west coast in the mid1800s.
The 1848 discovery of gold in California
began to lure Chinese immigrants to the U.S.
initially, and then the Taiping Rebellion took
around 20 million lives and caused such great
suffering that many Chinese fled to the U.S.
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In Jan. 1910, CA opened a barracks on Angel
Island to accommodate the Asian immigrants.
Most of these immigrants were young males
in their teens or twenties.
From Angel Island many Chinese immigrants
spread out into western cities where they
worked as laborers or servants in skilled
trades. Some worked as merchants.
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Eventually the large amount of immigrants to
America led to an increased feeling of
Nativism, which is an exteme dislike for
immigrants and a desire to limit immigration.
Nativism led to the creation of two antiimmigrant organizations. One, the American
Protective Association, and the second was
the Workingman’s Party of CA.
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The passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act in
1882 was an obvious result of increased
Nativism. The law barred Chinese
immigration for ten years and prevented
Chinese already in the U.S. from becoming
citizens.
Chinese immigrants protested the exclusion
act arguing the white Americans didn’t
oppose immigration by Italians, Irish, or
Germans.
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During the three decades following the U.S.
Civil War, the urban population of the U.S.
grew from 10 million in 1870 to over 30
million in 1900. NYC alone grew from around
800,000 in 1860 to around 3.5 million by
1900.
Chicago grew even faster than NYC going
from about 109,000 in 1860 to more than
1.6 million by 1900.
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Much of the U.S. city growth during the last
half of the 1800s could be attributed to
European and Asian immigration. The main
reason was that many of the immigrants
moving into America’s large cities lacked the
money to buy farms.
Many rural Americans also began moving to
the large cities during the late 1800s in
order to find higher paying jobs than could
be found in rural areas.
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Mass transit developed in the late 1800s in
order to move large numbers of people
around cities quickly.
In America’s largest cities traffic congestion
became so bad that engineers began looking
for ways to move mass transit off the streets.
Chicago responded by building an elevated
RR, while Boston and NYC built the first
subway systems.
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The majority of American city dwellers around
1900 were working class people who lived in
tenement housing, which consisted of dark
and crowded multi-family apartments.
To supplement the average industrial
worker’s annual income of $445, many
families sent their young children to work in
factories.
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City living posed threats such as crime,
violence, fire, disease, and pollution,
especially for the working class family. The
rapid growth of cities only helped to multiply
these problems.
Jacob Riis, who documented slum life in his
1890 book How the Other Half Lives, accused
saloons and alcohol of breeding poverty and
creating corruption in society.
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In 1873 Mark Twain and Charles Warner
wrote a novel together entitled The Gilded
Age. Historians later adopted the term and
applied it to the era in American History that
covered the 30 year period from about 1870
to 1900.
By calling this era the Gilded Age, Twain and
Warner were sounding an alarm. Something is
gilded if it is covered with gold on the outside
but made of cheaper material on the inside.
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One of the strongest beliefs of the Gilded Age
that is still prevalent in America today is the
idea of individualism, which is the idea that
no matter where an individual begins they
can rise as far as they are willing to.
Horatio Alger expressed the idea of
individualism better than anyone in the more
than 100 “rags to riches” novels that he
wrote.
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Another popular idea of the Gilded Age era
was that of Social Darwinism, which strongly
reinforced the idea of individualism. Social
Darwinism said that society evolved through
competition and natural selection, and that
society progressed and became better
because only the fittest people survived.
English philosopher Herbert Spencer came up
with the idea of Social Darwinism.
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Andrew Carnegie believed that those who
profited from society owed it something in
return, which he expressed through his idea
called the Gospel of Wealth.
The GOW held that wealthy Americans bore
the responsibility of engaging in
philanthropy-using their great fortunes to
further social progress.
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A new movement in art and literature known
as realism attempted to portray people
realistically instead of idealizing them as
romantic artists had done.
Artists and authors who practiced realism
attempted to portray the world as they saw it
rejecting the idealistic depictions of the world
of the earlier 1800s.
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One of the most famous American authors
who wrote realistic novels was Mark Twain a
Missouri native whose real name was Samuel
Clemens.
In 1884 Mark Twain wrote his masterpiece,
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In this novel,
the title character and his friend Jim, an
escaped slave, float down the Mississippi R.
on a raft.
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Popular culture changed greatly in the late
1800s. Industrialization improved the
standard of living for many people and
enabled them to spend money on
entertainment and recreation.
People began “going out” to amusement
parks such as New York’s Coney Island.
Watching professional boxing and baseball
also became popular during the late 1800s.
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Ragtime music came about during the late
1800s and echoed the hectic pace of city life.
Its syncopated rhythms grew out of riverside
honky-tonk, saloon pianists, and banjo
players.
Scott Joplin, one of the most important
African American ragtime composers, became
known as the “King of Ragtime.” He published
his signature piece, “The Maple Leaf Rag,” in
1899.
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Naturalists challenged the idea that people
could control their lives that Social Darwinists
and Realists held to. Naturalists suggested
that some people failed in life simply because
they were caught up in circumstances they
couldn’t control.
Among the most prominent naturalist writers
were Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Jack
London, and Theodore Dreiser.
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The Salvation Army was first formed in
England by a minister named William Booth.
It adopted a military style organization, and
offered practical aid and religious counseling
to the urban poor.
The Young Men’s Christian Association
(YMCA) also began in England. The YMCA
tried to help industrial workers and the urban
poor by organizing Bible studies, prayer
meetings, citizenship training, and group
activities.
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One prominent organizer of the American
YMCA was Dwight L. Moody, who was the
president of the Chicago YMCA. A gifted
preacher and organizer, Moody founded his
own church in Chicago in the 1860s. By 1867
he began to organize revival meetings in
other American cities.
Moody believed the way to help the poor was
not by providing them with services but by
redeeming their souls and reforming their
character.
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As the U.S. became increasingly industrialized
and urbanized, it needed more workers who
were trained and educated. The demand for
skilled workers led to a much greater focus
on building schools & colleges in the late
1800s.
The number of public schools increased
quickly after the Civil War. In 1870 around
6,500,000 children attended school. By 1900
that number had risen to over 17,300,000.
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Public schools were crucial to immigrant
children. It was in public schools that they
became knowledgeable about American
culture, a process known as Americanization.
To assimilate immigrants into American
culture, schools taught immigrant children
English, American History, and the
responsibilities of citizenship.