The Gilded Age:Immigration

Ellis Island – Immigrant Children – ca. 1900

Why They Came… Push Factors:

WarFamine

Political and religious persecutionLand shortages and crowding

Pull Factors:Plentiful LandEmployment

Religious FreedomPolitical Freedom

New Life Between 1866 to 1915, 25 million immigrants arrived

in the United States

New Immigrants

• New Immigrants= Southern and Eastern Europeans during 1870s until WWI.

• Came from Ireland, Germany, Italy, Greece, Poland, Hungary and Russia.• Often unskilled, poor, Catholic or Jewish, and planning to save some

money to take back home.

• Old Immigrants- Came before the Irish and German immigrants.

• After 1900, New Immigrants made up 70% of all immigrants.

• American natives felt threatened by the new immigrants

Who immigrated?• These “New Immigrants” were primarily from Southern and

Eastern European nations — Italy, Croatia, Greece, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungry, and Russia. Many also came in from Ireland.

• In 1882, immigration reached a new high with 788,992 persons arriving that year.

THE “NEW” IMMIGRATION

Push pressures• Cheap wheat from Russia, U.S., and other parts of the

world poured into Europe with new cheaper transportation and undermined livelihood of many European farmers

• Spreading industrial revolution and increased use of farm machinery led to collapse of peasant economy of central and southern Europe—loss of self-sufficiency and fragmentation of landholdings

• Political and religious persecutions pushed others• Main reason remained hope of economic betterment

Pull Factors

• 1862 Homestead Act and aid from railroad companies made western farmland inexpensive.

• Workers were recruited from homelands to build railroads, dig mines, or work in factories.

• Many wanted to find gold.

• Chain immigrants= come to be with family or friends who had gone before to start new lives.

Journey to America

• Many immigrants could barely afford a ticket to come to the U.S.

• They could only pack what they could carry. (Clothes, photograph, tools for their trade)

• Many would wait in line for hours to try to get on a ship and in many cases it was very dangerous to do this.

Journey to America

• Steerage= Where most immigrants traveled on the ship.

• Steerage was located on the lowest decks of the ship with no private cabins, and was dirty and crowded.

• Seasickness was an issue in rough weather and illnesses spread quickly in the lower decks.

THE “NEW” IMMIGRATION• Until 1891, Atlantic coast

states, not federal government, exercised whatever controls there were

• Medical inspection was perfunctory• Only one immigrant in 50

was rejectedINSPECTION ROOM, Ellis Island, New York, 1910-1920

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection

Ellis Island was built in 1892 as the

1st “Immigration

Center”Later, closed in the 1940sToday it is a

museum.

• The goal was to “screen” immigrants coming from Europe.•Immigrants took physical examinations and were held at Ellis Island before

they were released to the US mainland.

Ellis Island

• Most European immigrants came through here. (NYC)

• 1st and 2nd class passengers were inspected on the ship then released (Based on wealth and region (England/Germany).

• 3rd class had to go in to be inspected.

• A series of medical and legal inspections would take place before you were allowed to take a ferry in to the city.

• Ellis Island was the more welcoming of the two ports.

Angel Island• Most Chinese and Asian immigrants came through here (San

Francisco Bay)

• Opened in 1910.

• Made it very hard for Chinese immigrants to come into the U.S.

• Most had to prove they were American citizens to be let in.

• Immigrants were sometimes left here for days or weeks in poor conditions.

The Chinese were treated much harsher at Angel Island (off the California Coast) than the Europeans were at Ellis Island.

Native-born Americans resented the Chinese for taking their jobs as cheap laborers.

- A response to

increasing immigration

- Led to anti-immigrant groups

that demanded restrictions to immigration

Nativism: favoritism towards

native-born Americans

NEW IMMIGRANTS FACE NEW NATIVISM• Many “older” Americans concluded that new immigrants

could not make good citizens and should be excluded• During 1880s, large numbers of social workers,

economists and church leaders wanted immigration restrictions

• Social Darwinists and people obsessed with “racial purity” also found new immigration alarming• Attributed social problems of new immigrants to supposed

psychological characteristics of newcomers

Chinese Exclusion Act

• 1873 Depression made work scarce – and natives resented the Chinese laborers who would work for less pay.

• 1882 – Congress restricted the immigration of the Chinese into America

• Not repealed until 1943

Immigrants Assimilate Into Society

• Assimilate = to fit in.

• Most immigrants stayed in cities and lived in ethnic neighborhoods called ghettos.

• These neighborhoods would share the same language, religion, and culture.

• By 1890 many cities had a huge immigrant population. 4/5 people in NYC were immigrants.

Immigrants Change America• Immigrants changed America in many ways.

• Fueled industrial growth• Acquired citizenship• Elected politicians• Made their traditions a part of American culture.

• Mexican Americans developed ranching techniques.• Chinese, Irish, and Mexican workers built railroads.• Immigrants worked in coal mines, steel and textile mills, and factories.• Women immigrants worked in factories, seamstresses, laundresses, made

piecework, and worked as servants.

• Immigrants helped the U.S. become a world power.