Immigration, Urbanization and Culturein the Gilded Age

Immigrationin the Gilded Age

Why does it matter?

Reasons they Came

• Push Factors

• Reasons people wanted to leave their homelands, pushing them out

• Ex: Religious persecution in Europe, lack of available land in Europe

• Pull Factors

• Reasons people wanted to come to America, pulling them in

• Ex: Industrial jobs, available land, freedom/rights

European Immigrants

• Earlier, most immigrants had been Protestants from North and West Europe

• Late 1890s-early 1900s

• New immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe

• Many Jews, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox (different faiths)

• Largest countries• Italy, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Poland,

Greece

Ellis Island

• Largest immigrant processing station, 1892-1924

• Arrival after crossing the Atlantic

• Difficult journey, lots of disease, stayed below decks

• Inspections and processing usually took over 5 hours

• Physical Examinations

• Documents and Questioning (Work, Crime Record, Money)

• 20% held for over one day, 2% sent back

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s16sQ3xkvRY

Asian Immigration

• Mostly Chinese immigrants came, after 1848 Gold Rush

• Chinese Exclusion Act puts a halt to this from 1882-1943

• Arrived at Angel Island in San Francisco

• Much harsher questioning

• Longer wait times

• Higher numbers sent back

Immigrant Life in America

• Ethnic Neighborhoods and Communities

• Shared language

• Food shops and restaurants

• Customs, Traditions, Practices

• Religions

• This is where we get the development of Chinatowns, Little Italy, etc

Immigrant Life in America

• Work

• Mostly unskilled factory and mill work

• Dangerous work-mining and railroads

• Most immigrants were poor and just needed to find jobs quickly

Immigrant Life in America

• Discrimination and Nativism

• Many began to view Anglo-Saxon Americans > Slavic, Italian, Greek and Jewish newcomers

• Lots of anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic (anti-Jewish) feelings

First Day in America

• https://www.nps.gov/elis/learn/education/oral-history-ei-116a.htm

Urbanization and Culturein the Gilded Age

Growth of the Cities

• Urban population 8 million (1865) 30 million (1900)

• 20 big cities 80

• Due to

• Immigration

• Rural to Urban Migration

• Mechanization of farm machinery meant less people needed to work in agriculture

Urban Problems

• Housing

• Crowded cities because of need to be close to factories/jobs

• Transportation difficult if no money for horse or car

• Tenements

• Immigrant families and poor urban dwellers shared apartments

• Multiple families living in a space for one

• Social separation along ethnic and racial lines

• By 1900, 2/3 of New York was living in overcrowded housing

Urban Problems

• Poverty• Many worked long

hours in factories to make ends meet

• Little pay for dangerous working conditions

Urban Problems

• Water• Often not safe enough to

drink

• No plumbing

• Diseases like cholera and typhoid fever spread rapidly through water

• Filtration/chlorination developed later in 20th

century

Urban Problems

• Sanitation• Horse manure and

sewage flowed through streets

• With trash, nowhere else for it to go

• Development of sewer lines and sanitation departments around 1900

Urban Problems

• Crime

• Fire• Limited water supply

• Buildings made of wood

• Later made safer with sprinklers and other building materials (brick, stone, concrete)

Urban Solutions

• Settlement Houses• Community centers to provide

assistance to poor and immigrants

• Jane Addams, Hull House (1889)

• Run by middle class, college-educated women

• Provided educational, cultural, social services

Urban Solutions

• Skyscrapers• Possible because of new

steel technologies and elevators

• Solved problem of overcrowded cities

• If you can’t built out, build up

• Best use of limited space

Urban Solutions

• Electric Transit

• As cities spread out, people needed ways to move around

• Electric streetcars/subways created

• Urban Planning• Bridges allowed for better transportation

and connection

• Parks and green space

• Central Park (1857) by Frederick Law Olmstead

Leisure Time in the Gilded Age

• Leisure finally possible because of fixed hours/workday

• Vaudeville, Theater, the Arts

• Department Stores

• Amusement Parks

• Preservation of green space, playgrounds/parks

• Amusement Parks built outside cities, so railcars and subways would be used

• Coney Island (1880s) in NY was incredibly popular

Leisure Time in the Gilded Age

•Sports• Bicycling: “Safety Bicycle” came out in

1885

• Boxing was a huge spectator sport of the time

• Pedestrianism

Leisure Time in the Gilded Age

• BASEBALL!• Middle-class office workers needed

something to do after work

• Begins as social event to give young men something to do

• Develops into competition

• Cincinnati Redstockings first professional (paid) team in 1869

• Ethnic tensions

• Excelsiors vs. Atlantics

• “No Irish Need Apply”

• Gentleman’s agreement