The Americans Chapter 7

1. The New Immigrants
Through the Golden Door
19th-20th centuries millions of immigrants am to
the US
Came for many reasons
“birds of passage” – immigrants who came
temporarily to earn $ and return home.

2. Europeans
•1870-1910
•20 million came to the U.S.
•Many came to escape religious persecution
• increased population
• independence

3. Chinese and Japanese
•1851-1883
•300,000 Chinese arrived
•Seek fortunes in gold
• helped build railroads
• worked farming, mining, and domestic
service
• 1882 Chinese immigration was limited by
Congress.

4. West Indies and Mexico
•1880-1920
•260,000
•People from W. Indies came because jobs were
scarce.
•Mexicans came because work was scarce and
political turmoil at home.

5. Life in the New Land
• Immigrants faced new
adjustments to a sometimes
unfriendly culture.

6. Most traveled by steamship
Trip lasted 1-3 weeks
Immigrants were usually crowded below in
the cargo hold
Usually slept in lice infested beds
Disease spread quickly
Many died on the ship
DIFFICULT JOURNEY

8. Processing took 5 or more
hours.
-must pass a physical
exam.
-- government inspectors
checked documents and
questioned immigrants

9. Ellis Island
• Immigrants had to
pass inspection at
immigration stations.
• 1st was Castle Garden
in NY and later
moved to Ellis Island.
17 million immigrants passed through its facilities.
http://player.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm?guidAssetId=7c994a75-4f2c-4579-b4dc-691b55b6d905&blnFromSearch=1&productcode=US

10. Immigrants could not have
been convicted of a felony in
the past.

11. Angel Island
Located on the West Coast
Immigrants processed were
mostly Chinese.
1910 – 1940 50,000
immigrants entered the U.S.
through Angel Island.

12. Harsh questioning
Long detention in
ramshackle
conditions while
they waited to see
if they would be
admitted or not.

13. Competition for Survival
• Many immigrants sought people who:
– shared their cultural values
– Practiced their religion
– Spoke their native language
– They thought of themselves as – Americans
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFgCXqVjfBA&list=PL0
3082916D172BF33&index=3

14. • Immigrants pooled
their money
together to:
– Build churches
• Social clubs
• Old people’s homes
• Orphanages
• Cemeteries
• Start newspapers
Click to edit Master text styles

16. Native born people often disliked immigrants
and viewed them as a threat to the American
way of life.

17. Immigration Restrictions
• Many Americans saw America as a melting pot
– mixture of different cultures and races who
blended together by abandoning their native
languages and customs.
• Many immigrants did not want to give up their
cultures.

18. Response to Immigration

19. Nativists –
considered
themselves
superior.

20. • Rejected religious beliefs more than their
ethnic backgrounds.
• Did not want Catholics or Jews because they
thought they would undermine democratic
institutions.

21. • 1887 – The American Protective Association was formed.
• Anti-Catholic
Many colleges, businesses, and social clubs refused to
admit Jews.
• 1897 - Congress passed a bill requiring a literacy test for
immigrants.
• Must read 40 or more words in English or in their own
language to be admitted.
• President Cleveland vetoed

22. • 1873- pressure to restrict Asian immigration.
• Jobs were scarce
• Asians would work for less
• 1882- Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act
– Closed immigration for 10 yrs.
– Extended in 1892
– Finally restricted indefinitely
– Not repealed until 1943

23. The Gentlemen’s Agreement
• 1906 - Japanese children were segregated and
placed in separate schools.
– Japan protested the treatment of its emigrants.
– Gentlemen’s Agreement- 1907-1908
• Japan agreed to limit emigration of unskilled workers to the
U.S. in exchange for desegregation.

24. The Challenges of Urbanization
• 1870 – 1920 the urban
population changed
from 10 million to 54
million.

25. Urban Opportunities
• Urbanization –
– growth of cities
– Mostly regions of the
Northwest and Midwest.

26. Immigrants Settle in Cities
• Cities were the
cheapest and most
convenient place to live.
• Offered unskilled
workers steady jobs.
• 1910 – more than ½ the
total population of 18
major cities included
immigrants.

27. Americanization Movement
• Designed to assimilate people to the dominate
culture.
• Sponsored by government and by concerned
citizens.
• Education was provided to help w/assimilation
• Many immigrants still did not want to change
• Ethnic communities became overcrowded.

28. Migration From Country to City
• New farm equipment = less workers needed
• People moved to the city to find work
• Many farmers who lost their livelihoods were
African Americans
– 1890-1910 – 200,000 moved north and west

29. African-American Migration
• Many moved to escape:
– racial violence
– economic hardship
– political oppression
– Segregation
– Discrimination
• Found all of these things in the northern cities
also.
• Job competition between black and white.

30. Urban Problems

31. Housing
• 2 options:
– 1. House on outskirts of
town.
• Transportation problems
– 2. Rent cramped rooms
in a boarding house in
central city.
• 2-3 families may live in
one house

32. 5 cent rooms

33. Men’s Dwellings

34. Women’s Dwellings

35. Immigrant Family Dwelling

36. U.S. journalist and social
reformer.
Wrote that the multi-
family urban dwellings
called tenements, were
overcrowded and
unsanitary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzT8EqhuYxA&
feature=related

37. Transportation
• Mass transit –
transportation systems
designed to move large
numbers of people
along fixed routes.
• enabled workers to
travel easier.

38. 1873
San Francisco – 1st street cars were
invented.

39. Water
• Problem of safe drinking water
• NY and Cleveland built water works
• 1860’s residents still had inadequately piped
water or none at all.
• NY homes seldom had indoor plumbing

40. – Residents had to collect water in pails from
faucets on the street.
– Water improvements were needed to control
cholera and typhoid fever.
• 1870 – filtration of water was introduced.
• 1908 – chlorination was introduced.

41. Sanitation
• Garbage multiplied in
streets.
• Sewage flowed in open
gutters.
• Factories spewed smoke
• Trash collection was not
dependable.
• 1900’s sewer lines were
developed.
• Sanitation departments
were created.

42. Crime
• Pickpockets and thieves
flourished.
• 1844 NY – 1st organized
police force.
– Too small for much
impact.

43. Fire
• Occurred due to lack of
water.
• 1870s-1880s – a fire
occurred in almost
every large American
city.
• Causes:
– Wood dwellings. Use of
candles, kerosene
heaters.

44. • Firemen were
volunteers and not
always available.
• 1853 – Cincinnati, Ohio
established the first fire
department.
• 1900s – most cities had
them.

45. Reformers Mobilize

46. Settlement Houses
• Community centers
established by
reformers.
• In slum neighborhoods.
• Provided assistance to
people in the area,
especially immigrants.

47. Many settlement workers lived at the houses so they could
learn 1st hand of urbanization problems and help create
solutions.

48. -Run by college-
educated, middle-
class women.
-Provided
educational,
cultural, and social
services.
Sent visiting nurses
into the homes of
the sick.

49. 1886 -Charles Stover and Stanton Coit founded settlement
houses in NY.
1889 – Jane Addams and Ellen Gates founded Chicago’s Hull
House.
Jane Addams Hull House

50. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mDcgQDY2k4&list=PL03082916D172BF33&index=5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfqbPW3MDVk&list=PL03082916D172BF33&index=4
1910 – about 400 settlement houses were
operating in cities across the country.
Helped cultivate social responsibility toward the
urban poor.

51. Section 3
Politics in the Guilded Age

52. Mark Twain
• Wrote a book called the
Guilded Age.
• Describes the glittering
exterior of the age, but
hides a political core
and growing gap
between few rich and
many poor.

53. The Emergence of Political
Machines

54. The Political Machine
• an organized group that controlled the
activities of a political party in a city.
• Offered services to voters and businesses in
exchange for political or financial support.
• Gained control of govts. In Baltimore, NY, San
Francisco, and other major cities.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSH1EIvTDGw&list=PL03082916D172BF33&index=8
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSH1EIvTDGw&feature=autoplay&list=PL03082916D172BF33&playnex
t=1

55. Elected
Candidates
City Boss
Controlled activities of
political party
throughout the city.
Ward Boss
Helped poor
Gained support by
doing favors or
providing services
Precinct Workers
captains
Gained voter support
of city-block or
neighborhood.
Reported to ward
boss

56. Role of The Political
Boss
• Controlled access to municipal jobs and
business licenses.
• Influenced courts and other municipal
agencies.

57. Roscoe Conkling
• NY
• Used power to build:
– parks
– Sewer systems
– Water works
• Gave money to schools,
hospitals, and
orphanages.
• Could provide
government support for
new businesses.

58. Immigrants and the Machine
• Many precinct captains
and political bosses were
1st or 2nd generation
immigrants.
• Few educated beyond
grammar school.
• Understood immigrants
• Entered politics at the
bottom and worked their
way up.
• Helped immigrants
w/naturalization, housing,
and jobs.
• Immigrants gave them
votes in exchange.

59. Big Jim Pendergast
Irish saloonkeeper
Precinct captain ->
Democratic city boss in
Kansas City by aiding
Italian, African
American, and Irish
workers.

60. Municipal Graft and Scandal
• Some turned to fraud
• Party faithfuls voted many times using fake
names.
• Once the machine candidate was in office, it
could take advantage of graft.
– Graft - the illegal use of political influence for
personal gain.

61. Advantages of Graft
• Granted favors to businesses in return for cash
• Accepted bribes to allow activities, such as
gambling, to flourish.
• Police rarely interfered because they were
hired and fired by political bosses.

62. Tweed Ring Scandal
• William M. Tweed –
– “Boss Tweed”
– Head of Tammany Hall –
a NY Democratic political
machine.
– Led the Tweed Ring – a
group of corrupt
politicians that
defrauded the city.

63. • One scheme involved the construction of the
NY courthouse.
– Taxpayers paid $13 million, but the actual cost of
construction was $3 million.
– The difference went into the pockets of Tweed
and his followers.
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YildL_ilQFY&list=PL03082916D172BF33&index=7

64. Thomas Nast
• Political cartoonist
• Helped arouse public
outrage against
Tammany Hall’s graft
and the Tweed Ring

72. “A Group of Vultures Waiting for the Storm to ‘Blow Over’—‘Let Us
Prey

73. • Tweed - was indicted on 120 counts of fraud
and extortion and sentenced to 12 years in jail
– His sentence was later reduced to 1 year.
– He was quickly arrested again and escaped from
jail.
– He was captured in Spain when officials
recognized him from a Thomas Nast cartoon.

74. Civil Service Replaces Patronage
• Patronage Spurs Reform –
– Patronage – giving of government jobs to people
who helped the candidate get elected
– Reforms began to press for patronage to end
• They wanted a merit system for hiring.

75. Reform Under Hayes, Garfield, and
Arthur
• Rutherford B. Hayes – elected in 1876
– Could not get Congress to support reform
– Elected independents to his cabinet
– Set up a commission to investigate the nation’s
customhouses
– As a result of investigation, Hayes fired 2 of NY’s
top officials employed by the customhouse.
– Angered Republicans and Roy Conklin and his
Stalwarts.

76. • When Hayes decided not to run for re-election
a fight broke out at the Republican convention
between the Stalwarts and reformers.
• They decided on an independent candidate,
James A. Garfield.
• The Republicans nominated Chester A. Arthur
for V.P.

77. • 7/2/1881 – President Garfield
walked through the
Washington D. C. train station
and was shot two times by a
mentally unstable lawyer
named Charles Guiteau,
whom Garfield had turned
down for a job.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6USyilfk6w&feature=relate
d

78. • Garfield lived until September 19.
• Chester A. Arthur became president and
despite his ties to the Stalwarts, he turned
reformer when he became president.
– His first message to Congress urged legislators to
pass a civil service law.

79. Pendleton Civil Service Act
• 1883
• Authorized a bipartisan civil service
commission to make appointments to federal
jobs through a merit system based on
candidates’ performance on an exam.
• 1901 – more than 40% of all federal jobs had
been classified as a civil service positions.

80. Good – government officials became
more honest and efficient.
Bad – politicians turned to other
sources for donations.

81. Business Buys
Influence
• Politicians turned to wealthy
businessmen for campaign contributions.
• The alliance between government and
business became stronger than ever.

82. • Big business
– Wanted government to raise tariffs to protect it
from foreign competition.
– Democratic govt. did not want to raise tariffs
because they increased prices.
– 1884 – Dem. Won presidential election – Grover
Cleveland.
– He tried to lower tariffs, but could not get support
from Congress.

83. • 1888 – Benjamin Harrison was elected
president.
– He had about 100,000 less popular votes than
Cleveland, but had the majority of electoral votes.
– McKinley Tariff Act – 1890
• Raised tariffs to highest level yet.

84. • 1892 – Cleveland was elected again.
– The only president to serve 2 non-consecutive terms.
– He supported a bill for lowering the McKinley tariff,
but refused to sign it because it provided for a federal
income tax.
– 1894 – The Wilson Gorman Tariff became law without
the president’s signature.
– When McKinley became president he raised tariffs