Immigration and urban growth increased dramatically in the late 19th century. Factors like poverty, wars, and lack of farmland pushed immigrants from Europe and Asia to the United States, while economic opportunity and religious freedom pulled them to America. New immigrants crowded into ethnic neighborhoods in cities and many lived in poor conditions in tenements and urban slums. Reformers like Jane Addams aimed to improve life for the urban poor. New technologies like steel construction enabled the growth of skyscrapers and changed the landscape of American cities.

1. Immigration & Urban Growth

2. Push-Pull Factors
Push Factors: Encourage or force people to leave a particular place.
Pull Factors: Are the economic and social attractions (real and imagined)
offered by the location to which people move (i.e. the things which attract
someone to migrate to a place).
PULL Factors PUSH Factors
Population Growth
Agricultural Changes
Crop Failures
Industrial Revolution
Religious and
Political Turmoil
Freedom
Economic Opportunity
Abundant Land

3. Cultural Pluralism
A condition in which smaller groups within a larger society maintain their
unique and distinct ethnic, religious, or cultural values and practices which
are accepted and tolerated within the larger cultural society.

4. Immigrants [Before 1890]
Between 1600 and 1890 about 20 million immigrants arrived from Western
Europe. Because the United States was young and growing these immigrants
were welcomed to help develop cities, build roads, construct canals, and farm
fields.
Germans Belgians
English French
SwissDutch

5. Flood of Immigration Chart

6. When Who Situation Why Did They
Emigrate?
1840s-1850s Irish Famine resulting
from failure of
potato crop.
To find food
1840s-1880s Germans Unemployment;
wars
To find jobs; to get
away from wars.
1870s-1900s Norwegians,
Danes, Swedes
Shortage of
farmland
To find new
farmland
1880s-1920s Poles Poverty; an
outbreak of cholera
To find jobs;
escape illness.
1880s-1920s Jews from Eastern
Europe
Religious
persecution
To be able to
worship freely.
1880s-1920s Austrians, Czechs,
Hungarians,
Slovaks, Italians
Poverty;
overpopulation
To find jobs
1910-1920s Mexicans Unemployment;
wars
To find jobs; to get
away from wars.
Where Did the Immigrants Come From?

7. Ellis Island
Ellis Island, a small island in New York Harbor near the Statue of Liberty,
served as a reception and processing center for most immigrants arriving by
ship from Europe in 1892.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRyO
5WCMFqs&index=2&list=PLrDqFKWaT
2eDXZJLusFS1nZ6-r5nwhmFK
Did You Know? It is estimated that
the ancestors of almost one-half of all
the people living in the United States
today passed through Ellis Island as
immigrants. Today Ellis Island is
open to the public. It contains the
Ellis Island Immigration Museum.
By this law, immigrants had to be
examined, and all convicts,
polygamists, prostitutes,
anarchists, persons suffering
from loathsome or contagious
diseases, and persons liable to
become public disturbances and
problems were all excluded from
the U.S.
Scene from the Godfather
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubT-
Bm36L2U

8. Angel Island
The reception center located near San Francisco, Ca. for immigrants arriving
by ship from Asia.

9. Immigrants [After 1890]
By 1890 the United States was overflowing with immigrants as about 10
million immigrants arrived every five years from Southern and Eastern
Europe including Greeks, Czechs, Hungarians, Italians, Poles, Jews, and
Russians.
Illiterate immigrants were willing to work cheap, accused of stealing jobs,
and easy prey for corrupt politicians.
Greeks
Italians
Poles
Hungarians
Russians
Irish

10. Nativists
US citizens who opposed immigration. Often mistrusted foreigners whose
cultural ways they could not understand. Foreign immigrants were victims of
violence and discrimination.
Hey McFly…
Why don’t you
act like a tree
and go!
Don’t you mean
act like a tree…
and leave Biff?
The increase in immigration led to
nativism, an extreme dislike for foreigners
by native-born people and the desire to
limit immigration. Earlier, in the 1840s
and 1850s, nativism was directed towards
the Irish. In the early 1900s, it was the
Asian, Jews, and eastern Europeans that
were the focus of nativism.

11. Problems and Concerns Caused by Immigration:
Many US citizens felt that immigrants took jobs away from people born in the
US. Most US citizens were Protestants, while many of the arriving immigrants
were Catholics.

12. How to Become a Citizen of the United States?
In order to acquire citizenship, an applicant must:
• File a petition for naturalization.
• Demonstrate the ability to read, write, and speak everyday English.
Exceptions: Persons physically unable to do so and people over
50 years old who have lived in the United States for 20 or more years.
• Demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of the fundamentals of
United States history and government.
• Present two reliable American citizens to serve as witnesses to the
applicant's character, residence, and loyalty.
• Renounce any allegiance to his/her former country and take an oath
of allegiance to the United States.
Literacy tests: Passed by Congress in 1917 in order to restrict immigration, the law enlarged the group of
immigrants that could be excluded from the United States. Literacy tests were imposed on all immigrants, and any
immigrant who could not pass the tests was not allowed entry into the U.S.

13. Additional Notes About Naturalization:
Naturalized citizens:
• Have the same rights as native-born citizens.
• May hold public office except the Presidency or Vice-
president.
Children born to foreign parents while in the United States are
considered native-born citizens.

14. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act that barred Chinese
immigration for 10 years and prevented the Chinese already in America
from becoming citizens. Supported by American workers who worried
about losing their jobs to Chinese immigrants who would work for less pay.
This act was renewed by Congress in 1892, made permanent in 1902, and
not repealed until 1943.
•
Chinese Exclusion Acts of 1882

15. Ethnic Neighborhoods
Neighborhoods where immigrants
from a certain region or country
tended to live together due to their
common culture, language, and
heritage.

16. Little Italy, New York City, circa 1901
Chinatown, New York City
Irish Neighborhood
Polish Neighborhood
Germantown,
Chicago, Ill.
Ethnic Neighborhood Examples

17. Urban Slums
Poor, inner-city neighborhoods.
Overcrowded and impoverished, these slums often had open
sewers that attracted rats and other disease-spreading pests.

18. Tenements
Built by a landlord, tenements were small housing units that were extremely
overcrowded, poorly built, and that contained filth. There was a lack of fresh
air and light in these housing units, and in addition, they were inhabited
mainly by new immigrants. The worst tenements became known as slums.

20. Sweatshops
These were makeshift factories set up by private contractors in small
apartments or unused buildings.
Sweatshops relied on poor workers (usually immigrants) who worked long
hours for little pay.

21. Jane Addams and Hull House
The settlement house movement was promoted by reformers who felt it was
their Christian duty to improve the living conditions of the poor. Jane
Addams set up settlement houses in poor neighborhoods. Addams opened Hull
House in 1889 and inspired many others, including Lillian Wald’s Henry
Street settlement house in New York City. Medical care, recreation programs,
and English classes were provided at settlement houses.

22. Margaret Sanger (1883-1966)
American leader of the movement to legalize birth control during the early
1900's. As a nurse in the poor sections of New York City, she had seen the
suffering caused by unwanted pregnancy.
Founded the first birth control clinic in the U.S. and the American Birth Control
League, which later became Planned Parenthood.
In 1917, Margaret Sanger was jailed for one month for
establishing the first birth control clinic.

23. Urbanization & Urban
Growth

24. Urban Growth
A growing population meant more people were living in the city. As cities grew,
more jobs were opening up for people to get a better pay, have benefits, and
live a more luxurious life than living on the farm.
Today, more than 95% of today's population lives in the cities.

25. The New Urban Lifestyle and Entertainment:
People looked for ways to amuse themselves after the work day
had ended, so new means of leisure and entertainment began to
grow in the cities.
Among men, saloons became popular places to drink, socialize,
forge bonds, and engage in politics.
Women enjoyed dance halls and cabarets where they could
watch musical shows and try the latest dances.
For families, there were amusement parks and vaudeville shows
(inexpensive variety shows).
City parks were developed. Most notable was New York's
Central Park.

26. Urban Hazards
Water
1860s cities had inadequate or no piped water and indoor plumbing was rare.
Filtration was introduced in the 1870s and chlorination in 1908.
Sanitation
Horse manure littered streets, open gutters, factory smoke, and poor trash
collection.
By 1900, cities began to develop sewer lines and create sanitation
departments.
City Sanitation [Story of US] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf2zBYjvFMI

27. Urban Hazards
Crime
As urban population grew, so did its crime rate.
Early police forces were too small to be effective.
Fire
Limited water supply within cities to put out fires.
Building were built close which enabled fires to spread quickly.
Many building were made of wood.
Most firefighters were volunteers and not always available.
by 1900, most cities had full-time professional fire departments.
Rise in Crime [Story of US]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tSO2P0QCTk

28. Patterns of Urban Growth-Series of Rings (1865-1900)
Center Ring- Central Business District
Second Ring- Apartments occupied by the poor
Third Ring- Middle class housing
Outer Ring- "Suburban" occupied by the Wealthy Upper Class
Outer Ring
Third Ring
Second Ring
Center Ring

29. Suburbs
Residential areas outside the inner city increased divisions in economic classes
developed.
Those of the middle and upper classes moved further out and left the inner
city to the poorer classes and immigrants.

30. John A. Roebling (1806-1869)
Roebling pioneered the development of suspension bridges and designed the
Brooklyn Bridge, but died before its construction was completed.

31. Louis Sullivan (1856-1914)
Sullivan was an American architect who used steel frames to design sky
scrappers. He was also the founder of what is now the Chicago School of
Architects. His most famous pupil was Frank Lloyd Wright, who later
became a famous architect. Together with his partner Dankmar Adler, he
produced over 100 buildings.

32. Steel Construction Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEtZ-iQAVq0