This document provides information on immigration and urbanization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States. It discusses factors that pushed and pulled immigrants to come to America from Europe and Asia, the process they went through at entry points like Ellis Island and Angel Island, concerns over cultural changes and nativism, urban living conditions and problems in large cities, and some reform efforts. Key figures discussed include Jane Addams and her founding of Hull House to help immigrants in Chicago.

1. IMMIGRATION &
URBANIZATION
CHAPTER 15

2. SSUSH12 The student will analyze important
consequences of American industrial growth.
a.Describe Ellis Island, the change in immigrants’
origins to southern and eastern Europe and the
impact of this change on urban America.
SSUSH13 The student will identify major
efforts to reform American society and
politics in the Progressive Era.
b. Identify Jane Addams and Hull House and
describe the role of women in reform movements.

3. CAUSES OF IMMIGRATION:
PUSH V. PULL FACTORS
“Push”_____
• Famine
• Lack of
opportunity
• Racial, religious,
political
persecution
• Compulsory
military service
“Pull”____
• Economic opportunity –
industrialization
created jobs
• Freedom from
persecution
• RR advertisements
• Legislation –
Contract Labor Law

4. THROUGH THE “GOLDEN DOOR”
• Many immigrants came to American in hopes of
having a better life; some wanted to come to stay,
others wanted to come only for a short while, and
then return home
• Roughly 20 million Europeans emigrated to the US
b/t 1870—1920. Most were from Western and
Northern Europe
• Many left their homeland b/c of religious
persecution (Jews)
• Some left b/c of rising populations in their
homelands—no opportunities to better their lives

5. NATIVISM
• A political movement seeking to guarantee better treatment for native-born
Americans.
• The American Protective Association—called for the teaching of American
culture and English-only instruction in schools.
• Fought for the Chinese Exclusion act…
• Supported forced literacy tests for immigrants.
• The biggest targets were immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and
Asia.

6. IMMIGRANTS
• Chinese and Japanese immigrants came to the west
coast b/t 1851—1883. Nearly 300,000 Chinese arrived
and settled in California during the gold rush
• Chinese immigrants helped build the nation’s RR lines
• Once the RR was complete, they turned to farming out
west
• The US annexation of Hawaii in 1898 resulted in massive
Japanese immigration to the west coast
• About 260,000 immigrants from the West Indies came to
the east coast by 1920
• About 700,000 Mexicans emigrated to the US by 1910

7. “Steerage” Accommodations

8. ELLIS ISLAND
• Nearly all immigrants traveled by steamship to the US;
they stayed in the ships cargo holds, and were not
allowed to come up to the ships deck
• Disease spread quickly on these trips due to the lack of
sanitation
• Once they arrived in the US, many did not know whether
they would be admitted into the country
• Immigrants on the east coast had to go through Ellis
Island, NY for inspection before being allowed in the US
• Physical exam
• Documents to determine legal status (no felony, ability to work, at
least $25)

9. Ellis Island, 1905

10. ELLIS ISLAND, NY

11. Ellis Island Processing Facilities

12. Rejected Ellis Island immigrants, waiting for deportation

13. An immigrant
in quarantine

14. IMMIGRATION BY NUMBERS, 1865-1920
1865-1890
(First Wave)
• Germany—2.8 million
• Great Britain—1.8
million
• Ireland—1.4 million
1890-1920
(Second Wave)
• Italy—3.8 million
• Russia—3 million
• Millions more from
eastern Europe, Greece,
Armenia and Middle
East.

15. ANGEL ISLAND
• While European immigrant had to go through Ellis Island,
NY; Asian immigrants had to pass through Angel Island in
San Francisco, California
• Conditions in Angel Island were much worse than Ellis
Island—many more were denied entrance into the US
• Once in America, immigrants sought out people within
their culture so they would understand the language/
customs, even though they were in America
• Large urban cities had individual communities within them;
Chinatown, Little Italy, Russia, Irish, etc. were common in
NY, Boston, San Francisco
• Many native born Americans felt threatened by so many
immigrants in the US

16. ANGEL ISLAND, CA

17. IMMIGRATION RESTRICTIONS
• Native born Americans felt as if the country was a melting
pot—mixture of people of different cultures blended together
by abandoning their native languages and customs.
However, many immigrants refused to abandon their culture—
strong anti-immigrant feelings began to emerge
• Nativism —overt favoritism toward native-born Americans—
began to evolve during the early 1900s
• Nativists believed that Anglo-Saxons were superior to other
ethnic groups, and favored immigrants from “right” countries
like Britain, Germany, & Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway,
Finland).
• Nativists disliked those from “wrong” ethic blood like Slavic,
Latin, and Asian
• Many Nativists also felt religious beliefs of immigrants was
important; Jews and Roman Catholics would undermine the
traditional Protestant faith of the US

18. ANTI-ASIAN SENTIMENT
• People in the west feared that jobs would be given to
the Chinese, who would work for less money than native
born Americans
• Sound familiar?
• In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act,
which banned the Chinese from entering the US unless
they were students, teachers, merchants, tourists, or govt
officials. The law was not repealed until 1943
• In 1906, the school board in San Francisco segregated
Japanese students, which caused them to protest the
city
• President Teddy Roosevelt worked out a Gentlemen’s
Agreement in 1908 w/ Japan’s govt to stop letting
unskilled workers emigrate to the US, in exchange for a
repeal of the school segregation law

20. REFORMERS MOBILIZE
• The Social Gospel movement preached salvation
through good deeds and services to the poor
• Many established settlement houses, which were
community centers in slum neighborhoods that gave
assistance & education to those in need (especially
immigrants)
• Jane Addams (the mother of Social Work) founded
Chicago’s Hull House in 1889

21. URBANIZATION

22. THE CHALLENGE OF
THE CITIES
• Between 1880 and 1920, 11
million Americans left farms
for the cities…
• Driven by drought, floods,
falling prices, new
opportunities, discrimination.
• 1880-1910—population on
farms falls from 72% to 54%
• This mass migration created
modern city life. The Home Insurance
Building

23. HOW CITIES GREW
• Suburbs developed
for middle class, live
near, not in a city
• Subways, trains, trolleys, and
cars
• Steel allows for
skyscrapers

24. URBAN LIVING CONDITIONS
• Most workers live in company
housing or tenements (cheap
apartments).
• Poverty, overcrowding, neglect, open
sewers, and vermin become common.
• Hundreds crammed into spaces built
for a few families.
• In NYC, 6 in 10 babies died before
their first birthday.
• Fires often destroyed dozens of city
blocks (Great Chicago Fire—18,000
buildings burned).
• Many neighborhoods become
“Ghettos”, dominated by one
particular ethnic group.
Aftermath of the Great Chicago Fire

25. JACOB RIIS
• Worked as a police reporter on
New York’s Lower East Side in
1873…
• Wrote a book called “How the
Other Half Lives”, which exposed
the lives of tenement dwellers.
• The book shocked the American
public into supporting reform of
the tenements.
• However, wealthy families
continue to flee to the suburbs,
making cities concentrations of
urban poor.

26. New York City, 1867

27. Wall Street, 1870

28. Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan

29. Five Points,
Manhattan
(now demolished)

30. A Flophouse

31. A Tenement’s Exterior

32. A Tenement’s Interior

33. “Bandit’s
Roost”,
Greenwich
Village

34. Basement
Dweller

35. Mulberry Street, Manhattan

36. URBAN PROBLEMS
Housing Transportation Water Sanitation Crime Fire
Many
immigrants
had to live
in
tenements
Horrible
living
conditions!
Mass
transit
made
getting
around in
large cities
easy
Street cars
in SanFran
Subways in
Boston, NY
Fresh
water was
difficult to
provide to
residents in
large cities
Fresh
water had
to be
gathered
from the
street,
then
boiled to
be safe
Everything
was
thrown
into the
streets
•Garbage
•Sewage
•Factory
waste
Pickpocket
Thieves
1844 NYC
had 1st full
time
salaried
police
force
The lack of
water
made fires
difficult to
contain
Cincinnati
had 1st fire
dept.

37. 200 YEARS OF PROGRESS

38. NEW FORMS OF ENTERTAINMENT
• Men go to saloons, women to dance halls
and cabarets
• Amusement parks
• Nickelodeons
• Vaudeville
• Sports
• Baseball
• Women participate in sports
• Bicycling Fad
• Newspapers
• Yellow Journalism
• William Randolph Hearst

39. MAGAZINES AND POPULAR FICTION
• Magazines like Cosmopolitan
• Horatio Alger – Fictional Character
• Rags to riches stories
• Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain)
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn