industrialization, immigration, and urbanization in the gilded age

Industrialization, Immigration, and Urbanization in the Gilded

Age

The Gilded Age

• What does ‘Gilded Age’ mean?• As we progress through this unit, please

decide if the “Gilded Age” is an appropriate term for this period in U.S. History.

Journal Write(s)

• What was the Industrial Revolution? What do the words Industrial and Revolution mean?

• Please discuss three inventions that have been created or greatly improved in your lifetime.

Industrialization

• Industrialization occurs when a nation begins producing goods by machine instead of by hand.

The Agricultural Revolution

• Fewer people could produce more food.• Some people moved to cities to find wage-

earning jobs in industry.

Factors Contributing to the Rise of Industrialization

• Geographical Advantages – rivers, ports, timber, coal, iron ore, fertile soil for plantation crops, etc.

• Improved transportation and communication.

• New inventions and technology.• Wealthy Entrepreneurs.• Stable Political Systems.• Plentiful labor.

Why do people immigrate to the United States?

• Everyone is seeking a better life.• Some are looking for work to improve the

standard of living of their families.• Some seek political or religious freedoms

that are guaranteed in the United States.• Some are refugees, escaping war or

political persecution.• Education Opportunities.

Immigration to the United States

• 1866 -1915 - 25 million immigrants entered the United States.

• Industrialization encouraged immigration; people seeking jobs in factories.

• The “New Immigrants” - Shift in sources of immigration from northern and western Europe to southern and eastern Europe.

• Before 1800, only 200,000 southern and eastern Europeans had migrated to America. Between 1880 and 1910, approximately 8.4 million arrived.

Ellis Island

• Replaced Castle Garden Immigrant Processing Center in 1892

• More than 12 million immigrants came through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924.

• Immigrants arrived by ship, were ‘processed’ (names registered and often changed, medical examinations, mental examinations, lots of waiting, etc.)

Angel Island

• Immigration processing center in San Francisco Bay.

• Many Chinese immigrants entered through Angel Island.

• Approximately 300,000 immigrants entered through Angel Island.

• Angel Island Poems

Reactions to Immigration

• Economic Exploitation – Offered very little money for very hard work in dangerous conditions.

• Political Exploitation – politicians manipulated immigrants for votes.

• Nativism/Racism• Social Darwinism – ‘survival of the fittest’

philosophy toward human societies. Those living in poverty are in such a situation because they are inferior.

Urbanization

• The process of creating cities.• Industrialization drew large numbers of

people seeking jobs to areas around industry.

• The United States transformed from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy.

• Tenements

• “. . . A brick building from four to six stories high on the street, frequently with a store on the first floor. . . Four families occupy each floor, and a set of rooms consists of one or two dark closets, used as bedrooms, with a living room twelve feet by ten. The staircase is too often a dark well in the center of the house, and no direct ventilation is possible, each family being separated from the other by partitions.”

Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives

Immigration Restrictions

• Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882 – Excluded Chinese, as well “feebleminded” lunatics that could become public charges.

• Immigration Act of 1924, also known as the National Origins Act – limited the number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States in 1890.

The “Well-Greased” Political Machine

• Boss Tweed, Tammany Hall• The Democratic Party bribed the state legislature to pass

laws that increased the power of the city to tax, borrow, and spend.

• Then a leader built public support by spending tax funds on various charities, helping the poor, and funding construction projects.

• The poor and those receiving jobs and construction contracts, in turn, were expected to vote for the politicians.

• When helping construction businesses, city governors expected kickbacks from already inflated construction budgets, as well as votes.

“Go right down among the poor families and help them in the different ways they need help. . . It’s philanthropy, but it’s politics too – mighty good politics. . . The poor are the most grateful people in the world, and let me tell you, they have more friends in their neighborhoods than the rich have in theirs. If there’s a family in my district in want I know it before the charitable societies, and me and my men are first on the ground . . . The consequence is that the poor look up to George W. Plunkitt as a father, come to him in trouble – and don’t forget him on election day.” George W. Plunkitt

Economic Corruption

• Railroads - Vanderbilt• John D. Rockefeller – Standard Oil Company

– Horizontal integration – bought up all oil refineries.– Vertical Integration - Rockefeller acquired oil leases,

oil wells, pipelines, advantageous transportation contracts with railroads, and retail stores.

– Cartel/Pool - a group of producers who cooperated to control producing, pricing, and marketing of goods

– Monopoly – by 1890, Rockefeller controlled 90% of the petroleum industry.

Let’s Draw the Gilded Age

• Draw a comparison of the good and bad aspects of the Gilded Age. – On one half of a sheet of paper draw the

“golden” side of the Gilded Age.– On the other half of that sheet of paper, draw

the ugly underside of the Gilded Age.

Industrialization

ImmigrationUrbanization

Let’s Draw!

Letter Home

• You are a recent immigrant to the United States writing a letter home to your family. Your letter must include the following:– Why you immigrated to the United States.– What was your immigration experience? (On the ship, during processing

at the immigration station, where did you land, etc.)– What are your hopes?– What are your fears?– What city did you finally end up in? What is it like?– How are you treated by the other immigrants? How are you treated by

the ‘natives’?– What are your living conditions like?– Where do you work? What are your working conditions like?– Is the United States all you had hoped it would be? Why or why not?

Your letter must be one to two pages in length.