Regions of Europe

European Immigration Pre-1890

• Mostly immigrants from western Europe– English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, German

• And immigrants from northern Europe– Scandinavian (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark)

• Tended to:– Come with some money– Have skills / training in specific trades (jobs)– Be Protestant (= Christian but not Catholic)– Exception: Irish (poor, unskilled, Catholic)

European Immigration Post-1890

• Mostly immigrants from southern Europe– Greek, Italian

• And immigrants from eastern Europe– Russian, Polish, Czech, Bohemian, Austria-

Hungarian• Tended to:

– Be poorer than earlier immigrants– Have fewer skills / training in specific trades (jobs)– Be Catholic or Jewish

Who Else?

• African Americans moving from the South to northern cities – Called the Great Migration– Came in response to racist southern laws called

Jim Crow laws– Jim Crow laws:

• legally separated the races• discriminated against African Americans

Who Else?

• Immigrants from Mexico– Came during the Gold Rush and worked as farmers,

ranchers and cowboys out West and on the railroads

• Immigrants from Asia (China and Japan)– Came during the Gold Rush and worked as farmers,

ranchers and cowboys out West and on the railroads

– Often came through Angel Island (on the West Coast in California)

Traveling in “steerage” class

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries sheWith silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Ethnic Groups in Chicago’s Hull House Neighborhood

Immigrant Cities

1910

% immigrants and their US-born children

New York 78.6%Chicago 77.5%Milwaukee 78.6San Francisco 68.3

Overall, the foreign-born = 14.8% of US population in 1910(12.5% in 2009)

Conflicted Views on Immigration

LOVE IT HATE IT

Many Excuses

forNativism:

• Disease• Superstition• Poverty• Anarchy• Sabbath desecration• Intemperance• Crime The Immigrant: The Stranger at Our Gate from The Ram’s Horn April 25, 1896

Source: www.projects.vassar.edu/1896/0425ramshorn.html

Chinese Exclusion Act

• The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress in 1882 to prevent Chinese immigration to the U.S.

What does “progressive” mean?

• Progressive = wanting progress, to improve or change society.

• Someone who is progressive generally supports change.

• Someone who is conservative generally resists change (they want to conserve, or preserve, tradition or the way things already are)

What does “progressive” mean?

• For example, in the early 1900s, it was progressives, not the conservatives, who wanted women to get the right to vote (suffrage).

• We use the word “Progressives” to refer to a diverse group of people who tried to reform (change) society for the better at the turn of the century. This is called the “Progressive Era.”

The Progressive EraDefinition:

The period from (roughly) 1890-1920 whenmany diverse groups in American societylaunched efforts to reform or eliminate themany social problems resulting from rapidindustrialization, urbanization, andimmigration.

Who Were the Progressives?

1. Women2. Evangelicals3. Journalists4. Social Workers5. Experts6. Professionals7. Politicians8. Conservationists9. Civil Rights Activists

The Progressive Era

“Progressives” tried to solve problems that came from:

1. Industrialization (dangerous, pollutingfactories; unfair monopolies)

2. Urbanization (crowded, dirty cities)

3. Immigration (ethnic tension; people notspeaking English or otherwise fitting in)

Response to industrialization:

• Crackdown on monopolies• Safer conditions in factories• Better working conditions for immigrants

Response to urbanization:

• City improvements:– Public parks– Safer buildings– Skyscrapers (to help with crowding)– Public transportation (example: subways)– Sewer systems

Response to immigration:

• Progressives wanted to teach the new (post-1890) immigrants how to be more like the older (pre-1890) immigrants

• They wanted to assimilate them, or make them fit in, to America

• This was called Americanization.

Response to immigration:

• Americanization was good in some ways because it helped immigrants– English classes (as a result, America became the most

literate nation on earth at the time)• Remember how Joseph Donnelly from Far and Away

couldn’t read the flyer about land that Shannon Christie showed him?

– American government classes– Cooking classes– Settlement Houses (helped the poor)

• Most famous: Jane Addams’ “Hull House”

Response to immigration:

• There was also a disrespectful, condescending side to Americanization, however…– English classes (your language is inferior)– Government classes (your political ideas are

dangerous)– Cooking classes (your ethnic food is inferior)– Religion classes (your beliefs are inferior)

Response to immigration:

• Progressives were especially worried about:– The influence of alcohol

• The temperance movement was a movement that tried to get people to stop drinking and tried to make alcohol illegal. It eventually succeeded for a while. In 1919, an amendment was passed that prohibited the selling of alcohol in the U.S. This was the 18th amendment. The time when alcohol was prohibited in the U.S. (thirteen years) was called Prohibition. However, in 1933, the 21st amendment repealed (cancelled) the 18th amendment.

Response to immigration:

• Progressives were also worried about:– The influence of Catholics. Why?

• Because it was different. The older immigrants (except for the Irish) had mostly been Protestant (non-Catholic) Christians.

• Some people feared that Catholics would follow the Catholic Pope in Rome, Italy instead of following the President and the U.S. government