4
"Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor…"

Immigration (the leaving of one's homeland to build a life in another country) was not a new concept at the dawn of the Gilded Age. The Gilded Age was the period in history following the American Civil War (1861–65) and Reconstruction (roughly the final twenty-three years of the nineteenth century), characterized by a ruthless pursuit of profit, an exterior of showiness and grandeur, and immeasurable political corruption. Foreigners had been leaving their homelands for America for centuries before the late 1800s. Historians of immigration generally divide immigration into three waves. The first wave crossed the Atlantic Ocean from 1815 to 1860; the second between 1860 and 1890. Immigrants of the first two waves were mostly British, Irish, German, Scandinavian, Dutch, and Swedish. The third wave crossed between 1890 and 1914. Immigrants of the third wave came primarily from Greece, Turkey, Italy, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Rumania.

It is important to understand immigration to the United States as a process, not as an event. It did not have an actual "start" date, nor will it have an "end" date. Still, immigration reached its peak during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era when nearly twelve million people entered the United States between 1890 and 1910. (The Progressive Era was a period in American history [approximately the first twenty years of the twentieth century] marked by reform and the development of a national cultural identity.) This influx (flowing in) of foreigners to the shores of America changed the nation's face forever.

Immigration records

Although immigration records dating back to the nineteenth century do exist, the numbers are not accurate either in terms of how many immigrants arrived in America or their ethnicity. This is so for a number of reasons.

Ellis Island was the major port (point of entry) for immigrants crossing the Atlantic Ocean to America. However, it was not the only port. Smaller ports dotted the shoreline, but those ports did not keep consistent or reliable records. The same can be said of overland immigrants from Canada and Mexico; some immigrants were counted, others were not.

Even after the immigration procedures were in place (see sidebar), immigrants were recorded according to their presumed nationality, not their ethnicity. This gives a distorted picture of who was coming to America's shores. For example, sizable portions of the millions of people emigrating from Britain were Irish. But because they came from Britain, they were recorded as British, not Irish. The only Irish in the records were those from Ireland. Likewise, "Jewish" was not a recognized ethnicity until after 1948. Before that, the word referred only to a person's religious belief. So the number of Jewish immigrants was highly underreported.

Still, the records—as imperfect as they are—provide a glimpse into the ethnic makeup of America during the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era (see table).

Immigration peaked between 1900 and 1915, when fifteen million people entered the United States. That is as many as in the previous forty years combined. Immigrants accounted for almost one-third of America's population growth during that time.

WORDS TO KNOW

anti-Semitism:

Prejudice against Jewish people.

coolies:

Unskilled Asian workers.

Gilded Age:

The period in history following the Civil War and Reconstruction (roughly the final twenty-three years of the nineteenth century), characterized by a ruthless pursuit of profit, an exterior of showiness and grandeur, and immeasurable political corruption.

immigration:

Leaving one's country to live in another.

labor union:

A formally organized association of workers that advances its members' views on wages, work hours, and labor conditions.

naturalization:

The process by which a person becomes a citizen of a country other than the one in which he or she was born.

port:

For an immigrant, point of entry into a country.

sojourners:

Immigrants who planned to stay in the United States temporarily; they usually stayed for a particular season or for a predetermined number of years before returning to their homeland.

Coming to America

Contrary to popular myth, most Gilded Age and Progressive Era immigrants were not the poorest people in their society. They paid their own way or had their journey funded by a relative, a friend, or even a prospective employer. Most of these immigrants were young adult males, single or married with wives back home, who planned to work in America for a few years, save money, and return home. Immigrants who did not plan to stay in the United States permanently were called sojourners. Other immigrants, usually single women or men with families in the United States, stayed permanently. Plans often depended on the immigrant's experience in America.

Again, recordkeeping was not consistent, and statistics of those who returned to their country of origin were not kept until 1909. It is impossible to know, therefore, how many immigrants were sojourners who returned to America time and again.

The long voyage

European immigrants had to cross the Atlantic Ocean to reach America's shores. Prior to the mid-1850s, the only method of transportation was the sailing ship. The trip took anywhere from one to three months, and it was a voyage of great discomfort.

Sailing ships were designed to carry cargo, not passengers. Captains, intent on making a profit by crowding as many passengers on board as possible, did little to adapt their ships. Flour, potatoes, tea, oatmeal, and maybe fish were provided. Water was provided too, but often it was stored in containers previously used to store oil and other liquids not intended for human consumption. Drinking that water put one's health at great risk.

Passengers often had only a few square feet of space per person. Narrow beds similar to bunk beds were poorly constructed, with a focus on quick dismantling rather than on comfort. There were no toilets or windows, which made sanitation a major problem. Passengers relieved themselves on deck, a habit that made conditions even worse. When a storm would hit, the ship would violently pitch, tossing around food, passengers, human waste, and anything else that was not secured to the deck.

Welcome to Ellis Island

Ellis Island is located near the shores of New York and New Jersey. A man named Samuel Ellis owned the island in the late eighteenth century, and the U.S. federal government bought it from him in 1808 for $10,000. The Army used the island from 1812 to 1814 and the Navy was there in 1876. In 1890, the House Committee on Immigration chose Ellis Island to be the site for an immigrant screening station. The old location for evaluating incoming immigrants, Castle Garden, which was located in lower Manhattan, was too small to handle the growing numbers of immigrants.

The government enlarged Ellis Island from just over three acres to fourteen acres and erected an immigration depot and several support buildings. The first immigrants passed through Ellis Island on January 1, 1892. The main depot was a two-story-structure built of pine, with a blue slate roof.

Once immigrants disembarked from the ship, they filed into the registry room, an impressive room that measured 200 feet by 100 feet and had a 56-foot-high ceiling. The room itself was divided into twelve narrow aisles separated by iron bars. Doctors examined new arrivals at the front of the room. These doctors, in addition to other immigration officials, complained about the leaky roof and other structural problems.

Inspectors determined that the building would probably last less than five years. The roof was in danger of collapsing under heavy snowfall or high winds. The doors were poorly hung and sometimes fell off their hinges. Architects estimated repairs at $150,000.

Nothing was done about the problems until 1895, when architect John J. Clark was sent to inspect the building. Clark assured officials that the roof did not need repair, a report that angered Ellis Island employees who knew it was leaky. In addition to the architectural flaws, the building was not able to handle the heavy flow of immigrants. The inspection process was slow, and there was nowhere to house immigrants while they were awaited its completion. In 1897, the government decided to add a 250-bed dormitory to the main building.

Before the dorm could be built, a fire burned most of the buildings to the ground. No one was hurt, but there were two hundred immigrants on the island at the time of the fire. It took three hours to destroy the station. Three years later, on December 17, 1900, a new reception hall opened its doors to new immigrants. Sixty-five hundred immigrants completed the inspection process in nine hours. This efficiency was possible because the new building was modeled after the train stations of the time, which handled thousands of people and tons of cargo every day.

Ellis Island was expanded to seventeen acres in 1898, and a second island was added by using the dirt and rock removed during nearby subway construction. A third island was added and completed by 1906. Dormitories, hospitals, kitchens, a baggage station, a bathhouse, an electrical plant, and the hiring of personnel to staff the depot raised the cost of renovations to a half million dollars. In 1954, the Immigration Services shut down Ellis Island, and activity resumed at the Manhattan immigration depot.

In 1885, the Statue of Liberty was given to America by the French. The statue—made up of 350 pieces and transported in 214 crates—arrived in the United States in June 1885; construction was completed in October of the following year. "Lady Liberty" was placed on Bedloe's Island (next to Ellis Island), where she became the symbol of freedom and hope for millions of immigrants. Bedloe's Island was renamed Liberty Island in 1956.

Jewish American poet Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) wrote the sonnet "The New Colossus" in 1883. It is engraved on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty. The poem contains the famous line, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.…"

Epidemics (widespread outbreaks of disease) were common and were the primary cause of death on immigrant ships. Typhus, a disease spread by head lice, was fatal if left untreated. Cholera was another deadly disease. Caused by infected drinking water, cholera victims became dehydrated to the point of death. Bodies were either thrown overboard or left on deck until the ship reached shore.

With the invention of the steamship came a shorter, more comfortable trip for immigrants. By 1867, the journey took just fourteen days; within forty years, that time was shortened to five-and-one-half days. The new ships were built specifically to carry passengers. Permanent beds were provided, and improved boilers allowed for reliable heating during the colder months. Health risks were greatly reduced as well, and throughout the Gilded Age, the average number of deaths at sea was less than 1 percent of all immigrants. Ships could hold around three hundred passengers in first class and another thousand in steerage (the bottom level of the ship, always the least expensive fare).

In 1882, Congress imposed stricter laws regarding passenger ships. Adults and older children required 100 cubic feet each, 120 if sailing on the lowest deck. All passengers had to be given three daily meals. Captains were required to set standards of hygiene and discipline among his passengers; for every death at sea, the company was charged $10. While the laws were a good beginning, most historians agree that they were nearly impossible to enforce.

During the 1880s, the immigrant trade became fiercely competitive. By 1882, there were forty-eight steamship companies fighting each other for business. All these companies were German- or British-owned; the United States never managed to break into this particular industry. The competition, however, worked in the favor of the immigrants for a short time. In 1875, rates on one of the most popular steamship lines were as low as $20 (steerage) and as high as $300 (first class). By the early 1880s, fares were reduced in order to attract passengers and could be bought for $10 to $20. This is the equivalent of about $193 to $386 in modern currency. Company owners soon conducted business the same way the railroads did, by forming "pools" and fixing prices so that no one company could undersell another.

The Immigration Process

First- and second-class immigrants passed through Ellis Island easily. Only the lowest classes were forced to endure a rigorous inspection. Even if these foreigners had nothing to hide, the process was stressful.

Immigrants were asked to give their names, ages, country of origin, and legal status in that country. Because many immigrants had last names that were difficult for inspectors to pronounce and spell, a great number of them were given new, more Americanized, names for their new lives. For people to whom family tradition held great value, this enforced name change was devastating.

After giving their occupation and work history, immigrants were asked questions about their religious and political beliefs. A health inspection followed this inquiry, and this was probably the most worrisome aspect of the process because immigrants had just spent weeks on board immigrant ships full of filth and disease. Many of the passengers left the ships ill. Immigrants were marked according to their condition: "P" indicated a pregnant woman; "X" was given to the mentally disabled. Anyone incurably ill was deported (sent home) immediately.

Immigrants who successfully cleared the inspection process then took an oath of loyalty to the United States and were allowed to enter. Where they went from Ellis Island depended on the plans they had made before the trip. A great many of them simply stayed in New York, at least temporarily, until they found work and saved money to move on.

The role of the railroads

Steamship companies brought immigrants to America, but the railroads were responsible for providing the motivation to make the journey. They owned thousands of acres of land they

no longer wanted and could provide immigrants something other promotional agencies could not: transportation to get to the land, and the opportunity to buy the land once they arrived. The railroads published booklets advertising America and making offers too good to be true. They tempted immigrants with reduced transportation fees by land and sea, low-interest loans, classes in farming, and even the promise to build churches and schools. Some railroad lines assured immigrants that they would be hired for railroad construction at $30 a month plus board. By the end of the nineteenth century, the railroads ended their recruitment campaigns. They had run out of land to sell at prices immigrants could afford.

Railroads offered just one option, however. After the American Civil War, the United States, northwestern states and territories in particular, had vast amounts of unsold land they wanted to get rid of. Realizing that an increase in population was the surest way to sell the land, state immigration bureaus focused their efforts on Germany, Britain, and Scandinavia. Pamphlets and newspapers advertised America as a land of great opportunity. One 1872 pamphlet, titled Colorado, A Statement of Facts, gave great encouragement to foreigners of all socioeconomic statuses. "The poor should come to Colorado, because here they can by industry and frugality better their condition. The rich should come here because they can more advantageously invest their means than in any other region. The young should come here to get an early start on the road to wealth."

The South also wanted cheap labor to replace the slaves it had recently lost following the North's victory in the Civil War. (Slavery had been outlawed.) Immigrants, however, were not attracted to the southern United States because it had virtually no unsold land and very little large-scale industry. Without these attractions, immigrants would have difficulty finding shelter as well as work.

Why they left

Although each immigrant had his or her own individual reasons for emigrating, the primary reasons for leaving home, regardless of region, were economic, political, or religious. For the early Irish immigrants, who left Ireland in the late 1840s to escape the potato famine (severe shortage because of crop failure; see box), the reason was economic. A combination of bad weather, questionable agricultural practices, and poor economic conditions caused the famine, which lasted five years. The famine left a million dead of starvation. Those Irish who left wanted little else than the promise of a steady supply of food.

The Potato Famine of the 1840s

By the mid-1800s, potatoes had been a standard crop in Ireland for more than two hundred years. The lower classes had become dependent on them for several reasons. They were easy to grow and required only one tool, a spade. They were easy to store and provided more calories per acre than any other crop grown in northern Europe. Potatoes were versatile and could be prepared in countless ways. Because they were nutritious, they helped keep disease at a minimum. In every way, potatoes were the ideal crop for people with little money to spare.

To increase the harvest, Irish farmers favored the lumper, one of the most fertile varieties of potato. By planting lumpers, farmers could grow more potatoes on less land. So year after year, the same crop was planted in the same fields.

Modern agriculture technique is based on the knowledge that crops must be rotated on a regular basis. To plant the same crop in the same soil year after year depletes the soil of necessary nutrients and guarantees crop failure. The Irish in the nineteenth century did not know about crop rotation. All they knew was that potatoes were inexpensive to grow, easy to store and prepare, and nutritious.

In 1845, Irish crops became infested with fungus. The weather turned warm and wet, which served only to cause the fungus to thrive and spread. Potatoes rotted in the fields throughout the country. The blight (infestation) continued, and soon the Irish found their potato surplus depleted. They had very little to eat. The few potatoes that did survive were replanted the following spring. And though they seemed healthy, some harbored strong strains of the fungus. As soon as the rains came, the blight began again. It took just weeks to strip Ireland of its potato crops for a second time.

Although the country's potato crops were ruined, other crops were untouched by the infestation. Farmers grew most of those crops in order to be exported to England, so they were not about to sell their food to their neighbors when they could get higher prices from England. Many Irish starved to death not because there was no food, but because the food that could be found was too expensive for them to buy.

In order to buy food to feed their families, potato farmers sold everything they owned—furniture, animals, and farming tools. Money that could have gone toward paying the rent was spent on food, and thousands of families were evicted (forced out of their homes). By the following spring, farmers had nothing to plant and nowhere to plant it. Very few potatoes survived the blight.

Irish farmers never again relied so heavily on one crop. In 1845, potato crops accounted for more than 2 million acres of land in Ireland. By 1847, only 300,000 acres of potato crops were planted.

The Irish

Nearly two million Irish from Ireland came to the United States in the 1840s. As they found steady work that allowed them to save money, they sent for friends and relatives. This kept a continuous flow of Irish coming into America. In total, about 3.5 million Irish from Ireland immigrated to the United States between 1820 and 1880. In the years between 1820 and 1860, the Irish accounted for one-third of all immigrants to America. Many more Irish emigrated from Britain, but because Britain was the point of departure, they were counted as British, not Irish, in immigration records.

Though not the poorest in Irish society, those who came to America were incredibly poor by American standards. Many of them did not have money beyond the ship fare, so they settled in the port at which they arrived. The main port of entry was Ellis Island, near New York City. Other major ports for European immigrants were Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Boston, Massachusetts; and Baltimore, Maryland. New York City eventually was home to more Irishmen than was Dublin, Ireland.

An 1870 census (a periodic count of the population) revealed that the Irish comprised 14.5 percent of the populations of large American cities. They dominated the population in New England and accounted for 22 percent of New York's population that year. They, along with the Germans, were the largest immigrant group in 1870.

Housing

Like most immigrants, the Irish moved into subdivided homes that were built for single families. These buildings were called tenements (see "Home Sweet Home" box later in this chapter, and Chapters 3 and 8). In these dwellings, the Irish crowded together and lived in attics, cellars, and alleyways—areas usually meant for storage. Many of the Irish had spent their lives living in mud huts in Ireland, so their expectations were not as high as those of Americans, or even other immigrants. Still, conditions in the tenements were horrible.

Sewage systems did not exist in the Gilded Age. In addition, tenement housing lacked running water. The combination of these two factors made cleanliness and hygiene impossible. As a result, disease was widespread throughout the crowded tenements. The Irish quickly gained a reputation for being dirty and disease-ridden; when they moved into neighborhoods, other families moved out for fear of illness. Other immigrant groups and Americans also came to equate the Irish with increased levels of crime and social deviance such as alcoholism. This was due, in part, to the fact that while other immigrant groups tended to tolerate unfair treatment by other people, the Irish did not. They fought back, and if they thought violence was necessary, they engaged in it. An important facet of Irish culture in the homeland was the pub or saloon. This is where people went to socialize and discuss work, politics, and current events. This cultural norm worked against the Irish during a time when alcohol consumption was considered by many to be immoral. This stereotype of the Irish would be promoted in cartoons and media for decades to come.

Labor

Irish immigrants were laborers who took dangerous jobs that no one else wanted. The men worked the coal mines (see Chapter 3) and built railroads and canals while the women worked as domestic (household) help. American businesses wasted no time in taking advantage of the cheap labor supplied by the Irish. Companies threatened to replace uncooperative employees with cheap Irish workers; this led to more tension between the Irish and the rest of the population.

Second- and third-generation Irish immigrants (children and grandchildren of those who sailed to America) often took jobs as policemen, firemen, and schoolteachers. These generations achieved higher levels of education, which allowed them to earn more money. One of the most famous examples of a successful Irishman from an immigrant family was President John F. Kennedy (1917–1963; served 1961–63). The first Kennedy arrived in America as a laborer in 1848. Several generations later, one of them was president of the United States.

Religion

The Irish were disliked by nearly every other ethnic group, and also by Americans, because of their poor living conditions, their willingness to work for low wages, and for their religion. (See "The Conflict between Protestants and Catholics" box in Chapter 3 for more detail.) Protestants (Christians who are not Catholics) and Catholics had a long history of conflict. The Irish were Catholic. In America, most Catholics were members of upper-class society. They were not accustomed to having to include or accept members of the lower class. The tension created by these class differences was an obstacle not easily overcome.

Protestant Americans watched as millions of Catholics flooded their shores. Catholic churches were appearing on every street corner in some neighborhoods. It seemed to some as though Protestant neighborhoods were being overrun with Catholics. These Irish Catholics brought with them foreign customs and rituals that Americans and other ethnic groups did not understand. Conflict was virtually unavoidable.

Although Catholics and Protestants are both part of the Christian religion, they differ in some basic beliefs. For example, Catholics operate under a hierarchy of leaders (chain of command), starting with the pope. These leaders provide authority in the Church; they make rules and decree what is morally right and wrong. Protestants believe the Bible is the only source of God's word.

The Irish in search of jobs were greeted with signs in storefront windows reading "No Irish Need Apply." They became the target of violence in big cities throughout the northeast. Catholic churches were burned, and riots broke out.

As the years went by

Persecution was not new to the Irish. Ireland was under British rule, so most Irish immigrants had never known freedom as Americans understood it. In their homeland, the Irish were controlled politically, economically, and religiously. They often formed secret organizations, usually with the help of their village priest, to meet their educational and economic needs. These societies allowed the Irish to form a strong identity. They stuck together for the sake of survival. This experience helped them as immigrants in America as well.

The Irish were excellent organizers. They recognized the value of teamwork, and their ability allowed them to break into the American political system. Since most of them lived in big cities, they were able to take control of politics like no other ethnic group had ever done. The Irish put the power into the hands of the working class and established loyalty among that large voting group. They formed political machines (organized political groups that insure loyalty of voters by repaying them for their votes with favors such as money, jobs, or gifts) that took over major American cities, from the mid-eighteenth into the twentieth century.

The most well-known political machine was New York City's Tammany Hall, which was controlled by the Irish for fifty years. (See Chapter 1.) William "Boss" Tweed (1823–1878) was elected chairman of the Democratic Party in New York in 1860. His head quarters were known as Tammany Hall. Tweed and his men became known as the Tweed Ring, and in the years Tweed was in office, they swindled hundreds of millions of dollars from the city.

Nativism in America

Anti-immigrant sentiment became such an in-grained part of American culture during the Gilded Age that it had its own name: nativism. By the early 1850s, nativism was so strong a sentiment that nativists formed their own political party. It was formally named the American Party, but the common name for it was the Know-Nothing Party. The party got its name from the policy that, when asked about their nativist organizations, members were supposed to reply that they knew nothing. A former U.S. president, Millard Fillmore (1800–1874; served 1850–53), even ran as the party's presidential nominee in 1856; he finished a distant third behind the Democratic and Republican candidates. By 1860, the Know-Nothings had disbanded.

The main targets of nativism were the Irish and Germans. These groups, both Catholic in religious belief, were considered the most dangerous threat to the American way of life not only in terms of religious and moral values but in economic terms as well. Millions of "outsiders" were doing the work many citizens believed should be done by Americans. Nativists considered immigrants a drain on the economy.

Although the Catholics were the most discriminated against in terms of religion, no ethnic group was spared. All Italians were suspected of being involved in the Mafia (organized crime). The Chinese who settled in California were resented because they established their own welfare associations to take care of their poor and impose order in Chinatowns. But the Jews were the victims of the most intense discrimination. They were stereotyped as being greedy. Anti-Semitism (Jewish discrimination) influenced laws, and Jews were prohibited by law from voting until the middle of the nineteenth century. Anti-Semitism was the driving force behind General Order No. 11, published in 1862, which stated all Jews were to be thrown out of the Union military, led by General Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885). The order was revoked by President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; served 1861–65) after just eighteen days, but its passage reflected the rampant anti-Semitic attitude of America at the time. By the time of the Gilded Age, laws had changed, but the Jews continued to be blamed for many of the ills in society. Socially, they remained outcast well into the next century.

Nativism eventually led to the development of immigration laws that limited or completely prevented certain immigrants from coming to America.

Although there is no doubt Tweed was corrupt, he gave new immigrants a voice in a world that despised them. The Irish and other immigrants knew if they voted to keep Tweed in office, he would ensure that they had work, shelter, and a say in New York politics.

The Chinese

The Chinese emigrated to the United States in large numbers even before the Gilded Age. The major difference between the Chinese and other ethnic groups was that the Chinese crossed the Pacific Ocean and landed on the shores of California at Angel Island. They began emigrating in large numbers in the mid-1800s, largely to take part in the 1849 California gold rush.

The Chinese immigrants who arrived in America prior to 1849 received a warm welcome. Most of them were wealthy, and if they were not successful merchants, they brought other skills to America. These Chinese were artists, craftsmen, fishermen, and hotel and restaurant owners. They quickly earned a reputation for being dependable, hard workers.

By 1851, twenty-five thousand Chinese were living in and around the San Francisco region. That area was home to over half the Chinese immigration population of the United States at the time. Most of these immigrants were unskilled laborers who worked for low wages. Americans referred to these Chinese as "coolies." The offensive term comes from the Chinese words koo (meaning "to rent") and lee (meaning "muscle").

Chinatown

The Chinese workers formed urban clusters within larger cities. These clusters were called Chinatowns, and they operated independently of the larger cities around them. The Chinese, like the Irish, found streng thin numbers, and they relied upon each other to create a cultural identity that would protect them against the harsh attitudes of Americans.

The Chinese not only lived in Chinatown, they also shopped and socialized there. The culture of Chinatown was much like that of the home these Chinese had left behind. Although these cities-within-cities were originally overcrowded slums (ghettos) full of crime and violence, many turned into tourist attractions by the mid-1900s.

Change of heart

Along with the Chinese, and to a lesser extent, Mexicans and French Canadians, came thousands of Americans from the east. These men hoped to find their fortune in the gold rush of 1849. Most miners were disappointed; gold was not to be found just lying around in streams and gulches. Mining was hard work, and many men gave up after weeks or months of finding nothing.

Gold seekers felt they had been misled. Disappointment led to resentment, as Americans considered their Chinese peers competition for the gold. Soon the Chinese were accused of stealing the Americans' wealth. Even when they were welcomed to America's shores, there was no denying that the Chinese race was different from that with whom any American had ever come in contact. Their physical appearance and language, their dress and hair—all of it set the Chinese apart from everyone else.

One other aspect of the Chinese workers frustrated Americans: They would not fight back. They were a peaceful group of immigrants and accepted their fate in America. Whereas other groups might respond with violence, the Chinese instead drew strength from each other. Having developed Chinatowns as their home base, they lived largely separate from the larger cities around them. By limiting their interactions with non-Chinese, they did not often confront racial hatred face-to-face.

The Chinese also found work in railroad construction with the Central Pacific Railroad (CPR). Railroad construction was dangerous, backbreaking work. No one wanted to do it. Because so few men willingly worked the lines, the railroad company sent an agent to China to hire Chinese laborers. In order to get the Chinese to America, the CPR gave them money in advance for their ship fare and immediate living expenses. Each laborer signed a contract promising to pay back the money over a period of seven months. In return, the laborers were guaranteed a monthly wage of $35.

Of that $35, about half went toward food. Since the railroad paid for shelter, that left nearly $20 every month for savings, much more than most laborers during the 1860s received. But many did not survive the work. More than one thousand Chinese railroad builders had their bones shipped back to China for burial.

Although ten thousand Chinese worked for the CPR in the 1860s, they were publicly denied any credit for their years of labor. A famous photo taken at Promontory Point, Utah, records the celebration over the last spike being driven into the Transcontinental Railroad. That golden spike connected the east and west by railway. Not one Chinese worker appears in that photo.

A difference in moral values

At a time when decent wages were hard to come by even for skilled laborers, this contract work only increased America's intolerance toward the Chinese. The emergence of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, a group of organizations better known as the Chinese Six Companies, did not help the situation from an American point of view, either. Like the Irish, the Chinese formed organizations to help new immigrants survive. The powerful Six Companies represented six different districts in Chinatown. The group often contracted with American companies to provide Chinese workers. The laborers did not work for the Six Companies. The group acted as a clearinghouse through which most transactions between Americans and Chinese were processed; it also dealt with immigration issues with local, state, and federal governments. The organized Chinese found this method the most convenient for handling life in a strange land.

As anti-Chinese sentiment grew, work became harder to find for the immigrants. Many Chinese started their own businesses in an effort to survive. They opened up laundries and restaurants, and it soon became obvious that these could be successful endeavors for the immigrants. Other Chinese found steady work as gardeners and domestic servants.

Americans resorted to violence to vent their frustration. In 1862 alone, eighty-eight Chinese were reported murdered. In all probability, that number was much higher, but the immigrants did not want to further antagonize authorities and so did not report every incident. Soon, even those businesses that employed Chinese workers were in danger of becoming victims of mob violence.

The most violent opposition began in the South. Many American Southerners believed other races were natural servants whose only purpose was to uphold the Southerners. Having to work at all was often more than they could tolerate. Having to work side-by-side with Chinese immigrants was the greatest insult. Was it not enough that they were given U.S. citizenship and all its privileges when they entered the country?

More than prejudice fueled anti-Chinese sentiment. Americans prided themselves on their moral values and ability to resist temptation, and they viewed the Chinese as highly immoral people. Chinese prostitutes (women who sell sex) comprised a large portion of the female population in Chinatowns (see box). In fact, there were no more Chinese prostitutes than there were in any other ethnic group, including Americans. It seemed there were more because there were fewer Chinese women in the United States than there were in other ethnic groups. In addition to prostitution, the Chinese were looked upon as gambling addicts. Again, the Chinese did not gamble any more than any other group of people. The reason behind the assumption that they did was that the Chinese provided gambling houses and venues that were visited by American and other immigrant gamblers. The same was true of prostitution: The Chinese provided the women, but their clients were of other ethnicities. This fact did not eliminate the stereotype. To most people, the Chinese were people of inferior moral values.

Immigration restriction laws

A person born in one country who emigrates to another country can become a citizen of that new country through a process called naturalization. Naturalization usually requires that the immigrant live in the new country for a specific number of years. During the early nineteenth century, members of any race could become citizens of the United States. In 1870, Congress passed the Naturalization Act, which restricted citizenship to "white persons and persons of African descent"—Asians, therefore, were refused the right to naturalize. This law was the first restriction placed on free immigration in American history. The Chinese would be ineligible for citizenship until the law was repealed in 1943.

Women in Chinatown

Most Chinese who emigrated to America in the first half of the nineteenth century did not plan to stay. These temporary immigrants, known as sojourners, were escaping war and poverty in China, and hoped to save enough money to return to their families one day. So most of the Chinese immigrants at that time were young men.

As restrictions were placed on immigration laws, the Chinese population in America became even more imbalanced. In 1860, the ratio of Chinese males to females was 19 to 1; by 1890, it was 27 to 1. Throughout the century, women never made up more than 8 percent of the total Chinese population in America. This imbalance, coupled with laws that prevented Chinese men from marrying white women, created a demand for prostitution.

Whereas white prostitutes worked for wages either independently or in brothels (buildings where prostitutes work and sometimes live), Chinese prostitutes were women who were kidnapped or purchased from poor families in China and resold in America. This was a profitable business, but not for the women. Most of them were considered property and abused so badly that they rarely lived longer than five years in the States. In 1860, 85 percent of Chinese women in San Francisco were prostitutes; that number fell to 71 percent in 1870.

Those who escaped a life of prostitution were usually wives who lived with their husbands. True to Chinese custom, these women rarely left their homes. They cared for their children, did the housework, and often found other low-paying work, such as sewing, washing, and rolling cigars. Rural (country) wives also tended gardens and livestock, or caught fish and sold it to markets.

After the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which allowed only Chinese in the merchant class to enter America, many of the women immigrants settled in cities and small towns where the Chinese were not so despised. Without the ability to speak English, and with few or no job skills, they took jobs in garment (clothing) shops and fruit orchards. Some worked in their husbands' laundries or grocery stores.

As difficult as life was for Chinese men, it was more so for the women, who remained subservient to (legally a class beneath) men, and were valued more for the services they provided than as individuals with rights.

The Naturalization Act of 1870 was only the beginning of America's attempt to keep the Chinese from its shores. On May 6, 1882, President Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886; served 1881–85) signed into law the Chinese Exclusion Act. This law prohibited Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States for ten years. It was renewed for another ten years in 1892, and became permanent in 1904. Although Chinese merchants (businessmen and those in skilled trades) could still emigrate, they were not allowed to become U.S. citizens. Those Chinese already in America were allowed to stay. An estimated twenty thousand returned to China, however, in fear that if they did not, they would never be allowed to go home again. Their fears of restricted movement came true in 1888 with the passage of the Scott Act, named after U.S. representative William Scott (1828–1891) of Pennsylvania. As punishment for those Chinese who had returned to their homeland, as well as a way to further restrict immigration, this new law forbid the return of any Chinese to America. These immigration restrictions permanently separated untold numbers of Chinese families who would never see one another again.

The Chinese Exclusion Act marked the beginning of an illegal immigration movement that involved an "underground railroad," much like the one used by African American slaves earlier in the century. People secretly worked together to smuggle Chinese citizens into the United States via Texas. The Chinese would be safely hidden and transported by various men and women on their journey to the United States. Once in Texas, these aliens attended a secret school that taught them enough English to help them find work. Chinatowns became even more important to the immigrants, as they needed to find shelter and steady work.

In spite of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the illegal immigration movement caused the Chinese population in America to increase. It peaked in 1890 at around 107,488 people. After that, the number decreased, mostly because the majority of Chinese immigrants were sojourners who never planned to stay. Using the Chinese underground railroad, they returned to their native land.

Immigration was restricted further in 1891, when a law was passed excluding convicts, the mentally retarded, the insane, the destitute (poorest of the poor), diseased people, and polygamists (people with more than one spouse). This law was not effective, as it affected only seven-tenths of 1 percent of all immigrants from 1892 through 1900.

The Chinese were legally forbidden to emigrate to the United States until 1943, when China became America's ally (partner) in World War II (1939–45). At that time, the Chinese fell under regular immigration law. Most Chinese immigrants who entered the United States after the war were women, many of them wives of Chinese men already in America.

Immigration Restriction League

Clearly, America was threatened by a growing sense of disorder at the turn of the century. The Industrial Revolution (a period from approximately 1850 through 1940 that saw a shift from the use of simple tools to more elaborate machinery), the transcontinental railroad, unstable economic conditions, an influx of immigrants—all these events forced major change on American society. People were searching for control in any form they could find. One of these attempts to control conditions was the formation in 1894 of the Immigration Restriction League (IRL).

The Boston-based IRL was founded by attorney Prescott Hall (1868–1921). Hall and his followers believed some of the less desirable immigrants would negatively affect American culture. They encouraged Congress to pass a law that required potential immigrants to take a literacy (reading and comprehension) test. Those who passed would be allowed into America. The House of Representatives passed the literacy bill five times: in 1895, 1897, 1913, 1915, and 1917. The Senate seconded the House's motion all years except the first. Every president in office during those years, including Grover Cleveland (1837–1908; served 1885–89 and 1893–97), William Howard Taft (1857–1930; served 1909–13), and Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924; served 1913–21), vetoed the bill. The veto was overridden in 1917, and the immigration process of the twenty-first century still requires the successful completion of a literacy test.

Other immigrant groups

The Irish and Chinese stand out in the history of immigration during the Gilded Age and just before. Both groups were targets of intense prejudice and intolerance, even violence. Both groups formed a strong national and cultural identity in the midst of their new home, and that identity helped them survive in America. Chinese immigration and America's response to it changed the immigration landscape forever. Xenophobia (fear of foreigners) swept the nation, and society's response was to try to control immigration for the first time through restrictive laws.

Other groups of immigrants came to the shores of New York whose hardships were suffered in silence. One of the most persecuted of these groups was the Jews. Since Americans considered Jewish affiliation a religion rather than an ethnicity until 1948, records do not show accurate numbers regarding how many Jews crossed the Atlantic Ocean during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

Jews

Most of the early Jewish immigrants came from Central Europe. Like most other immigrant groups, they settled in larger cities, including Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore. German-speaking Jews built their communities in cities such as Cincinnati and Cleveland, Ohio; Albany, New York; San Francisco; and numerous small towns across America. The country's Jewish population rose steadily, from about three thousand people in 1820 to three hundred thousand in 1880.

The Jews who emigrated between 1881 and 1924 were mostly from eastern Europe. These immigrants fled persecution and economic hardship and settled in the cities that other Jews had already established.

As was the case with the Irish and the Chinese, the Jews set up neighborhoods and built networks of social, cultural, and spiritual organizations. These associations helped welcome new immigrants and gave all Jews a sense of cultural identity. (The oldest volunteer Jewish women's organization, the National Council of Jewish Women, was formed in 1893 and continues to work to improve the quality of life for people of all races throughout the world in the twenty-first century.) For instance, the Jews quickly established themselves in the theater, and their productions were popular with all Americans. By the turn of the century, about two million playgoers attended Yiddish (a language that is a mixture of Hebrew and German, with some Polish and Russian) productions in New York.

Religion was the guiding force in every aspect of daily life for the traditional Jew. It was a major factor in the Jews' ability to remain unified. By 1860, twenty-seven synagogues had been built in New York. The synagogues were the center of much social activity within Jewish settlements.

Could You Pass the Immigration Test?

The following questions are just a handful of those included in the 2006 literacy test that potential immigrants must pass:

What did the Emancipation Proclamation do?

Where does Congress meet?

What is the head executive of a city government called?

Who said "Give me liberty or give me death"?

How many times may a congressman be reelected?

How many representatives are there in Congress?

What are the duties of Congress?

Who is the chief justice of the Supreme Court?

Can you name the thirteen original states?

How many Supreme Court justices are there?

New York was one of the most well-known Jewish settlement areas. In particular, Manhattan's Lower East Side is symbolic for the Jewish immigration experience in America. While other ethnic and religious groups lived there, the majority of the East Side's residents were eastern European Jews.

Hardships on the East Side

Like other immigrants, the Jews crowded into tenement buildings. Most tenement units consisted of three rooms: a kitchen, a front room, and a backroom. The backroom was used as the bedroom, and families with as many as ten members stuffed themselves into these cramped quarters. Often, family members worked in their tenement apartments as well. It was common to see taloring and sewing in a back room during the day and people sleeping there at night. (See Chapter 8 for more on tenements and housing reform.)

Home Sweet Home

Reports of the first tenement, located in lower Manhattan, date back to 1833. The building was unique in that it was built of cheap materials and designed for multiple families. Up until that point, most landlords preferred to build more expensive dwellings in an effort to boost property values.

As hundreds of thousands of immigrants flooded the cities beginning in the 1840s, businessmen and landlords recognized a market for cheap housing. These buildings could be constructed quickly and at little expense. They offered poor immigrants affordable housing and a chance to make an urban (city) home. By 1864, more than 62 percent of New York's residents lived in tenement homes.

Tenements offered little more than shelter from the weather. They lacked toilets and running water, which led to the spread of disease. Poor ventilation made them hazardous to live in, especially since they were located in industrialized areas where pollution was intense. Like the Irish, the Jews were unfairly stereotyped as filthy and diseased people.

Anti-Semitism finds its roots
in America

Hygiene issues were just one factor that led to America's feelings of anti-Semitism. Like other desperate immigrants, the Jews were willing to accept low wages just to have work. American men and women were already being paid meager wages; the Jews replaced them because they were willing to work sixteen-hour shifts for even less pay. This bred a hatred and resentment toward the Jews.

A sizeable portion of the early Jewish population arrived in America with skills as tailors, seamstresses, and textile (fabric) merchants. For the cost of a few sewing machines, they were able to set up their own businesses in the garment (sewing) industry. Others found work in American-owned sewing factories. The garment industry, regardless of who owned and managed the shop, gave Jews something other industries could not: a chance to maintain a cultural and self-identity while still maintaining economic independence. Between 1881 and 1888, weekly wages never rose above $6, even though sixteen-hour shifts were common. The garment industry had its busy seasons, and the busier seasons forced them to work even longer shifts. Factory conditions were unbearable (see Chapter 8) and unsafe. Before labor reforms were implemented in the twentieth century, factories all over America were hazardous to human health and safety. One of the worst tragedies in labor history happened in the garment industry. The Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire claimed the lives of more than 145 of its 500 employees in 1911, most of them young women between the ages of sixteen and twenty-three. Located in Manhattan, the company employed mostly Jews. (See more on the fire in Chapter 8.) Throughout the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, the garment industry employed hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants, the majority of them women and young girls.

The Jews were among the first immigrants to form effective labor unions (a formally organized association of workers that advances its members' views on wages, work hours, and labor conditions). Their participation in the labor unions intensified America's distrust and resentment of them. Educated Hebrew students led the establishment of these labor unions; these students had emigrated from Russia when their country issued a decree limiting the number of Jews who could attend college. When these educated men joined working-class Jews in America, they realized that the degree of persecution was no different than what they experienced at home. They acted to change treatment of their race.

The cloakmaker's union was one of the first organized. It boasted seven to eight thousand members, workers who endured some of the worst treatment in the factories. After a long struggle, they won shorter hours (from anywhere up to sixteen hours a day, seven days a week to no more than ten hours a day, six days a week), better wages, and improved work conditions. Theirs was a great victory for the entire Jewish working class. It encouraged them to continue to keep trying, no matter how hard the battle. Soon, Jewish labor unions were forming throughout the country. One successful union was the United Hebrew Trades, formed on the Lower East Side in 1888. The federation included twenty-five organizations and more than ten thousand members within the first year.

The success of the Jews led to resentment among Americans, yet they were among some of the model citizens of their day. Jews placed a high value on education, and attendance records show that their children attended school more regularly than those of other ethnic groups. Their grades were higher overall as well. Jews favored coffee and tea over liquor and beer; coffeehouses were popular meeting places in Jewish neighborhoods. Here, even the working class could meet to discuss labor activity and literature; no one was excluded from conversation. Crime was not widespread among the Jewish race. The state of New York held only 360 Jewish prisoners in 1893, an amazingly low percentage of a large Jewish population. The majority of those men were arrested for petty (small) crimes related to gambling.

Despite these facts, the Jews were a hated race throughout the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. After the Irish, they were the immigrant group most frequently caricatured (represented in cartoons that exaggerate features for comic effect). They were satirized (made fun of) with big noses and kinky black hair. Cartoons of the era depicted Jews as greedy and dishonest, with a tendency to show off their wealth by wearing diamonds and furs.

The main reason for anti-Semitism in America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was that the Jews refused to assimilate. Assimilation is the process by which a cultural group takes on the qualities and values of another cultural group. Immigrants who came to America were expected to assimilate: Americans believed these newcomers should adopt American ways, practice American rituals, and uphold American values. They wanted them to dress like Americans, eat American food, and act American. Jewish immigrants instead formed communities that allowed them to celebrate and live out their unique cultural beliefs. In the face of great hatred, they managed to thrive.

Germans

Germans made up the largest immigrant group in the Gilded Age. Through 1900, Germans made up one-fourth of all foreign-born citizens. The Irish left their homeland because of starvation; the Chinese left in time of war; and the Jews left amidst violent persecution. Unlike these three groups, the Germans emigrated because industrialization was taking over their jobs. All of Europe was experiencing industrialization, but the structure of German society was changing faster than anywhere else.

Some Germans settled in eastern cities like New York City and Buffalo, New York. Most of the Germans who established themselves in cities, however, headed for what historians call the "German Triangle": St. Louis, Missouri; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. About 40 percent of all German immigrants lived in American cities. The rest settled in rural regions throughout the East and into the Midwest. Some went into Texas, others as far as California.

Urban Germans followed the same pattern as the other immigrant groups and established communities. Such a neighborhood, often referred to as a "Little Germany," closely resembled the typical Chinatown and served as cities within cities. The German segments featured traditional German businesses such as beer breweries, butchers, cabinetmakers, tailors, machinists, and cigar makers. German women tended not to enter the work force. When they did, they took jobs as nurses, hotel and saloon keepers, janitors, and household servants.

Jacob Riis on the New York Jew

Jacob Riis (1849–1914) achieved fame with photograph and pen as he exposed tenement slums in the late nineteenth century. He was directly responsible for bringing to the public's attention the undeniably wretched living conditions of the urban poor.

One of Riis's essays, "The Jews of New York"(1896), focused on the prejudice against Manhattan's Lower East Side Jews. Riis defended them as a race and highlighted their many achievements and virtues:

The system of Jewish charities is altogether admirable. There is no overlapping or waste of effort. Before charity organization had been accepted as a principle by Christian philanthropy [charitable giving] the Jews had in their United Hebrew Charities the necessary clearing house for the speeding and simplifying of the business of helping the poor to help themselves. Their asylums [hospitals], their nurseries and kindergartens are models of their kind. Their great hospital, the Mount Sinai, stands in the front rank in a city full of renowned asylums. Of the 3,000 patients it harbored last year 89 per cent were treated gratuitously [for free]. The Aguilar Free Library circulated last year 253,349 books, mainly on the East Side, and after ten years' existence has nearly 10,000 volumes. The managers of the Baron de Hirsch Fund have demonstrated the claim that he will not till the soil to be a libel on the immigrant Jew. Their great farm of 5,100 acres at Woodbine, N.J., is blossoming into a model village in which there are no idlers and not ramps. At the New York end of the line hundreds of children who come unable to understand any other language than their own jargon, are taught English daily, and men and women nightly, with the Declaration of Independence for their reader and the starry banner ever in their sight. In a marvelously short space of time they are delivered over to the public school, where they receive the heartiest welcome as among their best and brightest pupils.

The Jew in New York has his faults, no doubt, and sometimes he has to be considered in his historic aspect in order that the proper allowance may be made for him. It is a good deal better perspective, too, than the religious one to view him in, as a neighbor and a fellow citizen. I am a Christian and hold that in his belief the Jew is sadly in error. So that he may learn to respect mine, I insist on fair play for him all round. That he has received in New York, and no one has cause to regret it except those he left behind. I am very sure that our city has to-day no better and more loyal citizen than the Jew, be he poor or rich—and none she has less need to be ashamed of.

German immigrants experienced a difference other groups did not. Within the German population, people tended to divide among religious lines. Approximately two-thirds of all Germans were Protestant, with Lutheranism being the most dominant denomination. A third were Catholic, and a small population was scattered throughout other various religions, including Jewish, Methodist, and even Amish and Mennonite.

The Lutheran community experienced the most conflict. The newly arrived German Lutherans disapproved of the existing German Lutheran churches in the United States. The new immigrants felt these churches had become too Americanized. The services were conducted in English instead of German, and the church's rules had become too liberal for traditional German Lutherans' liking.

Italians

Fewer than 4,000 Italian immigrants were living in the United States in 1850. That number increased to 44,000 by 1880 and soared to 484,027 by 1900. Most Italian immigrants were from southern Italy.

Although most Italian immigrants had agricultural backgrounds, they were forced to live in urban America because inexpensive land was no longer to be found. Like other immigrants, they lived in clusters, but they did not dominate neighborhoods as did the Jews or Irish. Instead they lived in smaller groups among other immigrant populations. They tended to relocate in America according to where they lived in Italy. For example, northern Italians lived primarily in California, while Sicilians (who had lived in southern Italy) lived in New Orleans, Louisiana. However, most Italians settled in the mid-Atlantic states (New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia) and Washington, D.C., where the geography and weather most closely mirrored that of their home regions in Italy.

Italians lived in conditions similar to those of the Irish and Jews. They were forced into overcrowded tenements that lacked the necessities of healthy living. In an attempt to save money, Italian laborers often went without food. This, combined with the diseased living conditions, took a toll on their health.

Milwaukee's German Heritage

In 1910, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was known as the "Workingmen's City." Although it ranked twelfth in population, it was third among American cities based on the percentage of its workforce population. Buffalo, New York, and Detroit, Michigan, were first and second.

Milwaukee had a high German and Polish population in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. The Poles established neighborhoods throughout the city but had the most impact on the South Side. Germans settled on the city's North Side. The more prosperous built homes along Highland Boulevard.

Some of the most famous German companies had factories in Milwaukee's North Side, including the breweries Pabst and Schlitz and the sausage company Usinger's. Their owners built mansions along Highland Boulevard, which was nicknamed "Sauerkraut Boulevard" because of its primarily German population.

One of the reasons for such skimping was that the Italians were sojourners. Their plan was to save as much money in as short a time as possible and then return home. Like other sojourners, many of these immigrants were young men who left behind families, wives, and children. Before 1900, about 78 percent of all Italian immigrants were men who traveled to America in the spring, worked until fall was over, and then returned home. Historians estimate that 20 to 30 percent of all Italians returned to Italy permanently.

Italians entered the workforce in the lowest positions, as shoe shiners, sewage cleaners, and ragpickers (unskilled people who pick out rags and other garbage from trash cans and public dumps and sell them). Italian children were often expected to give up their education in order to take a job and contribute to the survival of their families. Italians in America kept the social patterns they knew in Italy and rarely accepted charity. Women worked, but rarely outside the home. They preferred jobs that allowed them to take work home, such as laundry and sewing, so that they could be with their children.

Male workers favored construction jobs when they could get them. Similar to the Six Companies association that helped the Chinese find work, the Italians found work through a labor broker known as a padrone. The padrone found Italian laborers work digging tunnels, building railroads and bridges, and constructing the first skyscrapers. In 1890, 90 percent of New York City's public works employees were Italian, as were 99 percent of Chicago's street workers.

Whereas the Irish were able to break into politics in the United States, the Italians found such activity difficult. They lacked the cultural unity to form a strong identity among all the other ethnicities. They were particularly successful in areas that did not require education, however, such as small business ownership and sales.

Other immigrant groups

Scandinavians

The majority of the 1.4 million Scandinavian (Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish) immigrants settled in rural areas, mostly in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota. By the end of the nineteenth century, they were migrating (moving from one region to another) to the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon, and Idaho). Eventually, this group established themselves in urban regions, including Chicago and New York City.

In the earlier immigration years, at least, the Scandinavians were pioneers. They built sod houses on the prairies of those western and northcentral states, and the life they dreamed of was soon replaced by the never-ending hardships unique to pioneers. Long hours of toil in the fields coupled with harsh and unpredictable weather conditions made prairie life unbearable for many. By 1910, 61 percent of the Scandinavians had moved to the cities.

The urban Scandinavians followed the patterns of other immigrant groups and settled their own communities, complete with charitable organizations, cultural events, religious affiliations, and newspapers. Men took jobs as unskilled laborers, while women found mostly domestic work. They did not speak any English, which hindered the Scandinavians' ability to assimilate. Some returned home or became involved in a world of crime and violence.

British

Fifteen percent of all immigrants who landed on America's shores in the Gilded Age were British. It is impossible to generalize about this group, so diverse were its settlement patterns and habits. Unlike other immigrant groups, the British did not settle in particular regions, states, or neighborhoods. They did not tend to work in one or two particular industries, nor did they affiliate themselves as a group with one religion. As a result, one historian, Charlotte Erickson, labeled them the "invisible immigrants."

Although some Britons found work in industry, the majority of them made their living as skilled workers or professional workers.

Canadians

Canadians had the shortest journey to America. Canadians emigrated via the railroad. Tickets cost $10 per person, and the trip took less than one week. Most Canadians emigrated as families whose plans were to save enough money to return to Canada and buy a farm. Adults earned as much as $1.22 a day; children were paid as little as twenty-eight cents each day. They worked six days, sixty hours a week.

Some Famous and Not-so-famous Immigrants

Asian Americans

James Wong Howe (1899–1976): Cinematographer who made more than 130 films. He was the first Asian American to win an Academy Award (Oscar).

Amy Tan (1952–): Tan is the daughter of Chinese immigrants who arrived in America after the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. She is an international best-selling author whose novels include The Joy Luck Club. She has written several children's books as well.

Anna May Wong (1905–1961): Wong was the first Chinese American actress to attain stardom in American cinema; she was the sister of James Wong Howe.

German Americans

Emile Berliner (1851–1929): Invented several machines, including the microphone and the gramophone. Invented acoustic tiles (used in concert halls and music venues) that improve sound reception and quality.

Thomas Nast (1840–1902): Famous for his political cartoons that appeared throughout the Gilded Age in the magazine Harper's Weekly.

Joseph Pulitzer (1847–1911): Journalist and newspaper owner who contributed the money in 1903 for the establishment of the Pulitzer Prize.

Irish Americans

Henry Ford (1863–1947): Son of an Irish immigrant, Ford established the Ford Motor Company in 1903 and introduced the Model T automobile in 1908. Five years later, Ford invented the assembly line.

John Philip Holland (1841–1914): Submarine inventor who convinced the U.S. Navy to use submarines in 1900.

Mary Anne Sadlier (c. 1820–1903): Wrote sixty volumes of work including children's and adult novels, romances, and children's religious texts.

Italian Americans

Chef Boyardee (1897–1985): Born Ettore Boiardi, became famous for his canned pasta and sauce dinners.

John Rapetti (1862–1936): Worked in France as one of the creators of the Statue of Liberty. His name is carved into the crown.

Rudolph Valentino (1895–1926): Silent film star.

Jewish Americans

Emma Lazarus (1849–1883): Poet and author of the sonnet that appears at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

Hannah Solomon (1858–1942): Founder of the National Jewish Council for Women.

Julius Stieglitz (1867–1937): Chemist who invented gases and chemicals used for warfare in World War I.

Polish Americans

Stanley Ketchel (1896–1910): Born Stanislaw Kiecal to immigrant parents, he is considered by many to be the greatest middleweight boxer of all time.

Albert Michelson (1852–1931): Became first American to win a Nobel Prize; he discovered a way to measure the speed of light.

Artur Rodzinski (1902–1958): Conductor of several American symphonies, including the famous New York Philharmonic.

Most French-Canadians settled in New England, though smaller concentrations could be found in New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois.

The Schoolchildren's Blizzard

Most of the settlers on the Dakota-Nebraska prairie in 1888 were Scandinavian and German immigrants. Every day brought new lessons in how to survive the harsh weather conditions and the difficult demands of farming prairie land. It was not an easy life in any way. It most definitely was not the life they were promised by the railroads and other promotional agencies that encouraged them to settle here.

January 12, 1888, started out as a mild winter day, one of sunshine and blue sky. Children left their homes for school that morning with light jackets; some wore no coat at all. Most wore no hats or mittens. After months of unforgiving cold that forced them to stay indoors, these students were eager for the long walk to school.

Entirely without warning, gray clouds crowded the sky in the early afternoon. The temperature dropped 18 degrees Fahrenheit in three minutes. Hurricane winds forced their way across the prairie, and snow began a horizontal descent. Survivors recall hearing an explosion, a sound others compared to the roar of an oncoming train. It was the sound of a murderous blizzard.

As windowpanes shattered and winds tore through the prairie's one-room schoolhouses, children and teachers alike had to make the most important decision of their lives: Should they stay or should they try to make their way home? Those who chose to journey home did not live through the night. But even those who chose to stay in the frigid schools suffered.

By dawn on January 13, the prairie was littered with frozen corpses, most of them children who had tried to reach their families. Estimates of the dead run from 250 to 500; some bodies were never recovered. Others were discovered during the spring thaw.

Sisters were found side by side, their faces frozen to the earth. Fathers gave their lives trying to search for their children and were found with their coats and arms wrapped around those young bodies. One group of five brothers was found in a cluster. Three of them were kneeling in the traditional prayer position. Nearby, the eldest brother was found with his entire body wrapped around the youngest. All five had frozen to death, probably even before nightfall. Corpses were found with their hands frozen to barbed-wire fences. Mothers died sitting up, surrounded by the bodies of their frozen children. Firewood had run out, and no one dared leave the shelter of the house. Some bodies were found just a few feet outside the front door of their homes. The blizzard had prevented them from knowing where they were.

The sudden, heavy snowfall became known as the Schoolchildren's Blizzard. It was a freak of nature; never before or since has a storm of such magnitude occurred without warning. The blizzard that took the lives of hundreds of immigrants tore families apart and permanently crippled or otherwise traumatized many of its survivors. For many, many families, the memories of the blizzard have become family stories that are passed from one generation to the next.

Mexicans

Official records indicate that fewer than ten thousand Mexicans emigrated to America prior to 1900. Many historians believe the real numbers are twice that figure. Mexicans crossed the border at El Paso, Texas, because three railroads went through that city. These trains could transport the immigrants to jobs on nearby farms and in mines. Some railroads hired the Mexicans to construct more railway.

Japanese

Hawaii in the 1870s and 1880s was home to vast sugar plantations whose owners needed cheap labor to work the fields. Between 1885 and 1894, more than twenty-eight thousand Japanese traveled to Hawaii to work on these plantations. After Hawaii was annexed (became a territory of the United States) in 1898, Japanese began emigrating in even larger numbers. By that time, Japan was a society of high unemployment rates and civil disorder. Making the decision to leave Japan was not difficult, and by 1900, half of all Japanese immigrants lived in Hawaii.

Most Japanese immigrants were single men, sojourners who planned to return home. Three-quarters of them did, at first. By 1900, only about one-quarter ever left Hawaii to go back to Japan. Plantation owners imported more than twenty-six thousand Japanese in 1899 alone. Never again would so many Japanese enter the United States in a single year.

The Japanese enjoyed fairly friendly race relations in Hawaii. This was not so on the mainland. Even the federal government recognized the difference in attitudes toward the Japanese and ceased issuing passports to the mainland. The primary reason for the prejudice against Japanese on the mainland was that they immigrated so soon after the Chinese. To many Americans, there was no difference between the two races. To make matters worse, the Japanese proved to be astute businessmen.

Although they started as laborers, they soon earned more money by working harder and working longer hours. Their pay increased beyond that of even white laborers, and many Japanese were able to buy their own farms, even though they had to pay higher prices than whites. Soon, they added competition to the American market. This only increased America's resentment.

Soon, even Hawaii rejected the Japanese, and laws were passed there to keep them from moving into skilled occupations. Later, race relations hit an all-time low during World War II, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Anti-Japanese sentiment exploded, and Japanese Americans were rounded up and imprisoned in internment camps. Their homes and businesses were taken from them. Many lives and careers were irreparably damaged.

The urbanization of America

Immigration was supposed to make America a "melting pot;" that is, a place that welcomed various races in the hopes that what would result was an interconnected population that was different yet somehow American. The idea did not work out that way, as immigrants brought their cultural customs and values with them to the new land, and did not let go of them even in the midst of great pressure and hatred.

Immigration brought about many changes to the American landscape, most notably, urbanization. Rural America was quickly becoming a thing of the past, to be replaced with cities full of skyscrapers, bridges, and overcrowding.

America's rural and urban populations were both growing throughout the Gilded Age. But the rate of urban population growth was greater than that of rural growth. (See table.)

As the chart illustrates, the urbanization rate was more than four times greater than the increase in the rural population in 1890. An urban area is defined as one that has more than twenty-five hundred residents. In 1860, America had 392 urban places; by 1900, that number jumped 343 percent, to 1,737 places. The reason for the increase was the development of older towns and cities as well as westward expansion.

Cities were considered "big" if they were home to more than one hundred thousand residents. In 1860, America had nine such big cities. By 1900, there were thirty-eight. New York was the first city to claim one million residents, and it did so in 1880. This increase was directly due to the immigration movement.

By 1900, America as a country was still just two-fifths urban. But the Northeast states (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey) were two-thirds urban. The American South (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida) had the smallest urban population, with just 18 percent of its residents in cities. The North Central (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, and Wisconsin) and Western (New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, and California) regions had urbanization rates somewhere in between these two extremes.

Moving on

Foreign immigration was responsible for half of the era's urbanization. The rest of the increase was due to Americans who left the countryside in hopes of a more prosperous life in the city. Economic depressions in the 1870s and 1890s forced many farms into bankruptcy (complete financial failure). Farmers joined the escape to the cities.

Another group that contributed to the urbanization of America was the African Americans. Throughout the 1870s, approximately 68,000 southern African Americans migrated to northern cities. These cities offered African Americans what no place in the South could: enforced civil rights and the opportunity to earn a living independently. Although slaves had been freed with the victory of the North in the Civil War, most white Southerners continued to look upon African Americans as an inferior race. In addition, nearly all land was still owned by whites. African Americans could work on that land, but they would probably never own it or reap the profits of their hard labor. Moving to the North gave African Americans the chance to begin life anew, in an atmosphere of freedom. By the end of the nineteenth century, that number increased to 185,000. This group was not attracted to the largest cities such as New York and Chicago but chose instead smaller urban areas. These smaller towns and cities were more like their homes in the South, and the familiarity made the transition to a new region more comfortable.

Southern cities increased in size owing to the African American migration as well. Not all rural residents went directly north, though most eventually did. In the last twenty years of the 1900s, the African American populations of Savannah, Georgia, and Nashville, Tennessee, nearly doubled. The Atlanta, Georgia, African American population also experienced a dramatic increase, from sixteen thousand to thirty-six thousand.

Urban growth brings change

As cities became more crowded, their environment changed out of necessity. Before industrialization, urban areas were "walking" cities; because of this, there were no specialized districts. Commercial, governmental, educational, industrial, residential, and religious buildings were built next to each other so that walkers could navigate the city conveniently. The wealthy lived just a short distance from the poor.

Urban development was influenced mostly by the advent of the streetcar. Streetcars moved along iron rails like trains. By the mid-1880s, three hundred cities benefited from street railway lines. Horses and mules pulled these streetcars, but at the turn of the century, cables replaced the animals. The streetcars were attached to the cables by grips, which allowed them to move faster and more smoothly thanks to a nonmoving engine that powered an underground cable. The downfall of cable cars was that they broke down often and repairs were costly. Electrified streetcars called trolleys eventually replaced them. Introduced in Richmond, Virginia, in 1888, they quickly caught on throughout the United States. By the beginning of the twentieth century, most urban mass transit systems were based on electricity. The underground subway in New York opened on October 27, 1904. On the first day of operation, 150,000 passengers rode the subway at a cost of five cents a ride. By the 1940s, New York City's subway lines provided more than eight million rides a day.

As transportation improved, the cities grew. They no longer had to be compact so that foot traffic could manage daily travel. Trolley lines went from one end of the city to the other, with many stops in between. Residents could now move to outlying urban areas because they knew they could travel easily throughout the city. Before the trolley, the most sought-after city residences were often near the city's center (because of the convenience); mass transit, however, completely turned that pattern around. People began to divide themselves according to social class, ethnicity, and race. The middle of the city became home to society's lower classes, and the further toward the city limits one traveled, the more expensive the homes became.

Mass transit also encouraged the building of suburbs, or neighborhoods composed of the same "types" of people. Well before zoning laws and building codes were developed, construction companies were building entire neighborhoods of homes that were architecturally and structurally alike. Suburbs were built seemingly overnight on the outskirts of cities.

While suburbs sorted themselves out according to income and wealth, the core of the city divided itself into districts according to function. For example, New York's Wall Street was known—and still is—as the financial district. Other districts became known as the garment, entertainment, railroad, or government districts. Every large city followed this pattern. During this time, property taxes rose, as did the real estate value in these specialized districts. With few exceptions, single-family homes still in existence in the center of the city were forced out by the beginning of the twentieth century.

Birth of the skyscraper

As cities grew, so did buildings in order to accommodate the increase in people. Older buildings had been made of brick and masonry. These materials suited one-to-five-story structures well. Beyond that, the buildings would weigh too much and require incredibly thick lower walls and foundations. Railways allowed for horizontal urban expansion, but it took improved building techniques and materials to allow for vertical expansion.

Steel was the material of choice for urban building construction. A steel skeleton covered with light masonry marked the birth of the skyscraper in the mid-1880s. Chicago became home to the original skyscraper in 1885. The ten-story Home Insurance Building was erected, and soon thirty- and forty-story buildings were being constructed throughout the nation. Housing soon followed suit, with the arrival of apartment houses for the upper class and tenement housing for the working class.

For a number of years, the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge dominated the New York skyline. It opened to traffic in 1883. By the end of the century, however, the city's new skyscrapers dwarfed the bridge's towers.

A need to be clean

Engineering became a profitable occupation as cities hired engineers to design reliable water and sewage systems. The last twenty years of the nineteenth century saw vast improvement in technology that cut down on the number of diseases carried by water. Between 1890 and 1914, the population served by filtered water grew from 310,000 to more than 17 million.

Sanitary engineers designed filters and built sewage treatment plants that relied on new chemicals to keep urban America clean and healthy. Running water and indoor toilets became standard features in the urban homes being constructed in the 1890s. Before the first decade of the twentieth century had ended, many cities had gas, electric, and telephone service.

As urban centers became home to business districts, large industries and factories were forced to move. Larger industries like railroads and steel mills required vast amounts of land, and the center of the Gilded Age cities simply did not have it. The cost of land was much higher in the city, too. So industry was pushed to the outskirts, and in the late 1800s, industrial suburbs emerged.

These suburbs were built around a particular industry. Employees of that industry lived in the suburbs because the cost of commuting every day by trolley was more than they could afford. Soon, shops, restaurants, and entertainment venues were built, and residents of the industrial suburbs had little reason to travel outside the town limits for their daily needs.

Is bigger better?

Many Americans welcomed the changes created by industrialism (an economy based on business and industry rather than agriculture). Housing was better. Life was made easier by the invention of electricity and the way its availability in homes and businesses improved transportation, communication, and daily life. Buildings were bigger, cities more exciting.

As urban areas continued to grow, so did the more bleak aspects of human nature. More people meant more crime. Cities were not accustomed to enforcing their own laws; that had always been the responsibility of state or federal governments. Mayors were elected but in reality had very little authority over city governments. Instead, corrupt political machines like Tammany Hall (see Chapters 1 and 3) ruled urban America. Crime and violence increased, as did social problems such as overcrowding. The labor movement, already in progress, continued to pit workers against management. Education was neglected as children headed for factories and mills to help families survive.

Reform was needed in virtually every imaginable way by the turn of the century. It would come from some of the most unexpected places. Women would rise up, their voices shouting for rights not only for themselves, but also for their families. So-called muckraking journalists would courageously expose public figures and industries for their corruption and lack of integrity. Education would become a national issue as African Americans demanded their fair shot at higher learning.

As cities were growing and changing on an almost daily basis, America's western frontier was entering its final phase. Before the dawn of the twentieth century, the Wild West would be known only in legends. A new movement would be ushered in as Americans discovered the beauty of its natural resources and treasures.

For More Information

BOOKS

Calhoun, Charles W., ed. The Gilded Age: Essays on the Origins of Modern America. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1996.

Cashman, Sean Dennis. America in the Gilded Age. New York: New York University Press, 1993.

Laskin, David. The Children's Blizzard. New York: HarperCollins, 2004.

Painter, Nell Irvin. Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877–1919. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1987.

WEB SITES

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"From Haven to Home: A Century of Immigration, 1820–1924." Library of Congress.http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/haven-century.html (accessed on April 17, 2006). "Immigration: Irish." Library of Congress.http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/immig/irish2.html (accessed on April 17, 2006).

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Libo, Kenneth, and Michael Skakun. "A Perfect Fit: The Garment Industry and American Jewry." Center for Jewish History.http://www.cjh.org/education/essays.php?action=show&id=41 (accessed on April 17, 2006).

"Literacy Test." Institute of Texan Cultures.http://www.texancultures.utsa.edu/newtexans/literacy.htm (accessed on April 17, 2006).

Lower East Side Tenement Museum.http://www.tenement.org/index.htm (accessed on April 17, 2006).

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Norton, Henry Kittredge. "The Chinese." The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco.http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist6/chinhate.html (accessed on April 17, 2006).

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"Subway Centennial." Metropolitan Transit Authority.http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/mta/centennial.htm (accessed on June 26, 2006).