Lecture Notes: Urbanization and Immigration in the Gilded Age

Essential Questions

1. How were cities divided by wealth and poverty during the Gilded Age?
2. In what ways did cities serve as places of both discrimination and opportunity?
3. How did political machines, settlement houses, women's clubs, and self-help groups address urban problems?
4. What were reformers' responses to government corruption and their proposed solutions?
5. How did cultural and intellectual movements support or challenge the social order?

Rise in Immigration (1850-1900)

• Population growth from 23.2 million to 76.2 million, with 16.2 million immigrants.
• Push Factors:
  • Extreme poverty, displaced farmers, overcrowded cities, religious persecution.
  • Significant Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe and Russia.
• Pull Factors:
  • Political and religious freedom, job opportunities.
  • Immigrants primarily from Southern and Eastern Europe (Italy, Greece, Poland, etc.).
  • Predominantly poor, uneducated, and non-Protestant; many settled in ethnic neighborhoods in cities like New York and Chicago.

Immigration Challenges and Policies

• Ellis Island (1892): Main entry point for European immigrants.
  • Health inspections and mental evaluations.
• Angel Island (1910): Processed mainly Chinese and Japanese immigrants on the West Coast.
• Nativist Backlash:
  • Immigration Restriction League (1894), American Protective Association targeting Catholics.
  • Social Darwinism used to oppose immigration.

Urban Growth and Infrastructure

• By 1900, 40% of Americans lived in cities.
• Mass Transportation:
  • Streetcars, electric trolleys, elevated railroads, and subways allowed urban expansion.
  • Skyscrapers enabled by steel and elevators; first skyscraper in Chicago (1885).
• Ethnic Neighborhoods:
  • Tenements and slums housed many families in cramped conditions.
  • Wealthier residents moved to suburbs for privacy and better living conditions.

Reform Movements

• Political Machines:
  • Exploited immigrants for votes (e.g., Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed).
  • Engaged in corrupt practices like graft.
• Social Gospel and Settlement Houses:
  • Protestant clergy advocated for helping the poor; settlement houses provided services.
  • Jane Addams' Hull House (1889) in Chicago as a model.
• Women's Movements:
  • National Women's Suffrage Association led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
  • Women's Christian Temperance Union against alcohol.

Education and Cultural Shifts

• Public Education:
  • Focus on "three Rs" and compulsory schooling laws.
  • Growth of high schools and colleges; women increasingly admitted.
• Popular Culture:
  • Rise of mass media, leisure activities, and sports (baseball, basketball, etc.).
  • Saloons, theaters, vaudeville, and circuses became popular entertainment.
  • "City Beautiful" movement aimed to beautify urban spaces.

Conclusion

• The Gilded Age was a period of massive social and economic transformation.
• Emergence of a consumer culture and new opportunities for women.
• Changes would influence further industrial and social reforms into the 20th century.

Feel free to reach out to Professor Larima for further questions!