Heimler's History: Unit 6 - Immigration and Migration in the U.S. (1865-1898)

Introduction

• Focus on huge movements of immigrants and migrants in the U.S. during this period.
• Goal: Explain how cultural and economic factors affected migration patterns.

Definitions

• Immigration: Movement from one country to another.
• Migration: Movement within the same country from region to region.

Immigration Trends (1865-1898)

• U.S. population tripled; significant influx due to immigration.
• Approximately 16 million immigrants arrived, mainly from Europe (British Isles, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe).
  • Reasons for leaving Europe: poverty, overcrowding, joblessness, religious persecution (e.g., Eastern European Jews).
• Immigrants settled in industrial cities like Chicago, Pittsburgh, New York.
• Western immigration mainly consisted of Asian immigrants, especially Chinese.
• Effect on cities:
  • Social class segregation: middle class and wealthy moved out; working class and urban poor remained.
  • Resulted in crowded, poorly constructed tenements.
  • Frequent disease outbreaks (cholera, typhus, tuberculosis).
• Formation of ethnic enclaves:
  • Establishment of cultural institutions (e.g., Catholic Churches, synagogues).
  • Creation of banks and political organizations.
  • Opening of grocery stores selling food from homelands.

Migration Trends

• Exoduster Movement: Mass migration of Southern black people to the West (late 1870s).
  • Driven by end of Reconstruction, rise of KKK, Jim Crow laws.
  • 40,000 black southerners moved to Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado.
• Support organizations: Colored Relief Board, Kansas Freedmen’s Aid Society.
• Success mainly in urban centers (domestic servants, trade workers).
• Challenges in homesteading due to limited land availability.

Conclusion

• Mentioned upcoming discussion on responses to new immigrants and migrants.
• Encouragement to subscribe for more educational content.