Transcript Industrialization and Immigration

Industrialization
and Immigration
1860 - 1914
America Enters the Industrial Age:

Lewis Latimer – learned mechanical drawing after serving in the
Union Navy in the Civil War

He held many patents – a government document that gives an
inventor the exclusive right to make and sell an invention for a
number of years, and worked with inventor Thomas Edison to
improve electric lighting
Industrial Revolution Continues:

In the early to mid-1800’s the industrial revolution had been underway

Replacing hand tools by factory machines, large scale manufacturing began to replace
farming

But industrialization didn’t come about until the late 1800’s, the process of developing
industry

The steel industry in the 1850’s, Bessemer steel process, used less coal than older process
used, and increased output by more than 350 times

Factories began to make steel plows, barbed wire, nails, beams for buildings, and rails for
railroads

Thomas Edison – inventor who found many ways to use electricity, opened a lab in Menlo
Park, New Jersey

Edison had more than 1,000 patents, including the house hold light bulb and a system of
delivering electricity to buildings
Industrial Revolution Continues…:

Alexander Graham Bell – invented the
telephone

Elias Howe – invented the first sewing
machine

Latham Sholes – help invent the first
practical typewriter

The invention of the switchboard to
allow more people to connect to a
phone network
Corporations Gain Power:

Decades after the Civil War, American businesses would reorganize, which
changed the way they were managed and financed

Which threatened business competition and the free market

Changes in technology made business owners want to buy new
equipment, to raise money they turned their businesses into corporations – a
business owned by shareholders – investors who buy part of the company
through shares of stock

Few laws regulated corporations in the 1800’s

This led to few powerful corporations that dominated American industry
Rockefeller and the Oil Industry

John D. Rockefeller – built his first refinery in 1863,
and thought the best way to make money was to
put his competitors out of business

Monopolies – a company that wipes out its
competitors and controls an industry

Trust – is a legal body created to hold stocks in
many companies, often in the same industry

By 1880, he controlled 95% of the oil industry

He became know as a robber baron – a business
leader who uses dishonest methods to grow rich
Carnegie and the Steel Industry:

Andrew Carnegie - unlike
Rockefeller, tried to beat the
competition buy making the best
and cheapest product for steel

He bought iron mines, ships, railroads,
and dominated the steel industry

During Carnegie’s and Rockefeller’s
reigns they gave away more that
$850 million dollars as philanthropists
The Business Cycle:

The pattern of good and bad
times experienced in the
economy is called the - business
cycle

Depression – periods of extremely
low economic activity,
happened during the 19th century

In the late 1800’s there were 2
depressions, 1873 and 1893

1873 saw 3 million people out of
work

1893 saw thousands of business
fail, including 150 railroads
Economic Growth Bring
Wealth and Poverty:

Industrialization brought with it great wealth and extreme poverty

The Gilded Age – was coined by writer Charles Warner and Mark Twain

People like Rockefeller and Carnegie, were inspirational to people because of their
rags-to-riches stories, that anyone who worked hard could become rich

Others who made millions already belonged to the upper class, who attended
colleges, and began their careers with the advantages of family connections or
already having their parents money

The name Gilded Age, had two meanings, as to gild is to coat something cheap with
gold leaf

Golf leaf was a disguise of an objects value

The wealth of a few masked society’s problems, including corrupt politics and widespread poverty
South Remains Agricultural:

Compared to the North’s industrial growth, the South’s economy slowly grew after
the Civil War

Cottons price was low

Sharecroppers made little money from cotton, and had a hard time paying what
they owed

Some areas saw growth like Birmingham, Alabama, and southern Virginia
Industrialization Changes Cities:

New materials and inventions help speed industrial growth

Not since early colonial days had so many people lived in rural areas, in the late
1800’s more and more people left and moved to cities for better opportunities

Urbanization – growth of cities that resulted from these changes

Skyscrapers were a new type of building that looked tall enough to scrape the sky,
they increased the amount of housing and workspace in cities

The elevator helped make them possible, in the 1860’s most building were only 4
stories high, the Otis Elevator Company, in 1889, made larger building possible

Steel also helped engineers construct larger buildings

Streetcars and suburbs, changed the way people lived, along with electricity

Before people walked or used horse-drawn carriages, streetcars allowed people
to travel faster and come from farther distances

Suburbs merged with cities making their population more than double in size
New Immigrants:

In 1890’s most immigrants came from
northern and western Europe

After 1896, they came from southern
and eastern Europe: Italy, Poland, and
Russia

Ellis Island – was where they were
processed before they could enter
the U.S.

Angel Island – in San Francisco, was
where most Asian immigrants first stop
was
Work and Housing:

Cities like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago attracted immigrants with
the promise of jobs

People with similar ethnic backgrounds often moved into the same neighborhoods:
like “Little Italy” in New York and “Chinatown” in San Francisco

Besides Chinese immigrants, Japanese immigrants moved to Hawaii in 1868 to work
on sugar plantations, and like Chinese they too worked on railroads, farmed, fished
and worked in mines

Mexican immigrants came through Texas after a revolution forced many to flee in
1910, they found jobs in California on ranches and copper mines in Texas and
Arizona
Reactions to Immigrants:

Immigrants were eager to become
part of the United States

Melting Pot – or place where cultures
blend

Assimilation – process of blending into
society

To assimilate they took English classes
and took Citizenship classes as well

Immigrants did not give up their
cultures completely, music, food, and
languages worked their way into
American culture too

Many feared Catholics and Jew,
thinking their religious beliefs would
interfere with politics
Restrictions on Immigrants:

Many native-born Americans feared the immigrants, and that they would have to
compete for jobs

Immigrants took whatever jobs they could fine, long hours, low wages, and in
unsafe conditions

Sweatshops – hot, crowded, dangerous factories

In 1882, Congress began to pass laws to restrict immigrants due to the fear of not
enough jobs

Chinese exclusion act – banned Chinese immigration for 10 years

In 1885, white workers in Rock Springs, Wyoming, refused to work in the same mine
as Chinese workers, whites stormed through the Chinese part of town killing 28
Chinese people

Mexicans and African Americans faced similar conditions in the Southwest

Peonage – a system of labor, where workers are forced to work until they pay off
their debt
Problems of Urbanization:

Cities with overcrowded populations became centers for disease

Buildings were packed so tightly together that the risk of disaster increased greatly

1906, San Francisco, was hit by a power earth quake destroying the central
business district and killing 700 people

Tenements – run down and overcrowded apartments, landlords neglected the
conditions, poor designs, and not government control led to dangerous conditions

No running water, garbage was thrown in the streets, sewage flowed in open
gutters

This gave rise to the term slums – a neighborhood overcrowded and dangerous
housing

Reformers started settlement houses which offered daycare, education, and
health care

Jane Addams – urban reformer and suffrage leader started the Hull House in 1889
Problems of Urbanization Cont…:

Social gospel movement –
based on Christian values and
led by Protestant ministers,
which worked for labor reforms
and abolishing child labor

Political machines – an illegal
gang that influenced votes to
control local governments

Tammany Hall – the most
famous political machine in
New York led by William Marcy
Tweed, who stole huge
amounts of money from the city

Despite corruption they built
parks, sewers, schools, roads,
and orphanages
Discrimination Against African
Americans:

Many whites considered themselves superior to Asians, Native Americans, Latin
Americans, and African Americans

Southern states restricted African Americans voting rights by setting up literacy –
reading, test at polls, poll taxes, and most test were unfair, some were written in
Latin

Southern states also included Grandfather clauses, a man could vote if he or an
ancestor, grandfather, had been eligible to vote before 1867

Jim Crow laws – “Jim Crow” was a minstrel show character that made fun of
African Americans, these laws were made to enforce segregation – separation of
whites and blacks in public places

Separate schools, trolley seats, restrooms, drinking fountains, and restaurants were
common in the South
Violence Increases:

Besides discrimination, African Americans faced
violence in the South

The KKK, Ku Klux Klan, was the first to challenge blacks in
the South during Reconstruction

Between 1885 – 1900, more than 1,500 African
Americans were lynched – hanged without due process
of the law

Ida B. Wells – African American journalist from Memphis ,
led the fight against lynching

Three of her friends were lynched in 1892

After starting an anti-lynching campaign, she to was
called to be lynched, but escaped to Chicago
Lynching in the South:
Plessy VS. Ferguson:

African Americans resisted segregation, but had
little power to stop it

In 1882, Homer Plessy, an African American, sued
a railroad company, arguing that segregation
seating violated his 14th Amendment rights, equal
protection of the laws

The Supreme Court ruled that “separate but
equal” facilities did not violate the 14th
Amendment

Separate facilities were not equal, white
controlled governments and companies let the
facilities decay
African Americans Organize:

Two different African American leaders emerged
from the discrimination and violence

Booker T. Washington – founded the Tuskegee
Institute in Alabama to help African Americans
learn teaching or trades

W. E. B. Du Bois – a sociology professor, disagreed
with Washington, he believed that higher
education would help African Americans be
equal

NAACP – National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, was formed by
Du Bois and Jane Addams in 1909
The Labor Movement:

Industrialization expanded, standard of living generally improved

Workers faced dangerous conditions for the work they did:

10 – 12 hour work day

Low wages

No sick days

Dull, repetitive jobs

Unsafe and unhealthy working conditions

For example, railroad owners would not buy air brakes of automatic-car couplers
even though 30,000 railroad workers were injured and 2,000 killed every year

The average weekly wage was less than $10
Labor Unions:

Knights of Labor – a loose federation of
workers from different trades, was
formed after the Civil War, and unlike
most unions, allowed women and
African Americans to join after 1878

In July of 1877, the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad (B & O) workers went on strike,
President Hayes called federal troops
to intervene, and before the 2 week
strike ended dozens of people were
killed

Many unions excluded African
Americans
Struggle Between Business and
Labor:
 Labor unions sacred many business
leaders

Powerful unions threatened business
profits

Socialism – a social system in which the
means of production and distributing
goods is owned collectively by a
central government

Anarchists – believe in anarchy, the
abolition of all governments
Struggle Between Business and
Labor Cont…:

Haymarket Affair – McCormick Harvester Company locked out striking union
members, and hired strike breakers to replace them

On May 3rd, Union members, strike breakers, and police clashed, killing one union
member

The next day, union leaders called a protest meeting at Haymaker Square,
someone threw a bomb as police were moving in killing 7 officers and wounding 60
others

Samuel Gompers, a labor union leader, helped form the national organization of
unions called American Federation of Labor (AFL) – they used negotiations, strikes,
and boycotts to achieve its goals
Struggle Between Business and
Labor Cont…:

Carnegie reduced wages in his steel mill in Homestead, Pennsylvania, which gave
rise to the Homestead Strike – the company locked the union workers out, hired
nonunion workers, as well as 300 armed guards

July 6th, the guards battled the locked out workers leaving 10 dead, 4 months later
the union collapsed

The Pullman Palace Car Company cut workers pay by 25%, but didn’t lower the
rent that workers had to pay in company housing

Pullman Strike – spread throughout the railroad industry in 1894, the Pullman
Company refused to negotiate

Eugene V. Debs – American Railway Union president, called on all railroad workers
to refuse to handle Pullman cars, President Grover Cleveland called out federal
troops which ended the strike, and Debs was put in jail
Society and Mass Culture:

Early school in the 1800’s, learning was done by memorization and repetition

Education helped create mass culture – a common culture experienced by large
numbers of people

Urban populations grew, and industrialization helped create cheaper goods and
more leisure time - or freedom from time consuming duties

Growth in education gave rise to growth in the number of American readers

Reading became popular, publishing industry grew by producing books,
magazines, and newspapers

Dime novels were especially popular

Joseph Pulitzer – owner of the New York World, and William Randolph Hearst - owner
of the New York Morning Journal were fierce competitors

Consumers – someone who buys something, could now buy new products and
experience new forms of entertainment: movies, sports, music, advertising shaped
modern Americans
Society and Mass Culture Cont…:

Modern advertising in newspapers
changed the way people bought
items

Department stores were new stores
that sold everything

Mail-order catalogs were there if a
customer didn’t live close to a
Department store

Amusement Parks had shops, food
vendors, exciting rides, shows, and
amusements

Baseball was the most popular sport

Vaudeville – mixture of music, dance,
comedy

Ragtime – a musical blend of African
American songs and European musical
forms