Transcript Standard 12

The student will analyze important consequences of
American industrial growth.

a. Describe Ellis Island, the change in
immigrants’ origins to southern and
eastern Europe and the impact of this
change on urban America.
New Immigration

The last quarter of the 19th century was
marked by a great deal of turmoil in
central and eastern Europe
 Low wages
 Unemployment
 Disease
 Forced military conscription
 Religious persecution (particularly Eastern
European and Russian Jews forced from their
homes by Pogroms)
New Immigration
All inspired immigrants to come to the
United States
 These groups formed the bulk of the
“new immigration” coming to America

New Immigration

Prior to the 1880’s
 Majority of immigrants came from northern
and western Europe
 During the colonial period immigrants were
overwhelming English
○ Along smaller groups of Scots, Germans,
French, and Africans
○ In the decades after the American Revolution
large groups of Irish and Germans arrived
New Immigration
After the Civil War
 More and more Eastern and Southern
Europeans immigrated to America
 Between 1880 and 1920, over 20 million
immigrants entered the United States

 These newcomers would eventually
comprise an amazing 15% of the total
population
New Immigration
Many immigrants stayed in the port
cities where they had debarked
 They generally grouped themselves into
ethnic neighborhoods

 Many lived in tenements
○ Accepting the poor living conditions because
of the political, economic and religious
freedoms of America

Still others, however, went on to other
cities and regions
New Immigration

Some took jobs in factories
 Others found work as agricultural laborers
 Many planned only to stay long enough to
earn enough money to buy land in their
native countries
 However, within a generation, many had
started their own businesses or purchased
farms of their own.
New Immigration

These latest newcomers greatly affected
the social as well as the economic and
political landscape
 Immigration almost single-handedly
accounted for the tremendous growth of the
Catholic Church in the United States during
this period
 Many American Protestants reacted to these
newcomers with a mixture of antiCatholicism and Nativism
Ellis Island

Ellis Island Immigrant Station located in
New York Harbor was opened in 1892
 By 1924 the station had processed 12
million immigrants
 By some estimates 40% of all Americans
today can trace their port of entry back to
Ellis Island
Ellis Island

Upon arrival in New York harbor,
immigrants were transported from their
ships by barges to the immigrant
processing center
 There were 21 processing centers
 The two most famous were:
○ Ellis Island in New York
○ Angel Island in California
Ellis Island

Arrivals were asked 29 questions
including:
 Name
 Occupation
 Amount of money carried
 The inspection process lasted from 3-7
hours
Ellis Island

About 2 percent were denied admission
to the U.S.
 They were sent back to their countries of
origin for reasons such as having a:
○ Chronic contagious disease
○ Criminal background
○ Diagnosis of insanity

Sadly, around 3,000 immigrants died on
the island waiting to be processed
Impact on Urban America
Over-crowding in the cities lead to
increased problems with crime and
disease
 Increased demand for agricultural and
industrial goods spurred additional
economic growth

Impact on Urban America

New cultural items such as:
 Italian opera
 Polish polkas
 Russian literature
 New foods such as:
○ Spaghetti
○ Frankfurters
○ Hamburgers
 Became a part of the America diet

b. Identify the American Federation of
Labor and Samuel Gompers.
American Federation of Labor (AFL)

Unskilled laborers were subject to





Low wages
Long workdays
No vacations
Unsafe workplaces
Because individual workers had little
power to change the way an employer
ran a business, workers banded
together in labor unions to demand
better pay and working conditions.
American Federation of Labor (AFL)

Originally labor unions were organized
for either skilled or unskilled workers
 Each group had their own union
 The unions relied on collective bargaining to
obtain their demands
○ When employers refused to bargain, union
used direct action (i.e., labor strikes) to obtain
concessions
American Federation of Labor (AFL)

The earliest national labor union was the
Knights of Labor (1869)
 Members of the union were both skilled and
unskilled workers
 Initially effective, the union lost influence and
power after the failure to win concessions in:
○ The Missouri Pacific Railroad Strike
○ The Haymarket Affair in 1886
 Skilled workers were reluctant to support
lower paid unskilled workers when the latter
went out on strike
Samuel Gompers and the AFL

An immigrant who came to the United
States in 1863
 A cigar maker by trade
 In 1886 he helped to create the American
Federation of Labor, or AFL
 Was President of the union from 1886-1924,
except for a one year vacation
 His union accepted only skilled workers
Samuel Gompers and the AFL
He organized workers by craft rather than
by geography as the Knights had
 Gompers also did not see capitalism as the
enemy, as had radical members of the KoL

 Urged workers to work with owners for higher
pay and better working conditions
 He was not above using work stoppages (labor
strikes) to obtain what was desired
 His tactics moved to be very effective until the
Great Depression
○ The AFL was successful due it sheer numbers—
some four million members at its height of power

c. Describe the growth of the western
population and its impact on Native
Americans with reference to Sitting Bull
and Wounded Knee.
Expansion West/Renewed Conflict

The lands west of the Mississippi River
had been set aside as reserves for the
Native Americans
 In the first third of the 19th century

The Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and
other native nations had followed the
Plains buffalo herds for centuries
 The advent of the western railroads and the
government’s desire to settle people on
western lands conflicted with the Plains
Indians culture
Expansion West/Renewed Conflict

A savage guerilla war ensued as the
Plains Indians attacked settlers, wagon
trains, and the Army
 In 1868 the Federal government concluded
the Fort Laramie Treaty with the Plains tribes
 In exchange for land set aside in the Black
Hills of the Dakotas, the Plains nations
agreed to leave western migrants alone
Expansion West/Renewed Conflict
However, the discovery of gold in the
Black Hills of the Dakotas in 1875 lead
to renewed warfare
 One of the great leaders of Native
Americans was the Lakota leader,
Sitting Bull (Tatanka-Iyotanka)

Expansion West/Renewed Conflict

He became a noted warrior as a result
of the fighting between the United States
and Lakota in 1863
 After continued incursions into Lakota
Territory in 1876, Sitting Bull led a coalition
of Plains tribes against the U.S. Army
 The Great Sioux War of 1876-1877
culminated in the Battle of the Little Big Horn
in which much of the Seventh Cavalry was
wiped out
Expansion West/Renewed Conflict

Despite this victory the Plains nations
were doomed by superior numbers and
organization
 The United States government targeted the
buffalo and wiped the Plains tribes’ main
food supply
 While some native bands escaped into
Canada, most of the surviving Plains tribes
were forced on to reservations
Expansion West/Renewed Conflict

Afterward, a large force of U.S. Army
troops relentlessly pursued the Plains
bands subduing some groups
 Sitting Bull led his people into Canada
 After five years of exile and unable to feed
his people, Sitting Bull returned to the United
States and finally agreed to settle on a
reservation
Expansion West/Renewed Conflict

About 10 years later, Sitting Bull’s was
urged to join the new Ghost Dance
 Religious movement that was sweeping
through the Plains tribes
 The Native Americans believed their
ceremony would cleanse the world of evil,
including the white man, and restore the
Sioux’s lost greatness
Expansion West/Renewed Conflict

Fearing Sitting Bull would join the
movement and thereby lend credence to
the Ghost Dancers
 Government officials ordered Sitting Bull’s
arrest
 Sitting Bulls’ followers attempted to prevent
his arrest and in the resulting gun battle he
was a killed by a tribal policeman
Wounded Knee

Sitting Bulls’ followers were fearful of
reprisals following his death
 Some 200 Lakota left the Standing Ridge
Reservation and joined with other Sioux
 Fearful of another Plains War, the Seventh
Cavalry intercepted the group and forced
them to stop
Wounded Knee

The next day U.S. soldiers went to
confiscate weapons from the Sioux
 A gun was accidentally fired
 The soldiers feared they were under attack
and began firing into men, women, and
children
Wounded Knee

When the firing stopped:
 150 Sioux were killed
 50 wounded
 Most of the army casualties were the result
of friendly fire
 This ended the Native Americans’ long
conflict against Americans settling Native
American lands

d. Describe the 1894 Pullman strike as
an example of industrial unrest.
Pullman Strike

The Panic of 1893 lead the Pullman
Palace Car Company (who produced
passenger cars for the railroads) to cut
wages as orders for cars slowed
 Workers complained to George Pullman
about the wage cuts and the refusal of
Pullman to lower rents for company housing
Pullman Strike

When members of the American
Railway Union (led by Eugene V. Debs)
refused to handle Pullman cars, Pullman
locked his workers out
 Railroad workers across the nation went out
on strike in support of the Pullman workers
 Other labor unions walked off their jobs also
 Railroad companies hired strikebreakers to
end the strike
Pullman Strike

The railroads also successfully applied
for an injunction against the unions to
stop the strike
 Debs and the unions ignored the injunction
○ Following a speech by Debs in May 1894,
workers destroyed railroad property
 President Grover Cleveland responded by
calling out Federal Marshals and the U.S.
Army to break up strikers
Pullman Strike

Cleveland held that the railroad strike
violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act
because it interfered with the delivery of
the mail
 Debs was arrested, tried, and convicted on
conspiracy charges
 The unions were later sued for damages by
the railroads
Pullman Strike

Interestingly, in order to placate the
unions, Cleveland supported the
creation of Labor Day in order to honor
workers in the United States