The Gilded
Age
Chapter 7
Flatiron Building
Immigrants Settle in Cities
•
•
Industrialization leads to urbanization, or growth of cities
Most immigrants settle in cities; get cheap housing, factory jobs
• Americanization
movement —
assimilate people into
main culture
– Schools, voluntary groups teach
citizenship skills
–
• English, American history, cooking, etiquette
Ethnic communities provide social support
Urban Immigrants became big business
Political machine —
organized group that
controls city political
party
–
Give services to voters, businesses for political, financial support
• organized like a pyramid
• aid immigrants with
naturalization, jobs,
housing in exchange for
votes
Tammany Hall Boss Tweed - portrayed by 19th
century political cartoonist Thomas Nast
Right-Side
“The Gilded Age”
Cornell
Column
As you read the document, answer the
questions in the note section
1. Lincoln
Steffens
1. Who was Steffens and what was his
Point-of-View (POV) about Political
Bosses?
2. George
Plunkitt
2. Who was Plunkitt and what was his
POV about Political Bosses?
3. Take-AStand?
3. Were political bosses corrupt?
Support with evidence.
The Hierarchy of a
Political Machine
City
Boss
Ward Bosses
(might be about
a dozen men)
Precinct Captains
(in the 100s)
Precinct Workers
(in the 1,000s)
Election Fraud and Graft
–
Machines use electoral fraud to win elections
• Graft — illegal use of
political influence for
personal gain
–
Machines take kickbacks, bribes to allow legal, illegal
activities
The Tweed Ring Scandal
•
Boss Tweed,
heads Tammany Hall in NYC (a
1868 William M. Tweed, or
powerful Democratic political machine)
• defrauds city, downfall of
Tweed Ring
Cartoonist Thomas Nast helps
arouse public outrage against
“Boss” Tweed
Reformers Mobilize
Social Gospel movement,
preaches salvation through service to poor,
reformers work to relieve
urban poverty.
• Settlement houses —
community centers in
slums, help immigrants
–
Run by college-educated women, they:
• provide educational, cultural, social services
• send visiting nurses to the sick
• help with personal, job, financial problems
– Jane Addams establishes the
Hull House with Ellen Gates Starr in 1889
Jane Addams (1860-1935), social
reformer, with children
Opposing Discrimination
Ida B. Wells - spoke out
against lynching and racial
injustice
–
Between 1882 and 1892, more than 1,400 African-Americans
were lynched
• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) —
segregation legal in public places
–
“separate but equal” doctrine if provide
Allows
equal service
• Jim Crow Laws - racial segregation
laws separate races in private,
public places
Discrimination in the North
•
Many blacks migrate North for better paying jobs, social equality
•
Are forced into segregated neighborhoods
•
Rejected by labor unions; hired last, fired first by employers
Classwork/Homework
“Education and Culture”
• Use page 282 – 297 to complete
worksheet.