Chapter 15 Immigrants and Urbanization
Essential Question
What were the economic, social, and political effects of immigration?
Alabama Course of Study
Explain the transition of the United States from an agrarian society to an industrial nation prior to World War I.
* Comparing population percentages, motives, and settlement patterns of immigrants from Asia, Africa, Europe, and
Latin America, including the Chinese Exclusion Act regarding immigration quotas
Vocabulary
1. Ellis Island
2. Angel Island
3. Assimilate
4. melting pot
5. Nativism
6. Chinese Exclusion Act
7. Gentlemen’s Agreement
8. urbanization
9. Americanization Movement
10. tenement
11. Social Gospel Movement
12. settlement house
13. Jane Addams
14. Gilded Age
15. political machine
16. graft
17. William “Boss” Tweed
18. patronage
19. Pendleton Civil Service Act
7.1 The New Immigrants
1. Why did Europeans choose the United States to move to?
2. Why did Asian immigrants migrate to the West Coast of the U.S.?
3. What were traveling conditions like in steerage?
4. What would happen to immigrants once they reached Ellis Island?
5. How did conditions differ at Angel Island than Ellis Island?
6. What challenges did immigrants face once they entered the U.S.?
7. How did immigrants deal with the challenges they faced?
8. Why did nativists resent immigrants?
9. Under the Chinese Exclusion Act, who were the only Chinese allowed to enter the U.S.?
10. What happened in San Francisco that angered the Japanese government?
7.2 The Challenges of Urbanization
1. What caused rapid urbanization?
2. Why would most immigrants choose to live in cities?
3. Why did native born Americans start the Americanization Movement?
4. In an effort to escape racial violence, economic hardship, and political oppression, many African Americans moved up
North. What was life like for most of them?
5. What housing problems did urban working class families face?
6. What were some problems urban areas faced?
7. Who ran settlement houses?
8. What type of services did settlement houses offer?
7.3 Politics in the Gilded Age
1. Explain what the phrase Gilded Age means.
2. Who prospered during the Gilded Age?
3. Describe the pyramid of the political machine.
4. Why did immigrants support political machines?
5. How did the Tweed Ring profit from the building of the New York County Courthouse?
6. What was the problem with patronage?
7. Why was president Garfield assassinated?
8. Why is the Pendleton Civil Service Act better for the U.S.?
9. What was a negative effect of the Pendleton Civil Service Act?
10. Why did Big Business want the government to raise tariffs?
Vocabulary
1. Ellis Island
European immigrants had to pass inspection at immigration stations, such as the one on Ellis Island in New York
Harbor.
2. Angel Island
Asians primarily Chinese arriving on the West Coast gained admission at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay.
3. melting pot
a mixture of people of different cultures and races who blended together by abandoning their native languages and
customs.
4. Nativism
favoritism toward native-born Americans. Nativism gave rise to anti-immigrant groups and led to a demand for
immigration restrictions. Many nativists believed that Anglo-Saxons the Germanic ancestors of the English were
superior to other ethnic groups.
5. Chinese Exclusion Act
banned entry to all Chinese except students, teachers, merchants, tourists, and government officials.
6. Gentlemen’s Agreement
Japan’s government agreed to limit emigration of unskilled workers to the United States in exchange for the repeal of
the San Francisco segregation order.
7. urbanization
growth of cities, mostly in the regions of the Northeast and Midwest.
8. Americanization Movement
designed to assimilate people of wide-ranging cultures into the dominant culture.
9. Tenement
immigrants often took over their old housing, sometimes with two or three families occupying a one-family residence.
were overcrowded and unsanitary.
10. Social Gospel Movement
reform program, preached salvation through service to the poor.
reformers responded to the call to help the urban poor.
11. Settlement house
community centers in slum neighborhoods that provided assistance to people in the area, especially immigrants.
Run largely by middle-class, college-educated women, settlement houses provided educational, cultural, and social
services.
12. political machine
An organized group that controlled the activities of a political party in a city, the political machine also offered
services to voters and businesses in exchange for political or financial support. Political machines gained control of
local governments.
13. Graft
the illegal use of political influence for personal gain. For example, by helping a person find work on a construction
project for the city, a political machine could ask the worker to bill the city for more than the actual cost of materials
and labor. The worker then “kicked back” a portion of the earnings to the machine. Taking these kickbacks, or illegal
payments for their services, enriched the political machines and individual politicians. Political machines also granted
favors to businesses in return for cash and accepted bribes to allow illegal activities, such as gambling, to flourish.
Politicians were able to get away with shady dealings because the police rarely interfered.
14. Patronage
giving of government jobs to people who had helped a candidate get elected. This policy was known as the spoils
system.
15. Civil service
nonmilitary government jobs
16. Pendleton Civil Service Act
authorized a bipartisan civil service commission to make appointments to federal jobs through a merit system based
on candidates’ performance on an examination.
17. Grover Cleveland
Democratic president that tried to lower tariff rates to decrease prices, but Congress refused to support him.
18. Rutherford B. Hayes
Republican president that could not convince Congress to support civil service reforms, so he used other means.
19. James A. Garfield
angered the Stalwarts by giving reformers most of his patronage jobs once he was elected. As President Garfield
walked through the Washington, D. C., train station, he was shot two times by a mentally unbalanced lawyer named
Charles Guiteau, whom Garfield had turned down for a job.
7.1 The New Immigrants
1. Why did Europeans choose the United States to move to?
The American dream. Lured by the promise of a better life. Some of these immigrants
sought to escape difficult conditions such as famine, land shortages, or religious or
political persecution.
2. Why did Asian immigrants migrate to the West Coast of the U.S.?
The American dream. Lured by the promise of a better life. Many came to seek their
fortunes after the discovery of gold in 1848 sparked the California gold rush. Also
came looking for work.
3. What were traveling conditions like in steerage?
The cheapest accommodations in a ship’s cargo holds. Rarely allowed on deck, immigrants
were crowded together in the gloom, unable to exercise or catch a breath of fresh air.
They often had to sleep in louse-infested bunks and share toilets with many other passengers.
Under these conditions, disease spread quickly, and some immigrants died before they
reached their destination.
4. What would happen to immigrants once they reached Ellis Island?
First, they had to pass a physical examination by a doctor. Anyone with a serious health
problem or a contagious disease, such as tuberculosis, was promptly sent home. Those who
passed the medical exam then reported to a government inspector. The inspector checked
documents and questioned immigrants European governments used passports to control the
number of professionals and young men of military age who left the country.
5. How did conditions differ at Angel Island than Ellis Island?
Immigrants endured harsh questioning and a long detention in filthy, ramshackle
buildings while they waited to find out whether they would be admit-ted or rejected.
6. What challenges did immigrants face once they entered the U.S.?
Immigrants faced the challenges of finding a place to live, getting a job, and getting along
in daily life while trying to understand an unfamiliar language and culture.
7. How did immigrants deal with the challenges they faced?
Many immigrants sought out people who shared their cultural values, practiced their
religion, and spoke their native language. The ethnic communities were life rafts for
immigrants. People pooled their money to build churches or synagogues. They formed
social clubs and aid societies. They founded orphanages and homes for the elderly, and
established cemeteries. They even published newspapers in their own languages.
8. Why did nativists resent immigrants?
Native-born people often disliked the immigrants’ unfamiliar customs and languages,
and viewed them as a threat to the American way of life. Many nativists believed that
Anglo-Saxons the Germanic ancestors of the English were superior to other ethnic groups.
Nativists sometimes objected more to immigrants’ religious beliefs than to their ethnic
backgrounds. Native-born workers feared that jobs would go to immigrants.
9. Under the Chinese Exclusion Act, who were the only Chinese allowed to enter the U.S.?
students, teachers, merchants, tourists, and government officials.
10. What happened in San Francisco that angered the Japanese government?
In 1906, the local board of education in San Francisco segregated Japanese children
by putting them in separate schools.
7.2 The Challenges of Urbanization
1. What caused rapid urbanization?
The technological boom which caused an increase in jobs .
2. Why would most immigrants choose to live in cities?
Cities were the cheapest and most convenient places to live.
Cities also offered unskilled laborers steady jobs in mills and factories.
3. Why did native born Americans start the Americanization Movement?
To assimilate people of wide-ranging cultures into the dominant culture.
Schools and voluntary associations provided programs to teach immigrants skills
needed for citizenship. To help the newcomers learn the ways of native-born Americans.
4. In an effort to escape racial violence, economic hardship, and political oppression, many African Americans moved up
North. What was life like for most of them?
Many found conditions only some-what better than those they had left behind.
Segregation and discrimination were often the reality in Northern cities. Job competition
between blacks and white immigrants caused further racial tension.
5. What housing problems did urban working class families face?
Transportation problems, or rent cramped rooms in a boardinghouse.
6. What were some problems urban areas faced?
Transportation, clean water, sanitation, professional fire and police, and crime.
7. Who ran settlement houses?
Run largely by middle-class, college-educated women, settlement houses provided
educational, cultural, and social services.
8. What type of services did settlement houses offer?
Provided educational, cultural, and social services.
7.3 Politics in the Gilded Age
1. Explain what the phrase Gilded Age means.
Twain mocks the greed and self-indulgence of society. Getting rich quick is more difficult
than they had thought it would be. Investments turn out to be worthless; politicians’
bribes eat up their savings. The glittering exterior of the age turns out to hide a corrupt
political core and a growing gap between the few rich and the many poor.
2. Who prospered during the Gilded Age?
The rich and many politicians.
3. Describe the pyramid of the political machine.
At the pyramid’s base were local precinct workers and captains, who tried to gain voters’
support on a city block or in a neighborhood and who reported to a ward boss. At election
time, the ward boss worked to secure the vote in all the precincts in the ward, or electoral
district. Ward bosses helped the poor and gained their votes by doing favors or providing services
At the top of the pyramid was the city boss, who controlled the activities of the political
party throughout the city. Precinct captains, ward bosses, and the city boss worked together to
elect their candidates and guarantee the success of the machine..
4. Why did immigrants support political machines?
The machines helped immigrants with naturalization (attaining full citizenship), housing,
and jobs the newcomers’ most pressing needs. In return, the immigrants provided what
the political bosses needed votes.
5. How did the Tweed Ring profit from the building of the New York County Courthouse?
The project cost taxpayers $13 million, while the actual construction cost was $3 million.
The difference went into the pockets of Tweed and his followers.
6. What was the problem with patronage?
Some government employees were not qualified for the positions they filled.
7. Why was president Garfield assassinated?
He supported Civil service reform.
8. Why is the Pendleton Civil Service Act better for the U.S.?
public administration became more honest and efficient.
9. What was a negative effect of the Pendleton Civil Service Act?
politicians turned to other sources for donations.
With employees no longer a source of campaign contributions, politicians turned to wealthy
business owners. Therefore, the alliance between government and big business became
stronger than ever.
10. Why did Big Business want the government to raise tariffs?
the tariffs that protected domestic industries from foreign competition.