Transcript The Gilded Age - St. John's High School

THE GILDED AGE
1870-1900
PART II
THE NEW IMMIGRATION
Unprecedented Scale
• 1890-1920: over 18 million immigrants
• 1910: 15% of Americans were foreign born,
and over 1/3 were 1st or 2nd generation
• 80% settled in urban areas
• provided labor for rapid US industrialization
THE NEW IMMIGRANTS
New Origins
 previously, ¾ came from Northern & Western Europe
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esp. British Isles & Germany
 new immigrants came from Southern & Eastern Europe
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Italians (largest group)
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Eastern European Jews
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Eastern and Southern European Slavs
 West coast: Chinese
THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE
Ethnic Neighborhoods
Social and Economic Mobility
 Italians

little upward mobility

education, female work
 Eastern European Jews

assimilated more easily

education, female work
Nativism
 objections
 goals
 successes
 the Chinese Exclusion
Act of 1882
THE RISE OF BIG CITIES
Massive, rapid growth
 e.g., New York:
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1830: 203,000
1860: 814,000
1880: 1.2 million
1900: 3.4 million
Geographic divisions
 “streetcar
suburbs”
 slums
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
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
crowding
sanitation
safety
vice
The dumbbell tenement –
New York City
JACOB RIIS,
HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES (1890)
URBAN POLITICAL MACHINES
“Boss Rule” – corruption
• manipulation of immigrant voters
• prevention of democracy
Newer Interpretation
 adaptation to changing conditions
 met many basic needs of city residents
 reflected a rethinking of government’s
role
 more active social role
POPULAR ATTITUDES TOWARD CITIES
Positive
• excitement, opportunity, &
progress
Negative
 poverty, crime, vice,
corruption, disease
Political Reaction –
Rural/Urban Split
 immigration laws, temperance,
public schools
 resistance to redistricting
RISE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS
Growth
 cities and small-towns
 white-collar workers, merchants,
professionals
Small-scale conspicuous
consumption
 possessions as status markers
 new marketing techniques
 department stores
 mail-order catalogs
 the home
 the “search for order” on a
personal level
 women and domesticity
 technology and everyday life
PERSISTENCE OF TRADITIONAL
CULTURAL VALUES
“Free-labor” ideals
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hard work/discipline  success


Horatio Alger
failure to rise  stigma
Social Darwinism reinforced these views

natural selection, survival of the fittest

Herbert Spencer, William Graham Sumner,
Carnegie
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justified ruthless business tactics
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justified discrimination vs. the poor/ethnic groups
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confirmed (supposedly) laissez-faire govt.
policies