Immigration and Progressivism

Immigration Waves in US History antebellum, —largely northern European, especially England, Ireland and Germany—approx. 4.5 million late 19th-early 20th century, —largely Southern and Eastern European, including Polish and Russian Jews, Italian, Greek—approx million also Asian immigrants in the late 19th-early 20th century, in much fewer numbers (for example, Chinese immigrants built US railroads)

Immigration Waves > Naturalization Law and Race in US History Congress limits naturalization to white persons Congress adds African Americans (naturalization limited to “free white persons” and “persons of African descent”) racial prerequisite for naturalization eliminated

Immigration Waves > Alfred Stieglitz, “The Steerage,” 1907

Immigration Waves > Arrival of Immigrants, Ellis Island, May 9, 1906

Immigration Waves > The Godfather, Part II (1974)

Construction of Racial Difference > Fragment What is this man’s ethnic background?

Construction of Racial Difference > Entire Cartoon, ca. Civil War

Construction of Racial Difference > Arnold Genthe, “An Unsuspecting Victim,” 1908

Construction of Racial Difference > Emphasizing difference

Construction of Racial Difference > “Pigtail Parade,” 1908

Construction of Racial Difference > Making exotic

Chinese Exclusion > Acts of 1882, 1884, and 1888 and related legislation Only Chinese non-laborers and those who were born in the U.S. can enter Those who resided in the U.S. prior to 1880 can remain if they don’t leave the country If they leave they can come back if they have at least one thousand dollars worth of property or debts owned to them The status of wife and child followed that of a husband No Chinese could be naturalized as U.S. citizen

Chinese Exclusion > Cartoon on the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

Chinese Exclusion > “The Chinese: Many Handed But Soulless,” The Wasp, 1885

Chinese Exclusion > Labor leaers’ response Denis Kearney, California’s Workingmen’s Party (typical) Chinese laborers are “cheap working slaves” who lower white workers’ standard of living and should be banished from the U.S. Joseph McDonnell, an Irish-born socialist Intolerance against the Chinese repeats earlier “intolerant, silly and shameful cry” against the Irish. Workers should learn from this history and unite B.E.G. Jewett, a socialist Corporate employers--“oppressors, money-mongers”--are to blame and must go

Chinese Exclusion > “The Bradys and the Chinese Dwarf,” c. 1907

Chinese Exclusion > Salyer, “Captives of Law” Many Chinese were able to get into the U.S. by appealing to U.S. Courts even after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 The prohibition of judicial review of immigration decisions did not apply to the Chinese because unlike other immigrants until 1903 they did not come under purview of the Bureau of Immigration and immigration law Judges often ruled in favor of Chinese plaintiffs because they adhered to Anglo- American common law traditions of habeas corpus and evidentiary rules of witness testimony (for example, did not require two white witnesses) Newcomers relied on community groups and white lawyers to make their case for citizenship based on witness testimony This continued until 1905 when the Bureau of Immigration took over Chinese immigration and was granted final jurisdiction in the question of citizenship

Progressivism > Main Tenets Denounce corruption, want to reform business Active in “muckcracking” journalism, documentary photography, and realist art Self-image: pragmatic, efficient, morally righteous crusaders Want to reform the poor urban immigrants as well, set up “settlement houses” to teach middle class values to working class immigrants Recognize the distance between immigrant slums and “the middle class” (themselves) Their goal is to “Americanize immigrants”, not to learn from their cultures or to preserve them

Progressivism > Cartoon about the Melting Pot, 1889

Progressives > Jane Addams’s Hull House Complex, 1902

Progressives > Hull House Kindergarten Class, 1902

Progressives > Hull House “Labor Museum,” 1902

Progressivism > Jacob Riis, “Bandit’s Roost, 59 1/2 Mulberry Street,” c. 1888

Progressivism > Jacob Riis, “Bandit’s Roost,” How the Other Half Lives (1890)

Progressivism > Jacob Riis, “Mullen’s Alley, Cherry Hill,” 1888

Progressivism > Jacob Riis, “A downtown ‘Morgue’”(unlicensed saloon), c. 1890

Progressivism > Jacob Riis, “A Black-and-Tan Dive in ‘Africa,’” c. 1890

Research Assignment > Compare Arnold Genthe’s and Jacob Riis’s Photographs