Everyday Life In Flux: The New American City How did the growth of cities and the influx of immigrants create a new awareness of ethnic and class differences? How were racial stereotypes used to reinforce these distinctions?

Everyday Life In Flux: The New American City Growth of American Cities between 1870 – 1900. See Table. 19-1 Urban Growth: 1870-1900, p. 577 In 1900 New York’s 3.4 million inhabitants almost equaled the nation’s entire 1850 urban population

Everyday Life In Flux: The New American City Urban Growth Migration from countryside Nearly 11 million foreign immigrants between 1870 and 1900

Everyday Life In Flux: The New American City Urban Growth = Fertile soil economic growth Growing cities create new jobs and new markets Dramatically stimulate national economic expansion

Everyday Life In Flux: The New American City City’s diversity threatened traditional expectations about community life and social stability Cities – immigrant groups competed with each other and native-born Americans for jobs, power, and influence Services were strained Housing and sanitation problems Accentuated class differences

Everyday Life In Flux: The New American City Complaints of Native-born American Noise, stench, and congestion of cityscape Squalid tenements Newcomers fondness for drink and strange social customs When reformers wanted to clean up the environment, they also wanted to destroy distinctive customs

Everyday Life In Flux: The New American City Migrants and Immigrants Growing concentration of Industries produced demands for new workers Pull Factors – good wages and broad range of jobs (some farm communities vanished from the map)

Everyday Life In Flux: The New American City Migrants and Immigrants Mechanization made farming even more a “mans job” Women led the exodus from the farm to the city Mail order catalogs reduced rural needs for women’s labor on subsistence tasks Young farm women in cities competed with immigrant, black and city born white women

Everyday Life In Flux: The New American City Migrants and Immigrants 1860 to 1890 – prospect of a better life also attracted nearly 10 million northern European immigrants to East Coast and Midwestern cities. Germans – close to 3,000,000 English, Scottish, and Welsh – nearly 2,000,000 Irish – 1,500,000 French-Canadians 800,000 Scandinavian – close to 1,000,000

Everyday Life In Flux: The New American City Migrants and Immigrants Despite the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 – more than 81,000 Chinese remained in California and nearby states in 1900.

Everyday Life In Flux: The New American City Migrants and Immigrants “old immigrants” from northern and western Europe “new immigrants” Italians, Slavs, Greeks, and Jews from southern and eastern Europe, Armenians from the Middle ease, and in Hawaii, Japanese from Asia

Everyday Life In Flux: The New American City Migrants and Immigrants Immigrants – settled in the city Irish in New England Germans in the Midwest Immigrants forced from homeland for: overpopulation, crop failure, famine, religious persecution, violence, or industrial depression. (push factors)

Everyday Life In Flux: The New American City Migrants and Immigrants England – Economic downturn German – overpopulation and church reorganization Others came for better opportunities Hawaii – Japanese Lucrative sugar plantations high wages Some returned home with money.

Everyday Life In Flux: The New American City 1855 – NY State – Castle Garden 1892 - Federal Government – Ellis Island 1910 – San Francisco Bay – Angel Island Immigrant Processing Centers