Immigrants & The Changing of America

Immigration: My Questions What were two pull factors that convinced immigrants to come to America? What were two push factors that convince immigrants to come to America? How did immigrants impact city life in America? Why did people from the middle class and upper class move out of cities into suburbs?

Mass Immigration 15 million foreign immigrants came to America between They came primarily for the countless number of industrial jobs available in urban areas. Immigrants changed the cultural nature of America, bringing their distinct customs, foods, & more. Also, the immigrants were the sole reason that American cities expanded to astronomical levels.

Immigrants By The Numbers The largest group of immigrants were the Germans, with 3 million coming to America. Next were the British—the English, Scottish, and Welsh—with 2 million. 1.5 million Irish came over to America. Smaller groups of Italians, Greeks, Jews, Armenians, Chinese, and Japanese also immigrated.

Pulling The Immigrants A pull factor is something a foreign country or region offers to prospective immigrants that would make them want to move there. The greatest pull factor of America was the tremendous expansion of industry that created millions of factory jobs. Good wages was promised to immigrants in overseas advertisements, but it usually was not the case. Also, America was commonly known as a land of adventure & excitement, which appealed to immigrants.

Food For Thought: What do you think was a pull factor for Japanese to come to Hawaii?

Pushing The Immigrants A push factor is a reason or thing that pushes immigrants out of their old countries. There were many push factors for different groups of immigrants like overpopulation, crop failure, famine, religious persecution, violence, or economic depression. For examples, many English left because of economic problems and Germans largely left because of overpopulation and religious changes they opposed.

Food For Thought: What do you think was the greatest push factor for the Irish?

Traveling On Their Own A large number of immigrants were single young men. Some came to get an education and to find permanent work. However, nearly eight million “birds of passage” came to work for a year in hopes of making good money—especially Italian and Chinese men— and returning back home with their earnings. Because they were looking to make money fast, they often did not care about bad working conditions.

Women & Children Immigrants Sometimes women, especially Irish women, were known to travel on their own, make money, and send it back home. For the most part, however, women & children stayed back until the male breadwinner had secured a job and had enough money to bring them over to America.

Welcome to America Most immigrants landed in either New York or San Francisco. There, customs officials inspected each immigrant for either handicaps or diseases like leprosy, trachoma, or STDs. If you had any of these you were deported. If you passed your correct name was recorded if it was clearly understood. However if your name was Schon Vergessen it would likely be changed to Shawn Ferguson!

Finding a Place to Live Most German artisans and farmers carried enough cash to move to the Midwest into cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Milwaukee or smaller rural communities. Irish and Italians, who were usually poor peasants, decided to remain in eastern cities like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia.

Adjusting to American City Life One of the major ways immigrants adjusted to America was by living in neighborhoods full of their own ethnicity and nationality, like Chinatown and Little Italy. Those from the British Isles adjusted the easiest because they could speak English and usually had worked in mills and manufacturing centers. The Irish also encountered less hardship because of their large numbers in cities. In New York and Boston they made up 17% of the population.

Discrimination in the City & Beyond Since English & German immigrants usually controlled many of the building trades, they often limited the number of Italian workers. Native-born Americans usually disliked all immigrants because they feared their social customs & growing influence. In fact, native-born Americans often considered the Irish, Italians, Poles, and to be of a different race like African Americans. The Chinese were especially discriminated against, and with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, all Chinese immigrants were prohibited from entering the U.S.

Slums & Ghettos Immigrants usually lived in overcrowded, rundown neighborhoods near factories called slums. Landlords made slums worse when they subdivided old buildings and packed in hundreds of immigrants to make money. Slums became ghettos when laws, racism, and community pressure prevented immigrants from renting elsewhere.

The Dangers & Problems of Slums Life for immigrant children in slums was dangerous since the slums were breeding grounds for the measles & whooping cough. In Chicago in 1900, 20% of infants died in their first year of life. Immigrant apartment buildings called tenements often were dirty & smelly because of the factories & workshops nearby. Pollution from factories left tenements completely covered in coal soot.

Immigrants & Recreation Working long, hard hours, the millions of immigrants in cities looked for recreation in the evening to get away from the drudgery of life. Therefore, cities became places of mass recreation and those who owned baseball teams, bars, dance halls, and boxing rings made fortunes. As one New York immigrant best described the city, “Something was always happening, and our attention was continually being shifted from one excitement to the other.”

Gangs & Drinking Many poor immigrants formed gangs in order to protect themselves from people who would exploit them individually. Ethnic gangs often committed criminal acts against groups they did not like. Drinking became a serious problem because poor immigrant men often resorted to alcohol to cope with the problems of America. Drunken husbands often beat their wives & children, unwisely spent money, and often lost their jobs.

Moving Out of the City Distraught with the pollution of the factories, noisy saloons, & overpopulation caused by immigrants they did not like, the wealthy & middle classes began to move just outside the city to fashionable suburbs. Lawyers, doctors, small businessmen, & skilled artisans now living in the suburbs bought new cars or rode trolleys or railways to get to their workplace in the city. Therefore cities became filled with cars and other forms of new transportation.