Urban Immigrants

Ellis Island Ellis Island is in New York Harbor. It was the gateway to American for 90% of the immigrants entering the United States in the 1890’s.

Registry Room in the main building of Ellis Island, 1905

Where do we go, now? Immigrants found low paying jobs as unskilled workers. Clothing factories .

Coal mines Coal mines

Steel Mills

SLAUGHTER HOUSE

Textile Mills

Ghetto Fabulous? A ghetto is an area where many people of the same ethnic background live usually very poor (New York & Chicago). Families crammed into tenements – families living in one room of an apartment without heat and without water. Ghettos were also called slums.

Melting Pot Jews ~ fled persecution in homelands. Between 1881-1914, 2 million Jews immigrated to America. They wanted jobs, free education and religious freedom. Italians ~ lived in a section of NY called “Little Italy.” Little Italy was a slum/ghetto. They brought their distinct customs and religion. Chinese~ Immigrated to the West Coast. They lived in San Francisco in China Town. Sweatshops were small,

Bohemian cigar makers at work in a tenement, New York City, around 1889

Workin’ Hard for the Money Sweatshops were small, dark dirty factories. Workers worked 12 to 18 hours per day, 6 or 7 days a week in sweatshops. Children often carried goods to and from shops and performed simple operations such as removing basting threads. Italian boy holding a bundle of cloth, New York City, around 1910