Ellis Island & Samuel Gompers Unit 12 Ellis Island & Samuel Gompers

Ellis Island "Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me / I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” - “The New Colossus” Emma Lazarus

Ellis Island

Ellis Island

Ellis Island Opened in 1892 By 1954, the station had processed 12 million immigrants 40% of all Americans today can trace their port of entry back to Ellis Island. At the time there were 21 immigrant processing centers in the country. The two most famous ones was Ellis Island and Angel Island in California

Angel Island

Ellis Island Arrivals were asked 29 questions including: Name Occupation Amount of money they were carrying The inspection process lasted from 3-7 hours More rigorous provisions for entry were required as laws became more restrictive during the 1890s.

Ellis Island About 2% of immigrants seeking entry were denied admission to the U.S. and sent back to their countries of origin for reasons which included: Chronic and contagious diseases Criminal background Insanity Around 3,000 immigrants died on the island waiting to be processed.

[They] are hirsute, low-browed, big-faced persons of obviously low mentality... They simply look out of place in black clothes and stiff collar, since clearly they belong in skins, in wattled huts at the close of the Great Ice Age. These ox-like men are descendants of those who always stayed behind.” Sociologist E. A. Ross (1914)

Little Italy

Chinatown (San Francisco)

Chinatown

Impact of New Immigration on Urban America Over-crowding in the cities led to increased problems with crime and disease Increased demand for agricultural and industrial goods spurred additional economic growth Low-wage labor was available to work in the growing American industrial economy New cultural items such as Italian opera, Polish polkas, Russian literature, kindergarten, and new foods such as spaghetti, frankfurters and hamburgers, became part of the American diet.

Jacob Riis Photography How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York

Ellis Island closed in 1954 In 1976 it reopened its doors to the public

American Federation of Labor Unskilled laborers were subject to low wages, long workdays, no vacations, and unsafe workplaces. Because individual workers had little power to change the way an employer ran a business, workers banded together in labor unions to demand better pay and working conditions. Originally, labor unions were organized for either skilled or unskilled workers with each group having their own union.

The unions relied on collective bargaining to obtain their demands, but, when employers refused to bargain, unions used direct action (i.e. labor strikes) to obtain concessions. The earliest national labor union was the Knights of Labor founded in 1869 The union lost influence and power after failure to win concessions in the Missouri Pacific Railroad Strike and suffered distrust from the Haymarket Affair in 1886 Skilled workers were reluctant to support lower paid unskilled workers when the latter went out on strike.

Knights of Labor

The Haymarket Affair Haymarket Square, Chicago, 1886

Samuel Gompers 1850-1924 Born in London Immigrated to the U.S. in 1863 Cigar maker Founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL)

Samuel Gompers In 1886, he helped created the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and served as its president until his death in 1924 His union accepted only skilled workers. He organized workers by craft rather than by geography as the Knights had. Gompers also did not see capitalism as the enemy, as had radical members of the Knights of Labor, and he urged workers to work with owners for better pay and working conditions