1. Immigrants in America 1865-1915
Millions of immigrants moved to the United States in the late 1800’s & early 1900’s.

2. DO NOW: Sensory Figure based on “Immigration Station Clip” & “Ancestory.com Clip”
Does your sensory figure correlate to the emotions and sensations immigrants would have felt arriving at Ellis Island?

4. Walk the Walls
Explore five more primary source documents in order to learn more about the Confino family. Use graphic organizer in notebook to keep notes.

5. Debriefing
O What information were you able to gather from your exploration of these primary source documents? O How did these primary source documents fit together to tell a story? O How does the Confino family’s immigration story begin? O What was their life in America like? O What questions do we still have about their story? How could we find the answers to those questions?

6. Background of Immigration In the turn of the 20th century

7. “Old immigrants”
Most immigrants before 1880: Protestants from Northern Europe
U.S. culture at that time reflected the traditions and beliefs of northern Europe.
Towns beginning with New:_______________ (York, Prague, Brighton, London, )
Few New Chiapas (Mexico), Tegucigalpa (Honduras), Quito (Equador), Manilla (Phillipines), Bejing (China), Kyoto (Japan), Novasibersk (Russia), Bagdad (Iraq)
Look in picture at family: values of caring for family, closeness, togetherness, handsome appeareance—not what you’re seeing at the Mall of America these days

8. “New Immigrants” Southern and Eastern Europeans Jews – Russia
Catholics – French Canadians, Italians, Germans
Unskilled
Settled in cities

10. Why?
Push Factors Pull Factors

11. Push Factors
Things that cause people to want to leave a country, or push them out.
Religious Persecution, War, Poor/unstable economy.

12. Pull Factors
Things that attract people to move to a place, or pulls them in.
Land, Employment, Religious or Political Freedom.

13. Pull factors (cont’d)
Homestead Act of Made Western farmland inexpensive. R.R.’s offered assistance with fares. They needed customers in the West who would buy their goods. Many Japanese and Germans settled the new, western territories to farm. Chinese worked on railroads…worked with explosives to clear ground (Sierra Nevada Mountains) in order to build railroad track.

14. Who were they?
The crowded steerage deck usually contained a diverse group of people. Many were poor farmers whose fathers’ or grandfathers’ land had been divided so often that the plots were no longer large enough to support even single families.

15. Who were they? (Cont’d)
Others were schoolmasters unable to find work or artisans looking for greater opportunities. Many were young men and women willing to risk traveling to an unknown land in hopes of finding a brighter future.

17. The Trip 3 Classes of Travel: 1st, 2nd, Steerage
Many traveled in poor conditions  “steerage”
Many people became sick because of tight living quarters. Disease spread easily.

18. Arrival
Ellis Island in the East (New York City)- This is where most people from Europe arrived. Angel Island in the West (San Francisco)- This is were most people from Asia arrived.

19. Ellis Island
*In 1890, Congress designated low-laying, three- acre Ellis Island in Upper New York Bay as an immigration station. By the end of 1910, six million immigrants had come through Ellis Island.

21. Immigration Stations
Once immigrants arrived in the U.S., they went through immigration stations, such as Ellis Island in New York Harbor. Government workers questioned them about where they planned to work & live. Doctors also examined them to make sure they didn’t have any diseases. Almost all European immigrants were allowed to enter the U.S. initially.

22. Waiting
*Long lines of immigrants were tagged according to what language they spoke and marked with chalk according to the medical ailments they suspected of having and they waited for the inspectors to decide their fate.

23. With the huge numbers of immigrants, inspectors had just 2 minutes to complete the process and many immigrants had their last names changed by the inspectors because they didn’t have the time or patience to struggle with the foreign spellings.

24. Only one third of the immigrants who came to the United States through Ellis Island stayed in New York City. Most scattered across the country. Immigrants were given tags to pin to their hats or coats. The tags showed railroad conductors what lines the immigrants were traveling and what connections to make to reach their destinations.

25.                                                                            
New immigrants arriving at Ellis Island. At Ellis they were "processed" before they were allowed to continue their journey to find a new home.

26. Where Did They Settle?

27. Cities
The arrival of large numbers of immigrants radically changed the face of the nation’s cities. Before the Civil War, cities were compact. Between 1865 and 1900 the percentage of Americans living in the cities doubled. Cities grew upward. Prior to the Civil War, buildings were built only to five stories.

28. Cities cont.
“Noise, traffic jams, slums, air pollution, and sanitation and health problems became commonplace. Mass transit, in the form of trolleys, cable cars, and subways, was built, and skyscrapers began to dominate city skylines. New communities, known as suburbs, began to be built just beyond the city. Commuters, those who lived in the suburbs and traveled in and out of the city for work, began to increase in number”.
memory.loc.gov

29. Urban Living Conditions
Immigrants often lived in buildings abandoned by middle-class residents and converted into multifamily units.
These tenements soon became identified as “slums”.
Many families would cram into spaces only meant for a few.
Many immigrants tended to settle with others from the same country creating the ethnic neighborhoods and sections that can still be found in many big cities today.

30. Tenement Housing
Tenement housing in New York City.

31. In the Tenements *

32. What was it like here for them?
Nativism
Some native-born Americans feared and resented the new immigrants.
Their languages, religions, and customs seemed strange.
They also competed for jobs.
Desperate for jobs, immigrants often accepted lower wages and worse working conditions.
The majority of immigrants settled in the big cities where factory jobs were available. By 1900, 4 out of every 5 people in New York City were immigrants or children of immigrants.

33. Keeping the Culture Alive
America = Melting Pot
Seeking familiar surroundings, immigrants tended to live and work with people from their native country. Although their children attended public schools and quickly learned English, immigrant parents continued to use their native tongue Whether nicknamed Little Italy, Little Bohemia, or Chinatown, immigrant neighborhoods were rich with Old World languages, from the words printed in the newspaper or heard on the streets. These neighborhoods were terribly overcrowded, unfortunately contributing to poverty, crime, and disease.

34. Mulberry Street –
“Little Italy”

35. Hester Street – Jewish Section

36. When They Arrived… Where Did They Live?

37. Tenement Buildings
Many immigrants lived in crowded tenement buildings.
Families shared living space and decent lighting & fresh air were scarce.
People congregated outside, made heavy use of the fire escapes, and slept in summer on fire escapes, roofs, and sidewalks to get air *

38. Back of a Tenement

39. Overhead of tenement layout

40. Alley between Tenements

41. “Five Cents a Spot” Rooms
Many immigrants had no home and slept in 5 cents a spot rooms where people paid for a small space to spend the night.

42. What was it like for them here?
Some native-born Americans feared and resented the new immigrants. Their languages, religions, and customs seemed strange. They also competed for jobs. Desperate for jobs, immigrants often accepted lower wages and worse working conditions.

43. Legitimate vs. imposters
Conflicts between old and new immigrant groups common.
Earlier groups considered themselves to be legitimate U.S. citizens.
Established groups viewed new immigrants imposters or trespassers.
I was here first argument between Christopher Columbus and the captain of the next ship to arrive seem foolish.
Know any twins? Funny when one calls other younger sibling? Didn’t they arrive at the same time—relatively? Yes.
Same with established and new immigrants: they’re all still immigrants.
Ethnocentrism: belief that one’s culture and ways are superior to others
Speaking of Columbus, almost as silly as Columbus “discovering” new world. Discovering a well populated, ancient permaculture of more than 1,400 years. Aztec, Mayan, Native American: indigenous or first peoples.

44. Excluded from the “melting pot”
“Melting Pot”: immigrants assimilated into culture through education and acculturation.
Many immigrant groups maintained their ethnic identity.
Does not correspond with reality of U.S. experience.
Melting pot did not take into account immigrants and ethnic groups who did not easily blend into the culture.
Asians, African Americans, Native Americans, and others were excluded from this process of fusion and amalgamation.
Melting pot:
White pot. Brown pot. Yellow pot. Red pot.
White conservative pot and white liberal pot. White rich pot and white poor pot. White heterosexual pot and white homosexual pot.
What? You say you’ve melded all of above into one pot? Good, but not everyone has. White open minded pot and which discriminatory pot.
You’re surely not getting in the mix with hate mongers?
Brown . . .
Red . . .
Yellow . . .

45. Laws Against Immigration
1882 Congress passed Chinese Exclusion Act
Almost all Chinese immigrants were kept out of America.
Did not allow for naturalization of Chinese residents.
Limited civil rights for the Chinese already living in U.S.
1921 & 1924 Congress passed laws that lowered the number of Europeans & Asians
All immigrants faced prejudice upon arrival

46. Immigrants helped the U. S
Immigrants helped the U.S. become one of the richest and fastest-growing countries in the world. They built railroads, dug mines, and worked in factories. The success of America as a world superpower rests on their hard work.

47. What’s on Your Mind?
You are an immigrant who is moving to America in the year Imagine if Facebook were around at that time (silly concept, I know, but we’ll just pretend for today). Of course updating your status about your move is important so that you keep family and friends updated. Be sure to include:
Your name,
Where you’re moving to and from (remember the map),
Why you are moving (think of push and/or pull factors).
Any emotions: Sad? Happy? Nervous? Do you even want to move?
Why or why not?

48. Classroom Experience
Historical Reality

49. DEBRIEFING
• What were the most difficult or challenging parts of the experience for you? • Based on the experiences of actual immigrants that you read about (on Student Handout D), what do you think was similar about your classroom experience and what it was really like for immigrants at Ellis Island? • What do you think was significantly different about your experience and theirs? • What do you think was the purpose of this activity?