They came by the thousands and

then the millions. They came because

they were starving or scared, or
simply in search of a better life. Every
day the ships arrived from dozens of
different countries, across two oceans.
And as they arrived these people
changed America.

A newly
arrived family
from Poland
comes ashore
in New York.

I M M I G R A T I O N A N D T H E
G R O W T H O F C I T I E S

THE
NEWCOMERS
1 8 6 5 - 1 9 2 9

62
 Dangerous passage CH A PT E R 4
as a ship runs
aground

“I remember my father—my big,

strong papa—crying like a baby as
we sailed into New York harbor. It
scared me to see him like this, but
then he swept me up in his arms
and twirled me around and his
tears became joyous laughter.”
—Dora Galperin, an eight-year-old
The ugly side of immigration.
Russian immigrant An unkind cartoon uses fear to
scare people about the newly
arrived Chinese and Irish
immigrants.

A young Chinese
mother looks after a
quartet of children in
San Francisco,
California.

63
 Population changes, growth of
cities, and new inventions produced
interaction and often conflict
between different cultural groups.

Huddled
Masses
Imagine having no food for days,
no place to sleep, or no hope for
the future. For many people in
Europe and Asia in the 1800s
and 1900s, leaving home was
the only way to survive.
Millions of men, women,
and children made the
long, scary journey from
faraway lands to life in
America, hoping to find
EYEWITNESS TO HISTORY a better life.

A report on shipboard conditions describes travel

in steerage—the cheapest ticket available: FOUR REASONS PEOPLE
“Neither cleanliness, decency, nor WERE PUSHED OR PULLED TO AMERICA
comfort, is possible…sometimes two or People escaped from A fallen soldier in Austria-Hungary
three thousand persons are crowded into a oppressive governments,
space hardly sufficient to accommodate high taxes, forced military
1,200. Steerage passengers can not, with service for hated monarchs,
any degree of truth or justice, be said to be and few job opportunities.
humanely or properly treated at any stage America meant freedom.
of their long journey…”
A crowded Jewish burial ground in In many countries, people of
central Europe
certain religions, such as Jews and
Words to Know Catholics, were discriminated

Oppressive against or worse—physically
attacked and sometimes killed.
(uh-press-iv)
America meant safety.
Cruel and unjustly harsh.
An abandoned house in Ireland

Immigrants With no chance to get a decent
education or find enough food to
(im-uh-grintz)
feed their families, many came to
People who permanently move
America hoping for better
to a different country.
opportunities.

Emigrated America meant life.
(em-uh-gray-tid) A desire for excitement lured some people to the U.S. For those people…
Left one’s native country and AMERICA MEANT ADVENTURE!
moved to another.
64
 COMING TO FROM OPPRESSION TO
AMERICA: 1820
TO 2000
OPPORTUNITY
Great political turmoil swept parts of
Europe in the mid-1800s as people in
Italy, Austria-Hungary, and many
different warring German states tried to
overthrow their monarchs. When these
revolutions failed, the results were
dismal. People in these places faced high
taxes, few jobs, waves of disease, and
forced military service for hated rulers.
In other parts of Europe, rigid social
rules that allowed no chance for self-
betterment were like invisible chains. Millions of
FROM HUNGER TO HOPE
people leapt at the chance to live in a land where
In the autumn of 1845, something
everyone had the opportunity to get rich in spite
awful happened in Ireland. Farmers
of the circumstances of their birth.
went out to harvest their potato crops
and found they had all turned black THE AMERICA THEY FOUND
and slimy from a disease called “blight.” Potatoes What happened when the newcomers arrived?
were Ireland’s most important food, and over the next Would they find work? Were the streets really
four years almost a million Irish people starved to paved with gold? The new immigrants were
death. For the starving survivors, America became hungry, dirty, and exhausted. A new adventure was
their last hope. More than four million immigrants about to begin. For many, that “adventure” was
made their way across the Atlantic. Theirs was one of difficult, scary, and often miserable.
the early large-scale migrations to
the United States and, in time, it OUR MOST FAMOUS
changed the fabric of America. IMMIGRANT
A great famine in China in the Her full name is “Statue of Liberty
1850s also forced many thousands Enlightening the World,” and this
to cross the Pacific. For families beloved symbol of America came to New
starving to death, the decision to York City from France in 1885. She
leave home was easy. arrived in 214 crates, weighing 450,000
pounds, and she has proudly welcomed
FROM FEAR TO newcomers to America ever since. A
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM plaque at the bottom of the statue
We all know the Pilgrims in the captures her message of welcome:
1600s were America’s first
religious refugees, but beginning “…Give me your tired, your poor,
in the late 1800s, many millions Your huddled masses yearning
more emigrated to the United to breathe free,
States to escape religious The wretched refuse of your
persecution. Jewish people in teeming shore.
central Europe were especially Send these, the homeless,
terrorized. To have the chance to tempest-tost to me,
live without fear of being beaten I lift my lamp beside the golden
because of your faith seemed like door!” –From the poem, “The New
a dream come true.
65
Colossus,” by Emma Lazarus
 Off the Boat, Population changes, growth of cities,
and new inventions produced
problems in urban areas.

Into the City

As millions of people poured into America’s
ports, many cities strained to house and feed
the waves of new immigrants.

EY E WITN ESS TO
HISTORY You have just come off a ship at Ellis Island in New York harbor—the
place where many new immigrants to America were processed. After
An unknown Italian man summed up
the truth about life in the United waiting in line for hours, you have passed the health exam and boarded
States for many immigrants: a ferry to the big city. You do not speak a word of English but you have
the address of a cousin written on a scrap of paper. Now what?
“…I came to America because
I heard the streets were paved “I’M HERE. WHAT’S NEXT?”
with gold. When I got here, I Some immigrants arrived early enough to take advantage of the
found out three things: first, the Homestead Act and got cheap farmlands in the Midwest. More than
streets weren't paved with gold; two million Germans, Swedes, and Norwegians headed west to farm,
second, they weren't paved at all; but many millions more poured into cities such as New York, Boston,
and third, I was expected to pave Pittsburgh, and Chicago and the streets were soon filled with the
babble of dozens of different languages and accents.
them.”
RATS AND ROACHES
Most immigrants had barely enough
money to buy a meal. Where would they
live? How would they survive? Many ended
up in urban ghettos, in dark, crowded,
unsafe tenements. They crammed into tiny
apartments that often crawled with rats
and cockroaches. Children slept four or
five to a bed. Grownups slept in shifts—
some during the day, others at night.
People took any jobs they could get, and
Entire families crammed into tiny one and two even small children as young as four or
room apartments. There was only one bathroom on five were expected to work.
each floor, and 30 to 40 people had to share it.
66
 New York Boston slums
pushcarts
FROM COW-TOWNS TO
STEEL CITIES
As the 1800s drew to an end, America
was rapidly changing. The old, rural, farm-
based economy was being replaced with
new industries, and people flocked to the
cities to find work. This urbanization led
to overcrowded immigrant neighbor- Chicago
meat workers
hoods filled with packed tenements.
Still—even in the rundown bug-infested
hallways—there was real hope for a
brighter future.
THE GATEWAY CITIES Tenement houses
near Pittsburgh
Because New York City was the place
where most European immigrants landed,
Words to Know

Tenements
it absorbed a vast number of newcomers.
Boston, just a three hour train ride north, was another popular
destination. Pittsburgh drew many new immigrants thanks to a (ten-uh-mints)
brand new industry that was fast-growing—steel. For those who Run-down apartment buildings that
headed west but could not afford farm equipment, there were barely meet minimal standards.
opportunities to be found in Chicago—a railroad hub between the
Ghettos
East and West. Great stockyards were being built. Ranchers raised (get-ohs)
cattle out west and shipped their herds by train to Chicago. There Poor areas of a city where people
the cows were slaughtered, packaged, and shipped east. This was from similar ethnic groups live.

Urbanization
dangerous, dirty work that required lots of laborers.
Textile factories, steel mills, slaughterhouses—these businesses
soon became the immigrant’s lifeline to a new beginning. Work (ur-ban-is-zay-shun)
was what people wanted and they would go anywhere to get it. The process by which many people
come to live in cities.

JANE ADDAMS On September 18, 1889, a young Chicago woman, horrified by the terrible
living conditions of many new immigrants, opened the doors to a new
AND HULL HOUSE
community center. She called it a settlement house and hoped to offer education
• Started the U.S. settlement
for both children and parents who had never had the chance to go to school.
house movement
• The first American woman To help the immigrants “settle” she offered help finding work, dealing with
to win a Nobel Peace Prize bad landlords, or coping with the stress of a hard life in a new land. People of
all ages and ethnicities began coming to her center—Hull House. There were art
and music lessons, English classes, life skills instructions, and a warm place to
make friends. Soon nearly 2,000 people crossed through its doors every day.
Addams said “What, after all, has maintained
the human race on this old globe, despite all the
calamities of nature and all the tragic failings of
mankind, if not faith in new possibilities and
courage to advocate them?”
Hull House is still helping people more than a
hundred years later. More than 60,000 people a
1860 –1935 year seek help in Hull House’s halls.
67
Population changes, growth
of cities, and new inventions
produced interaction, and
often conflict, between
No Irish or
different cultural groups.

The foulest jobs. The worst Chinese

Need Apply
pay. Terrible housing. No say
in government. That was the
fate of many immigrants.
No matter where they came from,
America’s newcomers had one big EY E WIT N E SS TO
thing in common. They desperately HISTORY
wanted to work. Any job, no matter A hateful newspaper article complains
how terrible, was a step in the right about the hiring of Chinese workers:
direction. Many American citizens “The Capitalists who are encouraging
were fearful of these strangers, with …these burlesques on humanity would
their different clothes, religious crown their ships with the long tailed, Being a maid was one of
beliefs, and languages. Newcomers the few jobs open to Irish
horned and cloven-hoofed inhabitants
women. A typical work
were often turned away for no other of the infernal regions if they could week? Six days a week with
reason than their accents, their eye- make a profit on it.” 16 hour days!
shape, or their birthplaces.
FROM CHINATOWN TO LITTLE ITALY GO AWAY!
Immigrants were forced into terrible neighborhoods Except for American Indians, the United
with substandard housing. Poor plumbing and filth States was a nation of immigrants and yet, in
brought constant disease. Most were poorly educated, the 1850s, native Protestant Americans tried to
so they had no choice but to take jobs that barely paid delay Irish Catholics’ ability to become citizens
enough to survive—digging in unsafe mines, doing with voting rights. Hostility against immigrants
heavy labor, and working in dangerous factories where flared again between the 1890s and the 1920s
injuries occurred almost every day. At night, as they when millions of Jews and Catholics arrived
lay in their rat-infested homes, they knew they had to from Italy and Russia and the lands in between.
keep on trying. Quitting was not an option. In the 1920s, Congress passed new laws that put
There was another problem. As ships docked, strict limits on the number of people who could
packed with people from other lands, many people immigrate to the U.S. from Asia or from
already living here got resentful. southern or eastern Europe.

NO MORE CHINESE ALLOWED!

Chinese workers were crucial to the construction of the Transcontinental
Railroad in the 1860s. Hard-working, disciplined, and willing to work
cheaply, they found themselves the target of great hatred simply because of
their strong work ethic. Unlike someone from Ireland or Italy who could learn
to hide their accents, the Chinese, and other Asian immigrants, could not
“pass” for American. Once again, the United States government struck a
blow against tolerance. In 1882 The Chinese
Many Chinese found work running
Exclusion Act became a law, allowing only 105
laundries, which in the days before
washing machines, was a backbreaking new Chinese immigrants to enter the country a
but decent business. This 1886 laundry year. That law would last for more than 60
years.
68
detergent advertisement shows Uncle
Sam kicking Chinese workers into the sea.
 A political cartoon from 1882 pokes fun at
the stereotype of Irish immigrants as being
hard-drinking, quick-to-fight, and outspoken.
Uncle Sam complains, “Look here you,
everybody else is quiet and peaceable, and
you’re all the time a-kicking up a row.”

BECOMING AMERICANS An 1871 cartoon depicts New York’s

As the numbers of immigrants swelled, something began to “Boss Tweed,” a corrupt politician who
happen. The newcomers banded together and began to help one
bought his way to great power. As a
popular song of the time said:
another. They made sure their kids went to school. Soon their
“Under his rule
children, armed with good educations, began to get better jobs.
the ballot-box was freed!
The American-born children of immigrants were citizens, so when Six times as big a vote he could record
they grew up they had the right to vote. Voting changed things. As there were people
MORE VOTES THAN THERE ARE PEOPLE? living in the ward!”
POLITICAL CORRUPTION IN THE CITIES
The Irish, Italians, Central Europeans, and Germans represented
millions of votes to politicians seeking election. To get people to
vote, these politicians promised a “spoils system.” The winning
party would make sure supporters got most of the government
jobs and that government contracts went only to loyal
supporters. “Vote for me, and I will make sure you personally
profit from it,” they secretly promised. Corrupt and dishonest,
these candidates were backed by “political machines”—folks who
would do anything to make sure their candidates won, including
casting fake votes using the names of dead people.
For people in need of decent jobs and safe housing—for people
who rarely had any voice in their lives—who cared if the person
who could help happened to be a little dishonest?
Manufacturing areas were
clustered near centers of Eager to work, the new Americans rolled up their sleeves and became a part of
population. America’s workforce by laboring in giant factories with machines clanging and
smokestacks spewing soot.
Advances in transportation
linked resources, products,
and markets.
Made in the U.S.A.
The America of small farms and quiet villages was changing. In the late
1800s and early 1900s, as millions of immigrants arrived on our shores, major
manufacturing centers began to rise up. The new industrial centers needed
many workers. Trains now crisscrossed the United States, ready to move
natural resources such as copper and lead from the West to factories in the
East. Trains linked the nation, while people fueled the fires of industry.

A busy factory in Bridgeport,

Connecticut, loads its finished
products onto waiting trains
and boats.

RESOURCES ON THE MOVE

The old regional differences that had divided the nation
began to be erased by this new interdependence on one
another. Iron ore—an essential part of making steel—was
transported from Michigan and Minnesota to the steel
mills of Pittsburgh, while coal arrived from the mines of
Appalachia. All that steel was then used to lay more rail
lines and to build more machinery, giant steel-hulled
ships, cars, skyscrapers, and massive factories.
The finished products of all these growing industries
were then loaded back on the trains and transported
all across the nation. Our nation was fed, clothed, and America’s workforce included many children,
housed by the can-do work ethic of the American such as these boys working in the coal mines of
people—both newcomers and those born on American the Appalachians. Coal provided carbon— a
soil. vital ingredient in making steel. It was also a fuel
70
source for melting iron.
 FOUR IMPORTANT INDUSTRIES
THAT SHAPED AMERICA
TEXTILE MILLS
THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY • Centered in New England
• Made cloth and clothing with raw
materials such as cotton from the South
and wool sheared from western sheep

STEEL MILLS
THE STEEL INDUSTRY • Centered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Made steel—a mixture of iron and
carbon—which is super strong. Steel was
used to build railroads, skyscrapers, and
machinery.

THE GREAT
THE MEATPACKING INDUSTRY STOCKYARDS
• Centered in Chicago, Illinois
• Cattle were transported from the West,
slaughtered, and packed into refrigerated
boxcars to feed people in the East.

CAR
THE AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY ASSEMBLY LINES
• Centered in Detroit, Michigan
• America soon led the world in the
production of cars and trucks.

71
Inventions had both
positive and negative
effects on society.

“Can-do!” That was the

spirit that gripped America
Genius at Work
America in the late 1800s and early 1900s was a fast-paced place. New
inventions were being dreamed up almost every day, and with each invention
as exciting, new inventions
came new industries. New industries meant new jobs. Attracted by the
changed the way we lived.
promise of work, many people left small towns and struggling farms to come
to the nation’s new industrial centers.

GREAT IDEAS
Words to Know Inventions such as elevators and escalators made taller buildings possible.

Patent More efficient engines propelled massive machines that swiftly wove cloth or
(pah-tint) manufactured paper. Trains needed steel rails, and the first skyscrapers rose
A government document many stories high thanks to steel beam skeletons. In the years between 1867
granting an inventor sole and 1900, America was a land of constant change.
rights to an invention SOUND AND LIGHT
and protecting the Two inventions in the 1870s had an An early
invention from being especially big impact, both positive and telegraph
copied by others. negative, on American life. Like most machine
inventions, each owed its success to an
Bell’s sketches for earlier invention. The two inventors,
his telephone show Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Alva
several possible ideas. Edison, owed a huge debt of thanks to Samuel
Morse’s telegraph, which had, since 1844, used a tapped code to transport
messages swiftly over special wires. As both men tried to improve the
telegraph, exciting new discoveries were made.

ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL’S TELEPHONE

“Mr. Watson! Come here! I want to see you.” With those words, a 29-year-old
Scottish immigrant changed the world. Bell was a teacher who worked with
deaf and speech-impaired people. He was trying to figure out a way to make
sound visible when he got the idea for the telephone. Using everyday objects
like needles, water, cups, and wire, he kept tinkering until it worked. Bell's first
telephone patent was issued on March 7, 1876. Bell was lucky. He beat out
another telephone inventor by just a few hours.
Bell’s invention was only a first step. In 1878 he started the first telephone
exchange—a place where all the calls were connected. Three years later, there
were telephone exchanges in most major cities and towns in the U.S.A.

IN HIS OWN WOR DS

“Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into
the woods. Every time you do so you will be certain
to find something that you have never seen before.
Follow it up, explore all around it, and before you
know it, you will have something worth thinking
about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries
72
1847-1922 are the results of thought.”
 SOME GREAT INVENTIONS: 1867-1900
1884: Cameras
with paper film

1867: Typewriters

1885: The internal

combustion engine
1885: Skyscrapers 1872:
Mail-order catalogs

FOR BETTER AND FOR WORSE

Words to Know

Phonograph
Each new invention created the need for yet another one.
As more and more cars took to the roads, someone needed to invent traffic (fone-uh-graf)
signals. Those cars needed better tires, so people experimented with new An early type
ways to use rubber. Everyone wanted these great inventions, so new of music
industries started to supply consumers with the latest gadgets. player.
Electricity could light factories 24 hours a day,
and easy sources of energy meant little downtime.
Factory owners took advantage of this and made
people work long hours. Demands for labor grew,
and soon even young children were putting in long
American
hours at work. Progress had brought new problems.

THOMAS EDISON’S EXPERIMENTS

Legends
TWO MEN WHO
WITH ELECTRICITY CHANGED THE WORLD
It is hard to believe that one of the greatest geniuses
of all time was kicked out of school because his teachers thought he
was “addled.” Homeschooled by his mother, Edison spent a lot of time
reading and tinkering before getting a job at age 16 as a telegrapher. Edison, who
was almost deaf, wondered if telegraphy could send other sounds besides clicks
and clacks so he began to do many experiments with sound. He eventually
invented the first phonograph. But we remember him for one particularly
“bright” invention that changed our lives.
Edison did not invent the lightbulb, but in 1879, after testing 3,000 different
materials, he invented a lightbulb that would burn for a very long time—not
just a few hours like previous ones. More importantly, because lightbulbs 1847-1931
need electricity, in 1882 Edison developed the world's first central electric
light power station, which supplied users with a steady, safe source of IN HIS OWN
electricity. WOR DS
Over the next 50 years, Edison’s workshop in Menlo Park, New Jersey, “I never quit until I get what
became the birthplace of almost two thousand life-changing inventions, I'm after. Negative results
from motion pictures to better batteries. The “Wizard of Menlo Park” got are just what I'm after. They
his 1,093rd, and last, patent at age 83. His legacy? He left the world a
73
are just as valuable to me
much brighter place! as positive results.”
 An Immigration Timeline

1840s A potato famine in 1850s Famine in China and the 1850s The Know-Nothing
Ireland causes the first mass discovery of gold in California Party’s candidates run for office
migration to the U.S. leads to Chinese immigration. on an anti-immigrant platform.

1862 The Homestead Act 1869 The Transcontinental 1882 The Chinese Exclusion
encourages the settlement of the Railroad is completed mostly by Act severely limits immigration
western frontier. Irish and Chinese immigrants. from China.

1880s Italian immigration to 1880s Persecution in eastern 1886 The Statue of Liberty is
the U.S. reflects a shift in origins Europe results in a surge of Jewish dedicated in New York harbor.
away from northwestern Europe. immigration to the U.S.

1889 Jane Addams opens Hull 1892 Ellis Island in New York 1914 World War I interrupts
House in Chicago to aid opens, a gateway to America for immigration from Europe. New
immigrants. millions of immigrants. laws in the 1920s reduce it sharply.
74
 Explore and Review
Use pages 64–65 to answer question 1 in complete sentences.
1. List four reasons for the increase in immigration.
Use pages 66–67 to answer questions 2–4 in complete sentences.
2. What are three reasons why cities grew and developed?
3. How did this rapid industrialization and urbanization negatively
affect immigrants?
4. What was Hull House and who founded it? What role did it play in
helping immigrants?

Use page 68 to answer question 5.

5. In a paragraph, describe how the Chinese and Irish immigrants were treated during this
time period? Why were they treated this way?

Use page 69 to answer questions 6–7 in complete sentences.

6. How did political machines gain power in America?
7. Political machines posed a challenge to many cities. Why?
Use pages 70–71 to answer questions 8–10 in complete sentences.
8. How did advances in transportation link resources, products, and markets?
What are two examples of transportation resources?
9. Why were manufacturing areas located near centers of population?
10. Where was the textile industry located? The automobile industry? The steel industry?

Use pages 70–73 to answer questions 11–13 in complete sentences.

11. How did industrialization and urbanization affect Americans living in rural, agricultural
areas?
12. What two inventions created great change and industrialized growth in the United States,
and who invented each of them?
13. Why did these inventions create such an enormous impact?

Apply Your Learning

• Immigrants from around the world still arrive daily in America. Are immigrants today
treated differently than immigrants of the past? Does the same past discrimination still exist?
If yes, support your opinion with specific examples. If no, what do you think has caused this
change?
• Much like the inventions that spurred industrialization and urbanization in the late 1800s,
the invention of the personal computer and the Internet have drastically changed all aspects
of life today. What will be the next great invention to change the world? Why might it have a
significant impact on society? Do you think it will happen in your lifetime?

75