The growth of American metropolises was spectacular: The growth of American metropolises was spectacular


Cities were dangerous for everyone


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Cities were dangerous for everyone:

    • Cities were dangerous for everyone:
      • In 1871 two-thirds of downtown Chicago burned in a raging fire:
      • Closely packed wooden structures fed the insatiable flames
        • Prompting Chicago and other wary cities to require stone and iron building downtown
        • The wealthy began to leave the risky cities for semirural suburbs
        • These leafy “bedroom communities” ringed the brick-and-concrete cities with a greenbelt of affluence.










The powerful pull of American urban magnets was felt in faraway Europe:

  • The powerful pull of American urban magnets was felt in faraway Europe:

    • A seemingly endless stream of immigrants:
      • Poured in from the old “mother continent”
      • In three decades (1850s-1870s) more than 2 million migrants stepped onto America’s shores
      • By the 1880s more than 5 million cascaded in
      • A new high for a single year was reached in 1882, when 788,992 arrived—or more than 2,100 a day (see Figure 25.3).


Until the 1880s most immigrants came from:

    • Until the 1880s most immigrants came from:
      • The British Isles and western Europe, chiefly Germany and Ireland
      • Significant were the more than 300,000 Chinese immigrants
      • Many Chinese and Irish immigrants faced nativism
      • In fact, the Chinese were legally excluded in 1882 (see p. 498)
      • By the end of the last decades of the century, the “old” immigrants adjusted well to American life:
        • By building supportive ethnic organizations
        • And melding into established fare communities/urban life.


Many still lived, worked, and worshiped among their own

        • Many still lived, worked, and worshiped among their own
        • They were largely accepted as “American” by the native-born
    • In the 1880s the character of the immigrant stream changed drastically (see Figure 25.4)
    • The so-called New Immigrants:
      • Came from southern and eastern Europe
      • Among them were Italians, Jews, Croats, Slovaks, Greeks, and Poles
      • Came from countries with little history of democratic government
      • These new people totaled only 19% of immigrants (1880s).


By the first decade of the twentieth century, they constituted 66% of the total inflow

      • By the first decade of the twentieth century, they constituted 66% of the total inflow
      • They hived in cities like New York, Chicago, in “Little Italys” and “Little Polands” (see pp. 546-547)
      • Largely illiterate and impoverished, many immigrants were content to live in their tightly bound communities based on native language and religion
      • They sometimes nourished radical political ideas
      • Here they sheltered themselves from the old nativist fears
      • Would/could the New Immigrants assimilate to their new land?








Why did these new immigrants come?

  • Why did these new immigrants come?

    • They left their native countries because Europe seemed to have no room for them:
      • The population of the Old World was growing vigorously
      • It doubled after 1800 due to abundant supplies of fish and grain from America
      • And to the widespread cultivation of Europe with the transplant, the potato
      • American food imports and pace of Europe industrialization created a vast footloose army of the unemployed.


Europeans by the millions drained out of the countryside and into European cities:

  • Europeans by the millions drained out of the countryside and into European cities:

    • About 60 million Europeans abandoned the Old Continent in the 19th and 20th centuries
      • This European diaspora, dominated by immigration to the United States, was simply a by-product of the urbanization of Europe
      • “America fever” proved highly contagious in Europe
      • “American letters” sent by friend and relatives portrayed America as a land of fabulous opportunity.


Profit-seeking Americans trumpeted throughout Europe the attractions of the new promised land

    • Profit-seeking Americans trumpeted throughout Europe the attractions of the new promised land
      • Industrialists wanted low-wage labor
      • Railroads wanted buyers for the land grants
      • States wanted more population
      • Steamship lines wanted more human cargo
      • The ease and cheapness of steam-powered shipping greatly accelerated the transoceanic surge.
    • Savage persecutions of minorities in Europe drove many shattered souls to American shores.


In the 1880s Russians turned violent against the Jews, chiefly in the Polish areas

      • In the 1880s Russians turned violent against the Jews, chiefly in the Polish areas
        • Many made their way to the seaboard cities of the Atlantic Coast, notably New York
        • Their experience of city life in Europe made them unique out of the New Immigrants
        • Many brought their urban skills
        • Often given a frosty reception by European Jews, and especially German Jews who had come before
      • Many of the new immigrants never intended to become Americans:
        • A number were single men who worked here, with the intent of returning with their hard-earned dollars.



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