1. Urbanization and
Immigration
Dr. John Holmes
History 121, Diablo Valley College
San Ramon, Summer 2013

2. Urbanization
Main subject of reader Chapter 19
Tremendous growth of cities
1870: none over million
NY 1910: 4.7 million
Transformation from transport
nodes to multi-purpose cities
District specialization: residential
center, industry at outskirts
Technology makes it possible
the skyscraper and the streetcar

3. Illnesses of Urbanization
Overpopulation. New York and
Calcutta. Doc. 19-3
The tenement
Lack of necessary infrastructure
Utilities private-for-profit
water, gas, electricity, paved
streets, sewers
Corruption in urban government
Tammany Hall the classic model
(Doc. 19-5)
Why most machines Democratic
Irish in particular, immigrants in
general as basis of machines

4. Immigration
Largest wave in American history
Ellis Island; the Statue of Liberty
"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!"
Emma Lazarus

5. Causes of Immigration
Pull factors:
Industrialization, govt. policy
US reputation for political freedom
and religious toleration
Push factors:
Population growth and economic
transformation in Europe
Displacement of peasants (and
Jews)
Persecution
Transportation revolution
Immigration fever, chain migration

6. Who were the immigrants?
“Old” and “new” immigrants
Not Western Europe vs. South and
East, but a ripple effect
Change not in nature but in
opportunities
Closing of frontier means no more
immigrant farmers
“Birds of Passage”
The Italian experience, doc. 19-4
Italians least likely to stay in
America, Jews the most

7. The Jewish Immigrant Story
Most immigrants factory workers
Jews and the garment industry
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
Jews and garment unionism
Assimilation
Israel Zangwill, The Melting Pot
Jewish upward social mobility
Business before WWI
Education after WWI
Jews, socialism and radicalism

8. Strike vote, “Uprising of the 20,000
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

9. Anti-immigrant sentiment
Tolerance of immigration changes
in 1890s
Growth of legal restrictions
Reasons:
anti-Catholicism
anti-Semitism
Economic competition; labor anti-
immigrant sentiment
Racism. Are “new immigrants”
“white”?
Anti-radicalism

10. Anti-immigrant sentiment
Tolerance of immigration changes
in 1890s
Growth of legal restrictions
Reasons:
anti-Catholicism
anti-Semitism
Economic competition; labor anti-
immigrant sentiment
Racism. Are “new immigrants”
“white”?
Anti-radicalism