Chapter 8

Politics, Immigration,

and Urban Life

The Gilded Age• Gilded means covered with thin layer of gold• Era of rapid growth of railroads, small factories, banks, stores, mines and

other enterprises, together with dramatic expansion into highly fertile western farmlands.

• There was a great increase in ethnic diversity from immigrants drawn by the promotions of steamship and railroad companies which emphasized the availability of jobs and farmland.

• Term used to describe the thin layer of prosperity that covered the poverty and corruption of much of society

• Wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few, while many people were very poor.

Laissez-Faire• Term means to let be• Late 1800s businesses operated without interference

from government= no government regulation!• Most people/business agreed to this. They wanted

business to grow to make more money and more jobs.• Most low income families did not realize that government

involvement would mean protection for them

Credit Mobilier Scandal• Crédit Mobilier was formed by Union Pacific Railroad. • The company was the sole bidder for certain construction contracts from

Union Pacific and in 1864 was given much of the Transcontinental Railroad to build, with hefty federal subsidies ($$$$$).

• The company also gave cheap shares of stock to members of Congress who agreed to support additional funding.

• During an investigation, it was found that the company had given stocks to over 30 representatives of both parties including future president James A. Garfield.

• Garfield denied the charges and went on to become President.

Spoils System• an informal practice by which a political party, after winning an

election, gives government jobs to its supporters as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party

• Often jobs given to people who were completely unqualified • term was derived from the phrase "to the victor go the spoils."

Gilded Age Political Parties

Republicans• Appealed to industrialists,

bankers, eastern farmers, blacks,

• Favored tight money supply backed by gold, high tariffs to protect business, gov aid to RR, limits on immigration, and blue laws

Democrats• Less fortunate people,

northern urban immigrants, laborers, southern planters, western farmers

• Claimed to represent ordinary people

• Favored increase money supply backed by silver, lower tariffs on imported goods, higher farm prices, less gov aid to big business, fewer blue laws

Blue laws

• Laws forbidding “immoral” activities• For example: men and women could not live

together before marriage, stores could not open on Sunday, liquor could not be sold on Sunday

• No prostitution

Reforming the Spoils System• 1877 Rutherford B. Hayes elected

presidents. • Hayes refused to use the spoils system /

patronage to appoint supporters and instead appointed people who were qualified and fired those who weren’t

• Began to reform civil service jobs (non-elected jobs like postal carriers, civilian employees on military bases)

• Hayes further angered Republican supporters, like NY Senator Roscoe Conkling, by firing Chester Arthur from the New York state Customs House.

• Hayes said from the beginning that he would not seek re-election… It’s a good thing!

1880 election• Republicans split into Stalwarts,

supporters of Conkling who supported the spoils system; Half-Breeds, followers of Senator James Blaine who wanted to reform the spoils system from w/i the Rep. party, and Independents who opposed the spoils system all together.

• Republicans nominated James A. Garfield, a Half-Breed, for president and Chester Arthur a Stalwart for Vice-President

Garfield assassinated!•On July 2, 1881, in a Washington railroad station, an embittered Repubican attorney, Charles Guiteau, who had sought a consular post shot the President. •Mortally wounded, Garfield lay in the White House for weeks. •Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, tried unsuccessfully to find the bullet with an induction-balance electrical device which he had designed. •On September 6, Garfield was taken to the New Jersey seaside. For a few days he seemed to be recuperating•On September 19, 1881, he died from an infection and internal hemorrhage. He had been president for 6 months and 15 days. The second shortest term in history.

What happened to Charles Guiteau?

• Guiteau was found guilty of assassinating Garfield, despite his lawyers raising an insanity defense. He insisted that incompetent medical care had really killed the President. Although historians generally agree that while poor medical care was a contributing factor, it was not a legal defense. Guiteau was sentenced to death, and was executed by hanging on June 30, 1882, in Washington, D.C.

Chester Arthur became President

• Arthur had supported the spoils systems during his campaign

• After becoming president supported civil service reform

• Used death of Garfield to push through the Pendleton Civil Service Act, which created the Civil Service Commission to test applicants for government jobs. Jobs would now be based on merit, not favor.

1884 presidential election

• Reps. Nominate James Blaine• Dems nominate Grover Cleveland• Campaign focused on scandals rather than

issues• Cleveland opponents said that he had fathered

child out of wedlock• Cleveland became the first Dem elected pres

since 1856, despite scandal, thanks to the mugwumps, a group of Republicans that decided that Blaine was too corrupt to support.

Ma, Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa?

He’s in Washington. Ha! Ha! Ha!

Grover Cleveland

• Favored tight money Favored tight money policy, which favored big policy, which favored big business (this is normally business (this is normally a republican policy)a republican policy)

• Oppose high tariffs

• Took back 80 acres of RR land

• Supported RR regulation

Railroad Regulation• Munn vs. Illinois 1887 allowed states to

regulate RR practices w/i their borders

• Most RR traffic crossed state lines

• any lawyers for RR said that only fed gov could regulate interstate commerce

*** established the constitutional practice of public regulation of private business that serves the public interest

1887 Interstate Commerce Act• Allowed gov to regulate RR• Rates had to be set in proportion to distance traveled,

outlawed special rates, outlawed free tickets.• Set up Interstate Commerce Commission, but it was

very weak. Lost most cases that it tried in court (15 out of 16 b/t 1887-1905)

1888 presidential election

• Cleveland lost to Rep Benjamin Harrison

• Harrison favored higher tariff and won business support

• Made choices as president that harmed the economy (pensions to Civil War soldiers, and high tariffs)

1892 presidential election

• Grover Cleveland became the only president in U.S. history elected to two non-consecutive terms

• 1893 Panic-millions of workers lost jobs, wages cut, gov offered no help

• Coxey’s Army marched on Washington D.C. to demand that the gov create jobs

1896 election

• Cleveland did not win his party’s nomination; Republicans nominated William McKinley

• William Jennings Bryan nominated by both Populists and Democrats

• McKinley won due to support from the urban workers and the middle class; won a second term in 1890 on the slogan “a full dinner pail” (prosperity)

McKinley’s assassination• President and Mrs.

McKinley attended the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York where he delivered a speech on September 5, 1901.

• On Sept. 6, 1901, McKinley was at the Temple of Music, greeting the public. Leon Frank Czolgosz waited in line with a pistol in his right hand concealed by a handkerchief.

• at 4:07 P.M. Czolgosz fired twice at the president. The first bullet grazed the president’s shoulder. The second went through McKinley's stomach, colon, and kidney, and finally lodged in the muscles of his back.

McKinley continued• One bullet was easily found and extracted, but doctors were unable to locate the second

bullet. • It was feared that the search for the bullet, using 19th century techniques, might cause

more harm than good. In addition, McKinley appeared to be recovering, so doctors decided to leave the bullet where it was.

• The newly-developed X-ray machine was displayed at the fair, but doctors were reluctant to use it on McKinley to search for the bullet because they did not know what side effects it may have had on him. Also, ironically, the operating room at the exposition's emergency hospital did not have any electric lighting, even though the exteriors of many of the buildings at the extravagant exposition were covered with thousands of light bulbs. The surgeons were unable to operate by candlelight because of the ether used to keep the president unconscious. So the doctors were forced to use pans instead to reflect sunlight onto the operating table while they treated McKinley's wounds.

• McKinley's doctors believed he would recover, and the President recovered for more than a week at the home of the exposition's director. On the morning of 12 September, he felt strong enough to receive his first food orally since the shooting — toast and a small cup of coffee.

• By afternoon he began to experience discomfort and his condition rapidly worsened. McKinley began to go into shock. Eight days after he was shot, he died from gangrene, which surrounded his wounds, at 2:15 a.m. on September 14, 1901, in Buffalo. His last words were "It is God's way; His will be done, not ours."

What happened to Czolgosz?

• Czolgosz was later found guilty of murder, and was electrocuted at Auburn Prison on October 29, 1901.

Section 2Immigrant Experience

•Between 1865 and 1890, 10 million people entered the US•Individuals hope for personal liberties /social mobility•education, cheap land, and religious freedom

Titanic setting sail April 2, 1912

•steam-powered transportation made traveling to the US quicker•Immigrants make trip across Atlantic in about 1 week•majority of immigrants traveled in steerage•at first men came alone to establish themselves in the New Country•men were called “birds of passage”

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•Leaving their homes required great courage.

•The voyage across was often miserable.

•Most immigrants could afford only the cheapest accommodations

•Ship owners jammed up to 2000 people on the ships

•In these close quarters, disease is spread rapidly. Diseases like the measles infected many immigrants.

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Political and religious persecution pushed many people to leave their homes. In the late 1800s, the Russian government supported pograms, organized attacks on Jewish villages. Millions of Jews fled Russia and Eastern Europe to settle in American cities.

immigrantsRace

Average per Capita.

Italians(Northern) $23.53

Bohemian and Moravian

$22.78

Scandanavian $18.16

Irish $17.10

Armenian $15.75

Croation and Dalmation

$15.54

Greek $15.10

Slovak $12.31

Magyar $10.96

Italian(Southern) $8.67

immigrants

New York City and State

59, 786

Pennsylvania 24,499

Illinois 8,445

Massachusetts 8,781

Connecticut 5,370

New Jersey 6,598

Ohio 4,861

Michigan 2,592

Minnesota 2,666

Ellis Island and Angel Island

• 70% came through Ellis (European descent)

• Asians enter through Angel Island in San Francisco or through Seattle

• Faced quarantine for disease

• After 1890 huge shift in where immigrants came from=most now from eastern and southern Europe

1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980

THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE: 1820-1980THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE: 1820-1980

BritishIsles

GermanyScandinavia

South/EastEurope

Latin AmericaAsia

Imm

igra

tio

n i

n 1

000s

Push Factors Pull Factors+1840s: Irish Potato Famine +Economic Opportunity+1850-1920: Overpopulation, War +Political/Religious Freedom+Recent: Overpopulation, War, Oppression +Land Availability

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

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Statue of Liberty welcomed immigrants on Manhattan Island through the “Golden Door” after 1886.

The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,With conquering limbs astride from land to land;Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall standA mighty woman with a torch, whose flameIs the imprisoned lightning, and her nameMother of Exiles. From her beacon-handGlows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes commandThe air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame."Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries sheWith silent lips. "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-tossed to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"  

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Ellis Island-immigrants faced the dreaded medical inspection. Doctors examined eyes, ears and throats. The sick were quarantined to keep the disease from spreading. Officials had only minutes to check each new arrival.

Angel Island• Chief port of entry for Chinese immigrants from

1910-1940 whose entry was excluded but for some exceptions

• The Chinese on Angel Island spent weeks, months, even years detained

• Angel Island’s purpose was to keep immigrants out– Erika Lee, At America’s Gate

Detention

• Men and women—even husband and wife—were separated until they were admitted

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Many immigrants heard stories that the streets of the United States were paved with gold. Once in the United States, the newcomers had to adjust their dreams to reality. They immediately set out to find work. Through friends, relatives, labor contractors, and employment agencies they found jobs.

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Immigrants adjusted to their new lives by settling in neighborhoods with their own ethnic group. An Ethnic group shares a common culture. Within these ethnic neighborhoods, newcomers spoke of their own language and celebrated special holidays with food prepared as in the old country.

CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT OF 1882

In the spring of 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Chester A. Arthur.

This act provided an absolute 10-year moratorium on Chinese labor immigration. For the first time, Federal law denied entry of an ethnic working group on the premise that it endangered the good order of certain localities. It was not repealed until 1943.

CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT1882

• Chinese immigrants worked for low wages.

• Labor groups pressured politicians to restrict Asian immigration.

• Banned all but a few Chinese immigrants.

• Not lifted until 1943.

Impact of Chinese Exclusion Act

1869

1882

1892

1902

1943

GENTLEMEN’S AGREEMENT:– In San Francisco, all Chinese,

Japanese, & Korean children placed in special Asian schools….led to anti-American riots in Japan.

• In exchange for President Roosevelt persuading San Francisco officials to stop separation policy, Japan agreed to limit emigration to U.S.

MEXICANS COME TO U.S. TOO• Some became U.S. citizens when the nation acquired

Mexican territory in 1848 as a result of the Mexican War.• About 1 million Mexicans arrived b/w 1910 to 1930 to

escape turmoil in their country.• U.S. needed workers after severe limitations placed on

other workers from Asia

Section 3UrbanizationIf you are an immigrant, is your life at all like what you expected in America?

What were you “promised”?

What did you actually find?

Rural to Urban migration

• Migration to the cities occurs in the early 1900s as a result of the technology that is present on the farm. Not as many farmhands are needed to accomplish the work.

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Booming Cities•By 1860 one out of every five Americans lived in a city•Jobs drew people to the city•People worked in steel mills, meatpacking plants, and garment factories.

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City LifeMany poor families crowded into the cities oldest sections. Middle-class people lived father out in row houses or new apartment buildings. Beyond them, the rich built fine homes with green lawns and trees.

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Poor families:

•crowed slums

•streets were jammed with people, horses, pushcarts, and garbage

•living space limited so builders devised new kind of apartment to hold more people

• put up buildings six or seven stories high=tenements w/no windows, heat, or indoor bathrooms

•Typhoid and cholera and raged for the tenants. Tuberculosis was the biggest killer.

Dumbbell Apartments

Dumbbell Apartments• Jacob Riis wrote “How the

Other Half Lives”

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African Americans:

•hard times of prejudice and violence

•blacks headed to northern cities

•1890’s, the south side of Chicago had a thriving African-American community. Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, and other northern

cities had growing African American neighborhoods.

Urbanization - Sanitation

• Horse manure piled up on streets

• Sewage flowed through open gutters

• Factory smoke filled the air

• Garbage was dumped in the streets (no formal trash collection)

Urbanization - Fire• Building materials were flammable• No fire departments• No water• Overcrowding• Fires occurred in every major city (2 major examples):

– Chicago (1871): 24 hours, 250 ppl died, 100,000 homeless, 3 sq mi destroyed, $2 bil in damages, 18,000 buildings destroyed

– San Francisco (1906): 4 days, 1,000 ppl died, 200,000 left homeless, 5 sq mi destroyed, $500 mil in damages, 28,000 buildings destroyed

Political Machine

Organized group that controlled the activities

of a political party in a city and offered

services to voters and businesses in

exchange for political or financial support.

Ward Boss

Local Precinct WorkersAnd Captains

City Boss

Political Machine continued• Precinct Workers – Worked to gain voters’ support

on a city block or in a neighborhood and reported to the ward boss.

• Ward Boss – Helped the poor and gained votes by doing favors or providing services. In return for votes they would provide city jobs, contracts or appointments.

• City Boss – Controlled thousands of municipal jobs, including police, fire and sanitation departments. Controlled business licenses and inspections. Had a lot of influence over courts and other municipal agencies.

Boss Tweed• Thomas Nast’s cartoons in

Harper’s Weekly helped strip Tweed of his power

• Tweed was charged with fraud and extortion

• His machine was dismantled• Mr. Tweed is quoted as telling Nast at

one point that "Let's stop those damned pictures. I don't care so much what the papers write about me -- my constituents can't read, but damn it, they can see pictures.”

Section 4REFORMERS HELP THE POOR:

• Social Gospel movement…Early reform program. Leaders preached that people reached salvation by helping the poor.

• Attack causes of poverty and vice, not blame poor

Social Gospel preached charity and justice.

• Labor reform

• English classes

• Child care

• Clothing

• Established settlement houses

• Usually founded by college educated men and women

• Community centers to serve needs

• Founders lived in poor neighborhoods

• Most famous was Hull House, founded by Jane Addams

Settlement houses

Nativism• The new immigrants were not as eager to

become “Americanized” as earlier immigrants

• Nativists believed that Anglo-Saxon Protestants were superior to all other ethnic groups

• The Immigration Restriction Act, 1897, required literacy tests in English before entry into the US

• Immigration Restriction Act of 1921 severely limited immigration from Europe and Asia

Temperance Movement• Sought to ban alcohol• Seen as root of evil,

poverty, abuse• 3 major groups supported

Prohibition, or the legal banning of alcohol: Prohibition Party, Woman’s Christian Temperance Movement, Anti-Saloon League

• Maine=1st “dry” state

Carry Nation• Most famous prohibitionist• Famous for smashing bars with hatchet and

Bible• Blamed alcohol for links b/t saloons, immigrants,

and political bosses

Purity Crusaders

• Vice became big business in cities

• Gambling, alcohol, prostitution, drugs

• Tried to end “vice” in community; take back the hood.

• Result: laws like the Comstock Law that prohibited the sending of obscene material through the mail, like birth control info

Comstock Laws• Be it enacted…That whoever, within the District of Columbia or any of the Territories

of the United States…shall sell…or shall offer to sell, or to lend, or to give away, or in any manner to exhibit, or shall otherwise publish or offer to publish in any manner, or shall have in his possession, for any such purpose or purposes, an obscene book, pamphlet, paper, writing, advertisement, circular, print, picture, drawing or other representation, figure, or image on or of paper of other material, or any cast instrument, or other article of an immoral nature, or any drug or medicine, or any article whatever, for the prevention of conception, or for causing unlawful abortion, or shall advertise the same for sale, or shall write or print, or cause to be written or printed, any card, circular, book, pamphlet, advertisement, or notice of any king, stating when, where, how, or of whom, or by what means, any of the articles in this section…can be purchased or obtained, or shall manufacture, draw, or print, or in any wise make any of such articles, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof in any court of the United States…he shall be imprisoned at hard labor in the penitentiary for not less than six months nor more than five years for each offense, or fined not less than one hundred dollars nor more than two thousand dollars, with costs of court. 39