WHY IT CLOSED

WORLD EVENTS

COMMUNISM

The belief that society should be classless

Opposite view of the USA

Anarchists and communists made up 0.1% of the population

Thousands of immigrants from Russia and eastern Europe that believed in communism

Red scare

Russian revolution 1917

Authorities were worried that immigrants would bring the idea of communism to America

STRIKE BREAKERS

Trade unions

Protests and strikes

Bolshevism - a socialist political movement led by Vladimir Lennon that seized russia in the October revolution of 1917

Anti-union blame strikes andd red secret agents (russian spies)

THE DYNAMITERS

A film released in 1911 that shows ‘new immigrants as violent and insane and showed them throwing bombs

ARRESTS

Thousands of socialists, communists and IWW(the industrial workers of the world) were arrested, jailed or deported

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL

MAFIA

Organised crime gangs originating in Sicily, Italy

When Italians came to America, mafias were established not long after

PROHIBITION

Volstead act of 1919

Banning the sale of alcohol

Crime gangs began to supply alcohol

The public made a connection between crime and organised crime gangs of Italian immigrants

AL CAPONE

Born in New York to Italian parents

Big link to crime and illegal alcohol

Chicago gang (capones)

Dedicated police o smuggling and transporting alcohol and other crimes like prostitution

1920’s to 1931

TRAIL OF SAZZO AND VANZETTI

Suspected anarchists who were convicted of murdering 2 men in an armed robbery at a shoe factory in 1920

Executed on the 23rd of August 1927

Many believed they were killed for their political views and that they didn’t kill anyone

POLITICAL

NATIVISM

A belief that people outside the USA were bad

Small town values and an intense dislike for foreigners

THE PASSING OF THE GREAT RACE

Maddison Grant argued that new immigrants were inferior to the older type of immigrants - 1927

Claimed Northern Europeans (Nordics) were better thay other races

EUGENICS

Claimed to prove some races were genetically superior to other races

ECENOMIC

COMMUNITIES

Newly arrived immigrants tended to cluster into areas with other immigrants of similar culture who had already settled

POOR CONDITIONS

Slums were centres of diseases and crime

Got worse as more people were looking for cheap housing

Landlords raised rent making it harder to find housing due to competition

ASSEMBLY LINE

Factory where workers only do one simple task in a long process

Factory owners realised they could pay immigrants lower wages

TRADE UNIONS

As immigration was increasing trade unions were trying to get better wages and better working conditions

When members striked, their bosses simply sacked them and replaced them with immigrants

IMMIGRATION ACTS

1921 - Immigration act - 3% of each nationality

1924 - Immigration act - uses 1890 census

1929 - Only 150,00 immigrants a year (resrved for Northern and Western Europeans)

1930 - Immigration from Eastern Europe and Asia almost stopped

1932 - USA no longer has an open door policy