Responses to Immigration (1865-1898)

Immigration During the Gilded Age (1865-1898)

Millions of European and Asian immigrants arrived in America.
Many settled in urban industrial centers and worked in factories with dangerous conditions for low pay.

Nativism: A policy protecting the interests of native-born people against immigrants.
Nativism intensified, particularly among Protestant ministers like Henry Cabot Lodge.
Lodge argued that Anglo-Saxon Americans were committing "race suicide" by allowing the intermingling of "inferior races".
Groups like the American Protective Association (APA) formed, targeting Catholics.
The APA opposed Catholicism due to the influx of Irish Catholic immigrants.
Concerns existed that Irish Catholics were being voted into office and that the Catholic Church was planning a "hostile takeover" of America.

Labor unions feared the influx of immigrants due to their willingness to work for low wages.
Union leaders worried that immigrants would undermine their ability to negotiate with manufacturers.
Manufacturers could replace unionized workers with underpaid immigrants during strikes.

Social Darwinism: A pseudoscientific ideology applying biological Darwinism to societal realities.
Proponents argued that in nature, the strong dominate the weak, and only the fittest survive.
Social Darwinists believed immigrants (especially Irish immigrants) were racially inferior.
They feared that intermingling with immigrants would degrade the American gene pool.
Social Darwinists viewed Irish immigrants as a different race, despite their white skin.

West Coast immigrants, mainly from Asia (particularly China), faced similar hostility.
By 1852, approximately 20,000 Chinese lived in California; by 1870, over 50,000.
Chinese immigrants contributed significantly to the Transcontinental Railroad and took undesirable jobs.
Californian nativists blamed economic troubles on the Chinese during the Panic of 1873.
They argued that the Chinese depressed wages due to their willingness to work for low pay.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 banned all further Chinese immigration to the United States.
This act was the only U.S. law to target a specific nationality for exclusion.

Jane Addams recognized the suffering of immigrants in Chicago and sought to help them.
She established settlement houses, the most famous being the Hull House (opened in 1889).
Settlement houses aimed to help immigrants assimilate into American society and find better opportunities.
They provided English lessons, early childhood education, democratic ideals, and recreational outings (e.g., theaters).

Immigrants faced hardship and opposition during the Gilded Age.
Nativism, labor unions, and Social Darwinism contributed to anti-immigrant sentiment.
Individuals like Jane Addams worked to soften the impact of nativism and help immigrants.