Cultural and Economic Factors in Migration Patterns (1865-1898)

Immigration vs. Migration

  • Immigration: Movement from one country to another.
  • Migration: Movement within the same country, from region to region.

Immigration (1865-1898)

  • U.S. population tripled during this period.
  • Significant wave of immigrants: approximately 16,000,000 people.
  • Mainly from Europe:
    • British Isles
    • Scandinavia
    • Germany
  • Reasons for leaving Europe:
    • Growing poverty
    • Overcrowding
    • Joblessness
    • Religious persecution (e.g., Jews in Eastern Europe)
  • Also immigrants from Russia, Italy, and the Balkans.
  • Settlement: Largely in industrial cities (Chicago, Pittsburgh, New York).
  • America perceived as a land of opportunity.
  • Industrial workforce became more diverse.
  • Western U.S.:
    • Immigrants from Asia, mainly Chinese.
    • Chinese immigration since the California Gold Rush (1840s-1850s).
    • Continued arrival of Asian immigrants.
  • Urban Changes:
    • Before the Civil War: Mixed social classes in cities.
    • Gilded Age: Middle class and wealthy moved out of cities.
    • Industrial cities became largely working-class and urban poor, many of whom were immigrants.

Urban Living Conditions

  • Working-class districts became squalid.
  • Immigrants crowded into hastily built tenements.
  • Tenements:
    • Poorly constructed
    • Poorly ventilated
  • Proximity led to frequent outbreaks of diseases: cholera, typhus, tuberculosis.
  • Positive Aspects:
    • Immigrants from the same cultures found each other.
    • Establishment of ethnic enclaves: solidarity and re-establishment of cultural institutions.
    • Examples:
      • Irish: Catholic churches
      • Eastern European Jews: Synagogues
    • Banking institutions: deposit earnings.
    • Political organizations: fought for immigrant rights.
    • Urban grocery stores: sold food from their homelands.

Migration: The Exoduster Movement

  • Mass migration of Southern black people to the West.
  • End of Reconstruction: black population left without federal protection.
  • Growth of terror groups (e.g., Ku Klux Klan) and Jim Crow laws in the South.
  • Black Southerners sought accommodation elsewhere.
  • Late 1870s: approximately 40,000 black Southerners migrated to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Colorado.
  • Organizations assisted the movement: Colored Relief Board, Kansas Freedmen's Aid Society.
  • Success Factors:
    • Settlement in urban centers of Kansas.
    • Work as domestic servants or trade workers.
  • Many attempted to establish homesteads, but most fertile lands were already acquired by railroad speculators.
  • Vast majority of black homesteaders remained in destitution one year after moving to the West.