Immigration During The Gilded Age

The Gilded Age was was an era that saw rapid immigration. This along with an explosion of Americans moving from farms to the cities, causing more people migrating to urban areas than ever before. The growth of cities gave rise to powerful political machines, that stimulated the economy, and gave birth to an American middle class. It was a time of highs and lows.
The Gilded Age was a period of economic growth as the United States jumped to the lead in industrialization ahead of Britain. Though there were many new inventions during the era of the Gilded Age, the most important one the the creation of the transcontinental railway. In 1869, the First Transcontinental Railroad opened up the western mining and farming regions. It was helpful to the immigrants because it allowed more immigrants to come into the country. I think thar there was many inventors of this time, but I think that Thomas Edison was one of the most influential inventors because he developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the

motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. He invented the lightbulb that allowed people to use electric light at night. Andrew Carnegie was also a very important inventor at this time. He made steel production cheaper and more efficient, resulting in him making millions from RRs and Skyscrapers. One specific occurrence of this is when he sold out to J.P Morgan for 480 million dollars. An advantage of the urban growth is that it created workers for industrial factories and a market for manufactured goods. As you know, The Industrial Revolution brought huge numbers of people out of the countryside and into big cities to work in factories, which caused working conditions to be terrible and there being very little concern for safety or workers rights. The increase in child labor, and the introduction of sweatshops were disadvantages. Industrialization also caused a spike in immigration. These new groups of people were often targets of racism and hatred.
In the beginning of the nineteenth century German, Irish, Chinese, Mexican, Scandinavian and French Canadians immigrants flooded into the United State and spurred the rapid growth of America’s citie.

Why? Well, America used the pull factor to attract by having many opportunities accessible here. The immigrants came from nations with small democratic traditions. They were usually Catholic, uneducated, and had no money. Industrialization leads to urbanization created economic growth and job opportunities that drew people into the cities. The main immigration centers were Angel Island and Ellis Island. The reason many factories were employing immigrants was because they needed money and companies typically could paid immigrants less. Since there were so many immigrants coming to America, the Hull House in Chicago was founded by Jane Addams to help them. One negative effect of immigration was that is caused

overpopulation.
Segregation and discrimination against African Americans were commonplace in the years after the Civil War. Despite new immigrants being told that they would have all the rights of a citizen, there was Segregation, At first the states passed Jim Crow laws that legalized the segregation across the South from the 1870s through the 1960s Then the U.S. Supreme Court legalized it on a national level in the Plessy v. Ferguson stating that there could be separate but "equal" facilities for different races. Whites in the Jim Crow South crafted a bitter web of political, economic, and social barriers to full and equal citizenship for their fellow black citizens Because most blacks were unskilled and uneducated Booker T. Washington made a plan for bettering their lives. He created the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, It was a normal school for blacks were teachers taught about industrial trades. DuBois help start the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. but most blacks felt that Washington's way was better and more practical. People took advantage of the immigrants illiteracy by requiring literacy test.