During the late 19th century, the United States received an influx of foreigners from several countries searching for economic opportunity. Though for many, this aspiration would result in disappointment, as industrialization was on the rise. The shift towards a manufacturing-based economy led to horrible living conditions for workers who were mainly immigrants. Through her book “Twenty Years at Hull-House," social activist Jane Addams recounts her experiences of the settlement house she founded in a poor Chicago neighborhood, seeking to enhance its residents’ quality of life. Utilizing her insights, she deduces two causes for the poverty amongst immigrants: the immigrant’s behavior and the political & economic environment. Of these two, I …show more content…
She reveals “The streets are inexpressibly dirty, the number of schools inadequate, sanitary legislation unenforced, the street lighting bad, the paving miserable and altogether lacking in the alleys and smaller streets, and the stables foul beyond description. Hundreds of houses are unconnected to the street sewer” (104). Furthermore, Addams conveys the value educational resources have in finding and obtaining work. By hosting classes and clubs at Hull-House she set out to give children and adults “opportunit[ies] which they could not have in crowded schools” and “merge as easily as possible school life into the working life” (Addams 112). Addams discusses how from the instruction and care of Hull-House, she discovered that a ninety-year-old woman with a habit of picking plaster off walls had a capability for adornment and could speak the language Gaelic (112). The woman was left alone all day, disregarded, however when given learning opportunities, she was able to do more. This proves Addams places great value on resources. Hence, if the immigrants in the poverty-stricken neighborhood were offered better resources, they would be able to expand their capabilities, then advance
YES/NO SUMMARY: In the yes summary “Oscar Handlin asserts that immigrants to the United States in the late nineteenth century were alienated from the cultural traditions of the homeland they had left as well as from those of their adopted country.” On the other hand Professor Wyman “argues that as many as four million immigrants to the United States between 1880 and 1930 viewed their trip as temporary and remained tied psychologically to their homeland to which they returned once they had accumulated enough wealth to enable them to improve their status back home.”
America is a land filled with immigrants coming from different corners of the worlds, all in hopes of finding a better life in the country. However, No one had an easy transition from his or her home country to this foreign land. Not every race thrived the same way—some were luckier than others, while some have faced enormous obstacles in settling down and being part of the American society. Many people have suffered
Twenty Years at Hull-House Two Works Cited Victoria Bissell Brown's introduction to Twenty Years at Hull-House explains the life of Jane Addams and her commitment to insight social change to problems that existed during the turn of the 20th century. As a reaction to the hardships of a changing industrial society, Addams decided to establish a settlement house in the West side of Chicago to help individuals who had suffered from the cruelties of industrialization. Rejecting the philosophies that stemmed from the Gilded Age, such as social Darwinism and the belief that human affairs were determined by natural law, Addams was a progressive who wanted government to be more responsive to the people. As a progressive, Jane Addams committed herself as a social servant to the community in an attempt to fulfill the promise of democracy to everyone rather than a small elite group. Addams’s dedication to communitarian purposes as opposed to individualist gains can be attributed to her upbringing and her remarkable respect for her father, John Huy Addams.
In Jane Addams’s effort to try to assimilate immigrants into the American culture, she targeted the immigrant children first. Addams believed if the children became assimilated, the adults would follow suit. Hull House offered cooking classes and adolescents often took them so they could learn how...
Jane Addams and Hull House Born in Cederville, Illinois, on September 6, 1860, Jane Addams founded the world famous social settlement of Hull House. From Hull House, where she lived and worked from it’s start in 1889 to her death in 1935, Jane Addams built her reputation as the country’s most prominent woman through her writings, settlement work and international efforts for world peace. In 1931, she became the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Addams, whose father was an Illinois state senator and friend of Abraham Lincoln, graduated in 1881 from Rockford College (then called Rockford Women’s Seminary). She returned the following year to receive one of the school’s first bachelor’s degrees.
Why does Jane Addams think women should have the right to vote? Please summarize her argument in your own words.
Between the years of 1840 and 1914, about forty million people immigrated to the United States from foreign countries. Many of them came to find work and earn money to have a better life for their families. Others immigrated because they wanted to escape the corrupt political power of their homelands, such as the revolution in Mexico after 1911. Whatever the case, many found it difficult to begin again in a new country. Most immigrants lived in slums with very poor living conditions. They had a hard time finding work that paid enough to support a family. Not only was it difficult for immigrant men, but for women as well. Immigrant women faced many challenges including lack of education and social life as well as low wages and poor working conditions.
“Columbia’s Unwelcome Guests”, by Frank Beard (February 7, 1885), displays how the unrestricted US policies that were implemented were causing more immigrants to emigrate from Europe. The new aliens are depicted as anarchist, socialist, and the Mafia arriving from the sewers of Italy, Russia, and Germany. In the late nineteenth century, the U.S. government was not only concerned with the racialization of the immigrants entering the country, but also
Immigration has existed around the world for centuries, decades, and included hundreds of cultures. Tired of poverty, a lack of opportunities, unequal treatment, political corruption, and lacking any choice, many decided to emigrate from their country of birth to seek new opportunities and a new and better life in another country, to settle a future for their families, to work hard and earn a place in life. As the nation of the opportunities, land of the dreams, and because of its foundation of a better, more equal world for all, the United States of America has been a point of hope for many of those people. A lot of nationals around the world have ended their research for a place to call home in the United States of America. By analyzing primary sources and the secondary sources to back up the information, one could find out about what Chinese, Italians, Swedish, and Vietnamese immigrants have experienced in the United States in different time periods from 1865 to 1990.
Jane Addams was a Victorian woman born into a male-dominated society on September 6, 1860 in Cedarville, Illinois. Her father was a wealthy landowner and an Illinois senator who did not object to his daughter’s choice to further her education, but who wanted her to have a traditional life. For years after his death, Addams tried to reconcile the family role she was expected to play with her need to achieve personal fulfillment.
To say that immigrants in America have experienced discrimination would be an understatement. Ever since the country formed, they have been seen as inferior, such as African-Americans that were unwillingly brought to the 13 colonies in the 17th century with the intention to be used as slaves. However, post-1965, immigrants, mainly from Central and South America, came here by choice. Many came with their families, fleeing from their native land’s poverty; these immigrants were in search of new opportunities, and more importantly, a new life. They faced abuse and Cesar Chavez fought to help bring equality to minorities.
Between 1880 and 1920 almost twenty-four million immigrants came to the United States. Between better salaries, religious freedom, and a chance to get ahead in life, were more than enough reasons for leaving their homelands for America. Because of poverty, no future and various discrimination in their homelands, the incentive to leave was increasing. During the mid-1800's and early 1900's, the labor and farm hands in Eastern Europe were only earning about 15 to 30 a day. In America, they earned 50 cents to one dollat in a day, doubling their paycheck. Those lower wage earners in their homeland were st...
Kessner, Thomas and Betty Boyd Caroli, “Today’s Immigrants, Their Stories.” Kiniry and Rose 343-346. Print.
An outburst in growth of America’s big city population, places of 100,000 people or more jumped from about 6 million to 14 million between 1880 and 1900, cities had become a world of newcomers (551). America evolved into a land of factories, corporate enterprise, and industrial worker and, the surge in immigration supplied their workers. In the latter half of the 19th century, continued industrialization and urbanization sparked an increasing demand for a larger and cheaper labor force. The country's transformation from a rural agricultural society into an urban industrial nation attracted immigrants worldwide. As free land and free labor disappeared and as capitalists dominated the economy, dramatic social, political, and economic tensions were created. Religion, labor, and race relations were questioned; populist and progressive thoughts were developed; social Darwinism and nativism movements were launched.
In the early 1900's a newly arrived immigrant worker faced numerous challenges that had to be overcome. Often times literally arriving with the clothes on their back and a few meager dollars, it was crucial for these individuals to find work and lodging as soon as possible.