1890-1920 Social developments: mass immigration and urbanisation and their consequences; the position of African-Americans Flashcards
What were the effects of mass immmigration?
Between 1860 and 1900, at least 14 million immigrants arrived in the USA. The number of immigrants reached an all-time high in the years 1901 to 1910. By 1900, New York had more Italians than Naples, and twice as many Irish as Dublin. Moreover, by 1914, the Jewish population was 1.4 million out of a city population of 4.7 million. The immigrants from Europe disembarked in New York and headed for the cities where they provided the cheap labour needed for industrial growth or headed west to farm in the new territories. Chinese and Japanese immigrants usually arrived in San Francisco. By 1890, one-tenth of the population was Chinese.
Immigration was a major reason why the USA was able to progress as quickly as it did with industrialisation. Immigrants came as workers but, just as importantly, they came as consumers. Agencies matched immigrants to jobs so efficiently that many had employment within a few hours of arrival. By and large the immigrants assimilated well into US society. They formed the unskilled workforce in the rapidly growing industries.
The migrant was grateful for a job, an opportunity and a roof over his or her head. It was estimated that by 1900 over two-thirds of those who had arrived in the USA in the previous twenty years existed below subsistence level.
Indeed, the reality of life in America was often a shock to new arrivals who were surprised to find that the streets were not paved with gold. Settling in this new country was hard, especially for those moving from a peasant outdoor life, unregulated by clocks, to a disciplined, machine-controlled life. Low wages often meant that wives and children had to work.
How did Americans react to immigration?
While many immigrants were welcomed by employers as cheap and willing labour, they were an easy target for Americans who were fearful and resentful about the rapid changes brought about by industrialisation. This was because immigrants were often used as strike-breakers; brought in by employers as blacklegs to replace striking workers, they contributed to overcrowding in towns and cities and increased racial and ethnic conflict. I
In 1887, the American Protective Association was set up to try to put pressure on the government to limit immigration. The Association suggested that the Anglo-Saxon, Protestant ‘traditions’ that dominated American culture were being undermined. The anti-immigration forces had limited success before the First World War, although the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act stopped immigration from China and, in 1908, immigration from Japan also ceased.
To what extent was there segregation in the south.
In 1887, a railroad company in Florida was the first to introduce segregated railway carriages and over the next four years seven more Southern states brought in segregation on trains. This was gradually extended to cover public places. Segregation was reinforced by the Plessy v. Ferguson case.
What Voting Rights Did African Americans have from 1890-1912?
Many Southern states were also determined to ensure that African Americans did not exercise their right, according to the Fifteenth Amendment, to vote.
To achieve this, state governments devised complex rules as well as additional voting qualifications.
Georgia introduced a poll (individual) tax of up to $2 on citizens wanting to vote. Most African Americans were too poor to have such money available.
In 1898, Louisiana introduced the grandfather clause’. The franchise was granted to adult males but only if their fathers or grandfathers had voted before 1 January 1867, the date when African Americans gained the vote.
Some states also introduced rules which meant that only those who owned their own homes were allowed to vote.
In 1890, Mississippi introduced a literacy test in order to register to vote which effectively excluded many illiterate African Americans. This process could be arranged so that the questions for uneducated white Americans were simpler than those for their African American counterparts.
By 1910, very few African Americans were able to vote in the South. Therefore, few of them became political leaders at local, state or national level. Many African Americans accepted the situation as being too difficult to change, especially as there seemed little or no support at national level. Furthermore, the period 1880-1910 saw the height of the lynching campaign against African Americans with an average of one hundred each year. Cases were rarely brought to court and, if they were, all-white juries would not convict.
Who was Booker T Washington??
Booker T. Washington was born a slave in Virginia with a black mother and a white father whom he never knew. After emancipation, he was able to attend college and became a teacher. In 1881, he set up the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. This became a model for education linked to vocational training for black students. Washington believed that African Americans, in order to progress, had to acquire skills first through education. Later, he helped to set up the National Urban League to help black workers adjust to industrial, urban life. He was convinced that hard work and financial success would weaken discrimination.
In a speech in Atlanta, Georgia in 1895, Washington argued that if white Americans could regard African Americans as potential economic partners rather than as a threat to their political control, the race question would be resolved. He suggested that African Americans should focus on education and economic progress rather than trying to remove segregation and discrimination and achieving voting rights, and that change would be a slow process.
His critics called the speech the Atlanta Compromise and attacked his attempts at accommodation with white Americans in the South. However, the speech established Washington as the leader of the African Americans in the South.
What were Washingtons achievements?
There has been much debate both during his lifetime and in subsequent years about the contribution made by Washington to the cause of civil rights for African Americans. His critics have insisted that he seemed to accept the idea of white supremacy, made no attempt to challenge the second-class social position of African Americans and did little for civil rights. He seemed to focus on working within the system, rather than trying to change the system itself.
Moreover, he underestimated the importance of the vote for improving the position of African Americans.
However, he did have some achievements. He provided a role model for African Americans because of the way he progressed from slave to college principal, along with his strict standards of behaviour and self-discipline. He also developed valuable contacts for African Americans within the white-dominated political world of the USA. One of his greatest achievements was to gain the interest of Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt frequently consulted Washington on African-American issues and invited him to tea at the White House
Who was W.E.B. Du Bois?
Du Bois came from a very different background to that of Washington.
After gaining degrees at Fisk, a college for African Americans, Berlin and Harvard University, he became a lecturer in philosophy. At first he supported Washington’s ideas of slow but gradual change but by 1900 he was arguing for more active resistance to discrimination. He urged the use of legal and political processes through unceasing agitation.
What was the Niagra movement?
Du Bois helped to found the Niagara movement in 1905, which developed from a meeting held in Canada, in the city of Niagara Falls. The movement rejected Washington’s cautious approach and put the emphasis on protest to demand civil rights, especially the restoration of civil rights and the abolition of discrimination. Niagara never developed into a mass movement.
Du Bois and his followers were too academic and the movement lacked money and organisation. Nevertheless, Niagara provided impetus to the growing number of African Americans who wanted to challenge the views of Washington. Du Bois also played an important role in the setting up of the NAACP.
What was the position of African Americans in 1912?
The position of African Americans in 1912
African Americans were, more than ever, second-class citizens, especially in the South. The active political role at lower levels of government that some African Americans had gained in the South during Reconstruction had disappeared. There were no African Americans in Congress or even in state legislatures. Moreover, the right of African Americans to vote had been systematically removed in the South by a series of state laws. This lack of political power made it extremely difficult to challenge white political domination, especially in the South.
As blacks disappeared from voting registers they lost any rights to serve on juries and give their own race any chance of legal equality. Moreover, segregation laws had formalised and increased the separation of races in the South. African Americans were often faced with inferior facilities, especially in education.
On the other hand, chances of receiving a formal education did increase during this period and African Americans were free to leave the South and migrate North, which they did in increasing numbers. By the end of this period, a civil rights protest movement had begun to be developed with the
NAACP.
How were Workers in the US affected during the War?
Various government agencies were set up to facilitate industrial relations and effective working arrangements.
The National War Labor Board was set up in April 1918 to settle industrial disputes, considering over 1,200 cases until its demise in May 1919.
The War Labor Policies Board set wages and standards of employment. Wages doubled in the steel industry. As it consulted labour unions as well as employers, it gave greater influence and acceptance to unions, which had found it difficult to establish themselves in the USA. Union membership rose by 2.3 million during the war years.
Although conditions for many workers improved during the war years, women and African Americans still experienced problems within the workforce.
How were women affected in the US during the War?
Most women supported the war but they were not mobilised into war production as they would be in the Second World War. While one million men were called up, comparatively few women replaced them in munitions production and only 6,000 women were engaged in aircraft manufacture. Their role was seen mainly as encouraging people to buy war bonds and sending comforts to the troops abroad. Labour unions did not support the hiring of women because they thought they depressed wages. Indeed, women did suffer unequal pay, poor promotion prospects and little job security. Those who had found jobs in wartime production or in replacing men recruited into the armed forces were generally discharged when the war ended.
How was Migration of African Americans affected during the War?
The period saw a flood of African American migrants from the South to northern cities such as Chicago - as many as 500,000 migrated between 1914 and 1918. The African American population of New York grew from
92,000 to 152,000 and that of Detroit from little more than 5,000 to 41,000 between 1914 and 1918. However, while pay in industrial plants in the North was considerably better than in the cotton fields of the South, discrimination continued and there were serious riots against the African American presence in several northern cities such as East St. Louis in the summer of 1917 when 39 African Americans were killed.
The military, meanwhile, was strictly segregated with most of the 200,000 African American troops confined to labour battalions. Nevertheless, their experience of less racist attitudes, particularly among the French, led to changes in their own perceptions and was to add to considerable racial tensions as they returned home.
How much Suppression did African Americans experience during the War?
Many American politicians feared African Americans would not support the US in a war to make the world safe for democracy’ when they clearly faced prejudice and discrimination at home. Few African Americans in the South could vote; how could they be expected to fight for the rights of foreigners who could?
The government was prepared to give credence to rumours that German agents were about to subvert the loyalty of African Americans and authorised the Bureau of Investigation of the Justice Department, and military intelligence, to track down pro-German feelings among African Americans. These investigations focused particularly on the Black Press. The Black Press included about 200 weekly papers and six monthly magazines embracing a wide variety of styles and viewpoints from the conservative New York Age to the more radical Crisis and the Cleveland Gazette. The latter stressed that African-Americans were expected to be patriotic and support the war yet faced unfair and unequal treatment at home.
The periodical of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), The Crisis, came in for particular attention, in part because it was the most influential radical African American mouthpiece - between 1917 and 1918 its circulation increased from 41,000 to 74,000. It was warned
‘to publish only facts and constructive criticism’ and avoid anything that might cause dissatisfaction among African-American troops.
