Social Developments Flashcards
1
Q
What transformed American society?
A
- industrialisation
- urbanisation
- demographic change (immigration)
2
Q
How many European immigrants came to US 1890-1917?
A
18 million
3
Q
Impact of immigration on cities
A
- population explosion
- cities often shaped by the cultural identities of the migrants - ‘Little Italy’ in New York + ‘Polish Triangle’ in Chicago
- impact of immigration + rapid urbanisation was positive but it also led to tensions + divisions between ethnic communities - between new arrivals + early settlers
4
Q
Reasons for mass immigration
A
- push factors such as poverty + hunger drove people to leave southern Italy
- persecution - e.g. the policy of ‘Russification’ in Tsarist Russia introduced by Alexander III after 1881
- pull factors - idealised belief in America as a land of riches + freedom, or attraction of joining already established communities
5
Q
What boosted migration?
A
- improvements in transportation + communication
- departure ports such as Bremen, Hamburg + Liverpool developed systems for handling the flow of people from their places of origin to US
- a huge new immigration centre was opened on Ellis Island in 1892 as the centre at Castle Garden in new York could not cope with the mass immigration
6
Q
How long did immigrants stay?
A
- almost 1 in 3 returned home - rate of return varied between communities
- 60% of Italians returned home but only 3% of Russian Jews went back - reflecting the different motivations
- Jewish migration = 50% were female, 25% were children - intended on making a permanent life
7
Q
What was the pace of urbanisation between 1890-1914?
A
- ever changing urban skyline - taller buildings competing for space + public attention
- construction boom = vast quantiles of housing, tramways + elevated railways
- urbanisation accelerated the spread of advertising + modern mass entertainment
- small. Town America was also transferred with street-lights, trams, civic buildings in towns of 5000-30,000 population
8
Q
What other factors caused urbanisation? (Apart from immigration)
A
- population was increasing anyway - by 1900 it had grown to 76 million + by 1920 100 million
- internal migration from the countryside to cities
- from 1910 AA began moving out the south to northern cities such as Chicago
- but it was the influx of migrants from overseas that did the most to feed growth of cities - swelling the urban population + meeting the high demand for workers in construction, service industries etc.
9
Q
Consequences of immigration + urbanisation?
A
- many believed the diverse cultures would merge together in a great “melting pot” that would speed up the process of assimilation - this did not happen
- reality was a patchwork of different communities where ethic groups stuck close together - Irish, German-American, polish + Jewish
- this was especially true in industrialised northeast - where the speed + scale of urbanisation was the greatest
10
Q
Impact of new immigrants on politics?
A
- local politicians more than willing to offer protection + patronage to secure votes in elections - creating a social safety net by helping with jobs + welfare
- e.g. Tammany hall in New York - catholic in religion + democratic allegiance = attracted a lot of Irish catholics - often accused of corruption
- backlash against these mostly catholic political machines was one of the reasons populism grew in the south + west in 1890s
11
Q
Regional divisions 1890-1917
A
- most economic + political owner concentrated in the northeast
- south remained apart, still strongly built on WASP ideology
-west was still an undeveloped region of vast distance + isolation
12
Q
Social change in Northeast
A
- greatest in north east
- contained the powerhouse industries, the booming cities, and the concentrated transportation networks = engines for social change
- region were most immigrants settled so politics + culture was more open to European influence
- many important social trends were not nationwide but seemed so because of the dominance of the northeast
13
Q
Social changes in the south
A
- south was political separate, entirely dominated at state + federal level by the Democratic Party
- economically different - stilled ruled by plantations + ‘king cotton’
- white society still resistant to change + clinging to segregation
- south was rarely a destination for immigrants - however from 1910 AA began moving out of the south to northern cities like Chicago - increased in scale during WWI
14
Q
Social change in the west
A
- social + economic development still patchy + unfinished after 1890
- some territories did not achieve full statehood until 1912
- rapid development of some cities such as those on West Coast ports
- still a region of boom towns + ghost towns = sudden rise +. Fall of mining towns e.g. ‘tent city’ of Nome during Alaska-Yukon Gold rUSH
15
Q
What made progressivism so influential?
A
- from 1900 it was the great age of newspapers + magazines
- influential ‘muckraking’ journalists like Lincoln Steffens who exposed corruption = targets could be high level bankers, or low-level corruption of ‘graft’ + ‘kickbacks’
