Gilded age
Immigration in the Gilded Age
In the years following the Civil War, The United States changed dramatically. At the outbreak of the war, the country had been mostly agricultural, although the North was already well on the way toward industrialization. By the early years of the twentieth century, however, America had been transformed from a mainly agricultural society to the world's leading industrial nation.
Unskilled labor, entrepreneurial energy, and technological talent were necessary to bring about this change. Immigrants from northern Europe and their children helped to provide all three.
Northern European immigrants became more accepted in American society in the last decades of the nineteenth century. This change in American attitudes came about not so much because nativists had a change of heart, but because they feared another kind of immigrant. Between
1820und 1930 over 37.5 million immigrants came to America in ever-increasing waves:
Between 1820 and 1860, 5 million came; between 1860 and 1890, 13.5 million arrived; and between 1890 and 1930, the total was almost 19 million. The first two waves came primarily from the British Isles and the northern European countries. The last wave was made up mostly of people from southern and eastern European countries—Italians, Slavs, Russian Jews, and others.
This latter wave seemed so foreign, not only to native-born Americans but also to northern Europeans, that much of the hatred that was formerly reserved for northern European immigrants was aimed at these groups.
By the 1870s the northern Europeans of the first wave of immigration had become integrated into American society. Some became captains of industry in an era when industrialists, unfettered by any sort of controls, wielded enormous power: Henry C. Frick became a force in steel manufacturing, and Frederick Weyerhaeuser carved out a lumber and timber empire;
George Westinghouse and Charles P. Steinmetz were instrumental in the
In the years following the Civil War, The United States changed dramatically. At the outbreak of the war, the country had been mostly agricultural, although the North was already well on the way toward industrialization. By the early years of the twentieth century, however, America had been transformed from a mainly agricultural society to the world's leading industrial nation.
Unskilled labor, entrepreneurial energy, and technological talent were necessary to bring about this change. Immigrants from northern Europe and their children helped to provide all three.
Northern European immigrants became more accepted in American society in the last decades of the nineteenth century. This change in American attitudes came about not so much because nativists had a change of heart, but because they feared another kind of immigrant. Between
1820und 1930 over 37.5 million immigrants came to America in ever-increasing waves:
Between 1820 and 1860, 5 million came; between 1860 and 1890, 13.5 million arrived; and between 1890 and 1930, the total was almost 19 million. The first two waves came primarily from the British Isles and the northern European countries. The last wave was made up mostly of people from southern and eastern European countries—Italians, Slavs, Russian Jews, and others.
This latter wave seemed so foreign, not only to native-born Americans but also to northern Europeans, that much of the hatred that was formerly reserved for northern European immigrants was aimed at these groups.
By the 1870s the northern Europeans of the first wave of immigration had become integrated into American society. Some became captains of industry in an era when industrialists, unfettered by any sort of controls, wielded enormous power: Henry C. Frick became a force in steel manufacturing, and Frederick Weyerhaeuser carved out a lumber and timber empire;
George Westinghouse and Charles P. Steinmetz were instrumental in the