Immigration and migration in the Gilded Age
New arrivals
Previously in the 19th century, significant numbers of Irish and German immigrants arrived in the United States; nativist reactions against these Irish and German immigrants led to the establishment of the American Party, frequently called the Know Nothings. In the early years of the post-Civil War era, Germans, Irish, and Norwegians continued to immigrate to the United States in large numbers; soon they were joined by new nationalities, including Italians, Greeks, and Poles. As with previous waves of immigration, these newcomers were both welcomed and viewed with suspicion, particularly given that these new arrivals were less likely to speak English upon arrival; furthermore, Irish, Italian and Polish immigrants were overwhelmingly Catholic, an unwelcome development for many Protestants. Many of these newly arrived immigrants settled in ethnic neighborhoods, including Little Italy in New York City and Greektown in Chicago. Needing jobs and various forms of social assistance, many of these immigrants supported urban political machines, patronage networks that provided employment and housing assistance in return for votes; these political machines often engaged in various forms of corruption, particularly the notorious Tammany Hall group of Democrats that controlled New York city government for decades.
While the newly arrived European immigrants discussed above encountered significant prejudice, Chinese immigrants suffered greater discrimination and violence, particularly in the western United States. Many Chinese immigrants settled into their own ethnic neighborhoods, Chinatowns, in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. Tragically, Chinese miners and urban residents were attacked and many killed in Los Angeles in 1871, Denver in 1880, Rock Springs, Wyoming in 1885 and Seattle in 1886. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act denying new Chinese immigrants permission to settle in the United States; many of the supporters of the law hoped that Chinese workers then in the United States would swiftly return to China.
Chinese Exclusion Act, May 6, 1882
Americanization
Reactions to immigration ranged from welcoming the new immigrants to discrimination to an outright ban on future Chinese immigration; an important aspect to welcoming newly arrived immigrants was a renewed drive for Americanization. Advocates of Americanization increasingly emphasized the need for immigrants to speak English and to outwardly demonstrate their commitment to the United States through the pledge of allegiance that debuted in 1892, coinciding with the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the Americas and the World’s Columbian Exposition, or World’s Fair,** in Chicago in 1893. Baptist minister Francis Bellamy’s original pledge of allegiance, which did not directly reference the United States nor God, changes that were made in 1923 and 1954, respectively, was soon followed by Katherine Lee Bates’s America the Beautiful, a song acknowledging the natural beauty of the country, including the “purple mountain majesty” of Pike’s Peak in Colorado.
Homesteaders
One of the enduring images of the later parts of 19th century plains and western settlement is that of hardy homesteaders drawn by promises of cheap land staking out their respective claims and working the land to provide for their families. While thousands of homesteaders ultimately settled in the west and on the plains, promises of abundant, affordable and arable land were frequently undercut by harsh realities: much of the west is not suited for the same agriculture practiced in other parts of the country; Native Americans often resisted these incursions on their ancestral lands; and land companies purchased and then subdivided plots of land, meaning that homesteaders frequently paid more than they expected for smaller plots than they believed had been promised through the** Homestead** and Morrill Land Grant Acts (1862). The contrast in views between William Gilpin, territorial governor of Kansas in the late 1850s, and John Wesley Powell, an intrepid and clear-eyed explorer of the American west, highlights the divide between those who promoted the west as a veritable farming paradise and those who cautioned greater restraint in settlement. Gilpin proclaimed the west as providing abundant land and water resources, an area of unparalleled farming abundance, while Powell noted that the soils and water of the west were far more fragile and limited than Gilpin’s vision. Amongst the most salient examples of both the promise and disillusionment for homesteaders occurred in the Oklahoma land rush of 1889 in which tens of thousands of hopeful settlers entered the recently created Oklahoma territory, carved out of portions of Indian Territory, only to discover that other would be settlers had entered “sooner” than they were supposed to, hence the origin of the official state nickname of Oklahoma as well as the name of its flagship public university sports teams.
Exodusters
Shortly after Reconstruction, thousands of African Americans fled the south to seek out new opportunities on the plains and in the west, including in Kansas and Nebraska. Known as the Exodusters, these African American settlers sought to claim homesteads to support themselves and their families. While the African American population of Kansas increased as a result of this new migration, sadly the Exodusters encountered significant prejudice and discrimination, often receiving the least desired farmlands and/or working primarily as domestic laborers for white families.
Millions of new immigrants entered the United States after the Civil War, with many of them coming from southern and eastern Europe and China.
Reactions of these newly arrived immigrants varied from welcoming them and urging them to assimilate quickly to calls for immigration restrictions, and in the case of Chinese immigrants, an outright ban on future Chinese immigration to the United States.
Internal migration also changed the United States as homesteaders, including African American Exodusters fleeing violence and poverty in the south, and prospectors sought out new lands and fortunes on the plains and in the west.