Essays Berkin Chapter 17
1. American industrialization during the late nineteenth century was often accompanied by conflict between labor and industrialists. Describe the steps taken by labor in its efforts to win concessions from management.
DEVELOPING YOUR ANSWER: Unions could develop either along craft lines (unionizing only skilled workers) or by unionizing all workers. You should describe how this division affected the development of the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor. Explore also the differences and the similarities in their respective approaches to taking action.
Labor also attempted to improve its lot by calling major strikes, and you should describe the most important of these in your essay.
2. For the United States, the period between 1865 and 1900 was one of unparalleled urban growth. Analyze the factors that contributed to the expansion of America’s cities during the late nineteenth century.
DEVELOPING YOUR ANSWER: You should explore at least three major factors: the impact of new technology, the arrival of new people, and efforts to industrialize the South.
New technologies that contributed to the physical expansion of cities included the use of steel frames in buildings, an innovation that permitted the city to grow vertically. The skyscraper was the most notable architectural outcome. Cities also expanded horizontally because of electricity. This new source of power ran the streetcars, the elevated railways, and the subways that made it possible for people to reside at greater distances from their places of work.
The arrival of millions of new immigrants from Europe also contributed to America’s urbanization. Some immigrants, to be sure, settled on farms, but most were so impoverished that they could not buy land and settle in the country. For this reason, Irish, Jewish, German, Polish, and most Italian immigrants settled in the cities. The result was a skyrocketing urban population.
In the South, the effort by some leaders after the Civil War to diversify the economy—the undertaking called the New South movement—led to the growth of an iron and steel industry in Alabama. Birmingham’s development as an important urban center resulted.
3. Dedicated in 1886, the midpoint of the Gilded Age, the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor welcomed immigrants from Europe with a poem inscribed on its base. It proclaimed: “Give me your tired, your poor; your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. . . .” Did all Americans share in this welcoming sentiment? Use examples from the text to support your answer.
DEVELOPING YOUR ANSWER: Many Americans did not. In developing your answer, you should explore the reasons for their hostility and then examine the steps they took to try to stem the tide of immigration.
Dreading lower wages and unemployment, some labor organizations feared unrestricted immigration. But it was older Americans—the descendants of the “old immigration” from northern and western Europe—who most consistently opposed the “new immigration” from southern and eastern Europe. They did so in part because they were Protestants, whereas the newcomers were Catholic and Jewish. In part, too, as Anglo-Saxons, they saw themselves as racially superior to Italians, Jews, Poles, and other Slavs.
Labor organizations and old-stock Americans sought through legislation to restrict the number of immigrants. Focusing on a literacy test as a way to keep them out of the country, they finally succeeded when Congress required one in 1917. The earlier Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 had already curtailed Asian immigration.
Opponents of the “new immigration” also joined the American Protective Association. In your essay, you should explain how this organization sought to ensure Protestant supremacy over Catholics. Finally, you should mention the growth of anti-Semitic discriminatory practices.
4. Both African Americans and immigrants from southern and eastern Europe faced adversity as they endeavored to adjust to the conditions they faced in Gilded Age America. Compare and contrast the difficulties they encountered as well as their responses.
DEVELOPING YOUR ANSWER: The question requires, first, that you explore similarities (“compare”). Both groups had to contend with the allegation that they were racially inferior. Both lost victims to violence: in the South, lynch mobs killed African Americans, while Protestants affiliated with the American Protective Association rioted against and sometimes caused the deaths of Catholic immigrants. Finally, both experienced the sting of discriminatory practices: southern blacks endured segregation in all aspects of their lives (including public facilities), while Jews found themselves excluded from social organizations, businesses, and certain neighborhoods.
The question also requires that you explore differences (“contrast”) in the experiences of the two groups. Perhaps the most vivid difference was the disenfranchisement of the South’s African Americans through such techniques as poll taxes and literacy tests. In contrast, immigrants from southern and eastern Europe could become citizens and vote. They exchanged their votes for all kinds of assistance provided by urban political bosses, while African Americans in the South had no such recourse to help in times of need. The immigrants, in other words, were not completely without political power, in contrast to African Americans, who had none.
The two groups responded to their respective predicaments in ways that were sometimes similar. Immigrants sought strength in their own traditions and in association with each other. Resisting assimilation, they established their own social networks, newspapers, and churches. Similarly, some African Americans endeavored to establish their own communities, either in the South or elsewhere. Some even envisioned moving to Liberia in Africa.