Search: "Ellis Island immigrants arriving 1900"
"Mulberry Street New York City 1900 immigrants"
Sources: Library of Congress, NYPL Digital Collections
HIST 101 • Chapter 20: Urbanization
The World in Motion
🌍 Core Claim
Urbanization is not just Americans moving into cities. It is the world in motion—driven by industrial capitalism, imperial disruption, political violence, and transportation revolutions.
Late-19th-century American cities were nodes in global systems of labor, capital, and migration.
×
Cities as Global Nodes
Think of cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco as connection points in a worldwide network:
Labor flows: Workers from Italy, Poland, China, Mexico converged on industrial centers
Capital flows: European investment funded American railroads and factories
Information flows: Telegraphs, newspapers, and letters connected communities across oceans
American cities weren't isolated—they were embedded in a global economy.
Constrained Choices
🔑 Key Insight for This Lecture
Urban growth reflects constrained choices made under pressure—not free individual preference.
Migrants were not simply seeking "opportunity." They were often fleeing violence, poverty, or persecution—and choosing among limited options.
Part I
The Lure of the City
Why cities exploded after 1870
Industrial Capitalism Reorganized Space
🏭 Factories Required
Concentrated wage labor—thousands of workers in one place
🚂 Transportation Revolution
Railroads, steamships, and telegraph compressed time and distance
Cities became engines of opportunity and risk.
×
The Compression of Time and Distance
Before 1850, crossing the Atlantic took 4-6 weeks by sailing ship. By 1900:
Steamships crossed in 7-10 days
Telegraph sent messages in minutes
Railroads moved goods and people faster than ever before
This made mass migration physically possible—and made cities accessible to people from all over the world.
The Numbers Tell the Story
By 1900~40% of Americans lived in cities
By 1920A majority lived in urban areas for the first time
By 19006 cities exceeded 500,000 people
New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Boston, Baltimore
A Cultural Reversal
Antebellum View
Cities were seen as:
Corrupt and dangerous
Threats to republican virtue
Places of moral decay
"Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God." — Jefferson
Post-1870 View
Cities were celebrated as:
Modern and dynamic
Centers of progress
Inevitable and exciting
The city as the symbol of American power
Not "Natural Growth"
⚠️ Important Clarification
Urbanization is not "natural growth"—it is a structural outcome of industrial systems.
Industrial capitalism CREATED the conditions that drew people to cities. Without factories, railroads, and global trade networks, this migration would not have happened.
Part II
"New Immigrants"
The scale and sources of migration after 1880
A Shift in Sources
"Old" Immigration
Before 1880
Northern & Western Europe
Britain, Ireland, Germany
Scandinavia
Often Protestant (except Irish)
"New" Immigration
After 1880
Southern & Eastern Europe
Italy, Poland, Russia
Austria-Hungary, Greece
Often Catholic, Jewish, or Orthodox
The Scale of Change
By 189015% of U.S. population was foreign-born
By 1900Most urban residents were immigrants or their children
Migration often occurred as families, not lone adventurers.
Higher birth rates among immigrants accelerated urban growth.
×
Demographics and Urban Growth
Immigrant families tended to have more children than native-born families:
Traditional family patterns from home countries
Children provided labor and economic security
High infant mortality meant having more children
This meant cities grew through both immigration AND natural increase among immigrant families.
Correcting the Ellis Island Myth
IMAGE PLACEHOLDER 500x350px
Search: "Ellis Island medical inspection"
"steerage passengers immigrants ship"
Sources: Ellis Island Foundation, Library of Congress
The popular image: hopeful immigrants seeing the Statue of Liberty, starting fresh in America.
The reality:
Debt — many borrowed heavily to pay for passage
Danger — steerage conditions were harsh; disease was common
Permanent rupture — most never saw their homelands again
Part III
Conceptual Toolkit
Diaspora, not assimilation
Understanding Diaspora
📌 Definition
Diaspora: The dispersal of people from a homeland, with ongoing cultural, emotional, and institutional ties to that homeland.
Key elements:
Dispersal — leaving, often under pressure
Memory — longing for the homeland
Identity — maintaining distinct cultural practices
Networks — connections across borders
Contrasting Models
❌ "Uprooted"
Immigrants as traumatized, losing their culture, struggling to adapt
Oscar Handlin, 1951
✓ "Transplanted"
Immigrants as active agents who adapt culture while maintaining continuity
John Bodnar, 1985
✓ Diaspora
Ongoing connections, hybrid identities, networks across borders
Current framework
Push and Pull Factors
⬅️ Push Factors
What drove people out:
Violence and persecution
Land loss and enclosure
Economic collapse
Political instability
Religious oppression
➡️ Pull Factors
What drew people in:
Wages and jobs
Safety from persecution
Existing networks (family, village)
Perception of opportunity
Recruiters and advertisements
Chain Migration
🔗 Definition
Chain migration: Movement that follows kinship and community ties—where you go depends on who you already know there.
Core insight: Cities grow through networks, not randomness.
The same Italian village might send ALL its emigrants to one specific neighborhood in Chicago. Polish families from one region might all settle in the same blocks of Pittsburgh.
Homeland vs. Host Tension
The central dilemma of diaspora life:
Belonging without full acceptance
Emotional ties to the "old country"
Economic life in the new country
Children caught between two worlds
Never fully "at home" in either place
📝 Pause & Process
Quick Check
Which analytical framework best captures the idea that immigrants maintained ongoing connections to their homelands while building new lives in America?
"Uprooted" — emphasizing trauma and cultural loss
"Melting Pot" — emphasizing assimilation into American culture
"Diaspora" — emphasizing dispersal with continuing homeland ties
"Nativism" — emphasizing opposition to immigration
Part IV
Building Ethnic Worlds
How immigrants created communities inside American cities
Why Immigrants Clustered
Immigrants deliberately clustered to reduce risk and preserve autonomy.
IMAGE PLACEHOLDER 550x380px
Search: "Little Italy New York 1900"
"Hester Street Lower East Side 1900"
Sources: Museum of the City of New York, NYPL
Living near people who spoke your language and shared your culture meant:
Finding jobs through personal networks
Accessing familiar food, religion, customs
Getting help in emergencies
Raising children with cultural continuity
Key Ethnic Institutions
⛪ Religious Institutions
Churches, synagogues, temples — spiritual and social centers
📰 Ethnic Newspapers
News from home, community announcements, political mobilization
Capitalism wanted their labor. Culture rejected their presence.
Part VI
The City as Contested Space
Pluralism through tension
Not a Melting Pot
🔑 Key Reframing
Cities are not melting pots—they are contested spaces.
The "melting pot" metaphor suggests smooth blending. Reality was messier:
Immigrants reshaped food, religion, music, labor, and politics
Conflict was normal, not pathological
Urban life produced pluralism through tension, not harmony
Looking Ahead
Today we've seen how migration networks created diverse urban worlds.
But there were limits to this pluralism.
📍 Next Lecture
We'll examine where pluralism ended—race, law, and exclusion, especially for Asian migrants. The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) created a model for racial restriction that shaped American immigration law for generations.
Key Takeaway
Urbanization reflects global movement under pressure.
Cities became laboratories for modern identity, conflict, and belonging.
IMAGE PLACEHOLDER 700x300px panoramic
Search: "New York City skyline 1900"
"Chicago World's Fair 1893 panorama"
Sources: Library of Congress, Chicago History Museum
📝 Check Your Understanding
Synthesis Question
How does the concept of "diaspora" help explain why immigrants clustered in ethnic neighborhoods rather than dispersing throughout American cities?
Consider: homeland ties, chain migration, ethnic institutions, and the functions these communities served.
📚 Want to Learn More?
Instructor's recommended readings:
John Bodnar, The Transplanted — foundational diaspora framework
John Higham, Strangers in the Land — definitive study of nativism
Jonathan Zimmerman, Whose America? — cultural conflict over national identity
Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives — primary source (read critically!)
Note: Riis is valuable as a cultural artifact showing how native-born Americans viewed immigrants—not as objective description.