6.9 Responses to Immigration

American responses to immigration during the Gilded Age were mixed and often contradictory. As millions of newcomers arrived, some Americans built settlement houses and political networks to help immigrants adjust, while others supported nativism and legal restrictions.

Jane Addams Hull House, image courtesy of Owlcation

What to Know About Responses to Immigration

• Social Darwinism portrayed wealth and poverty as results of natural ability and was used to justify low wages and unsafe conditions for immigrant workers.
• Settlement houses offered immigrants practical help, while workers such as Hull House founders Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr pushed for urban reforms.
• The Chinese Exclusion Act banned Chinese workers for 10 years, while the 1891 Immigration Act put the federal government in control of immigration.
• Immigrant tenements were crowded and often unsafe; Jacob Riis exposed housing conditions, but improvements remained inadequate throughout the Gilded Age.
• Ethnic neighborhoods helped newcomers keep familiar customs and support one another as families blended old traditions with American practices.
• Economic fears and cultural differences fueled nativism, and selective exclusion set a precedent for broader immigration restrictions in the 1920s.

Social Darwinism and Immigration

Social Darwinism was one of the most harmful theories used to explain immigration and social inequality during this time. This misguided idea took Charles Darwin's concepts about natural selection in plants and animals and wrongly applied them to human society, claiming that some people were rich because they were naturally superior, while others were poor because they were naturally inferior.

Key aspects of Social Darwinism:

• Promoted by writers Herbert Spencer ("survival of the fittest") and William Graham Sumner
• Claimed that wealthy people deserved their success because of superior abilities
• Presented poverty as natural and unavoidable
• Argued against government help as "interfering" with natural selection

How it was used against immigrants:

• Justified paying immigrant workers low wages and providing unsafe working conditions
• Explained away poverty among immigrant groups as being their own fault
• Provided a fake "scientific" excuse for discrimination
• Let wealthy Americans avoid responsibility for helping others

Social Darwinism was popular with upper-class Americans because it made them feel good about their wealth without requiring them to help those less fortunate. By framing success and failure as results of natural ability rather than social conditions, it fit with American ideals of individualism while discouraging government help for struggling immigrant communities.

Settlement Houses and Reform Efforts

In contrast to Social Darwinism, the settlement house movement offered a hands-on, caring response to immigration. Led mostly by educated women, settlement houses in immigrant neighborhoods provided practical help and pushed for broader social reforms to improve city living conditions.

Major settlement houses:

• Hull House in Chicago (1889) founded by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr
• Henry Street Settlement in New York founded by Lillian Wald
• College Settlement in New York founded by women college graduates

Services provided:

• English classes and citizenship education
• Job training and employment help
• Childcare and youth programs
• Healthcare and hygiene instruction
• Cultural activities and recreation
• Safe community spaces and libraries

Settlement house workers lived in the communities they served, seeing immigrant needs firsthand and becoming strong advocates for urban reform. They pushed for worker protections, better housing, public health measures, and other policies to help immigrant families adapt while addressing the harsh realities of urban poverty.

Immigrant Living Conditions and Reform

The crowded and often dangerous housing in immigrant neighborhoods became a major focus for reformers. As cities filled with newcomers, housing shortages led to the quick construction of tenements that maximized profit for landlords while providing minimal space and basic necessities for residents.

Urban tenement conditions:

• Multiple families sharing tiny apartments with little privacy
• Poor air flow, limited sunlight, and inadequate bathrooms
• Fire hazards and structural problems
• Lack of running water and proper waste disposal
• Disease outbreaks due to overcrowding

Reform efforts:

• New York's Tenement House Act (1879) required windows in each bedroom
• Journalists like Jacob Riis exposed conditions in "How the Other Half Lives" (1890)
• Photographer Lewis Hine documented child labor and immigrant working conditions
• Reformers pushed for building codes and housing regulations
• Public health campaigns focused on cleanliness and disease prevention

Despite these efforts, housing improvements remained inadequate throughout the Gilded Age. The powerful photographs by Riis and others raised public awareness and support for urban reform, but meaningful change would take decades of continued advocacy and increased government involvement.

Ethnic Enclaves and Cultural Adaptation

Immigrants developed smart strategies to balance preserving their heritage while adapting to American life. Ethnic neighborhoods provided support systems where newcomers could maintain familiar customs while gradually adjusting to their new country. These communities became vibrant cultural spaces that shaped both immigrant identity and broader American culture.

Functions of ethnic neighborhoods:

• Provided familiar language, food, customs, and social connections
• Offered mutual aid societies to help newcomers
• Created safe spaces between old world traditions and new American practices
• Established ethnic businesses, churches, and community organizations

Cultural balancing act:

• First generation usually kept strongest ties to homeland culture
• Second generation often bridged the gap between two worlds
• Religious institutions preserved traditions while helping with adaptation
• Families developed blended practices combining old and new customs

Americanization pressures:

• Public schools pushed English language and American customs
• Employers often demanded conformity to American work styles
• Immigrants faced social pressure to abandon "foreign" traditions
• Some reformers pushed for rapid assimilation rather than cultural diversity

Rather than simply abandoning their heritage or resisting all change, most immigrant communities engaged in a complex balancing act. They selectively adapted to American ways while maintaining meaningful connections to their cultural origins, creating new blended identities that would ultimately contribute to America's diverse cultural mix.

Nativism and Immigration Restriction

Despite America's image as a nation of immigrants, the Gilded Age also saw growing anti-immigrant feelings and calls for restrictions. Nativism—the policy of protecting native-born inhabitants against immigrants—gained political support as economic fears and cultural differences fueled concerns about the changing nature of American society.

Nativist concerns focused on:

• Competition for jobs and wages
• Religious differences (particularly anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish feelings)
• Belief that immigrants couldn't become "real Americans"
• Fears of radical political ideas (anarchism and socialism)
• Prejudice toward non-white and non-northern European peoples

Nativist organizations:

• American Protective Association (mainly anti-Catholic)
• Immigration Restriction League (pushed for literacy tests)
• Some labor unions (worried about wage competition)

These restrictive policies marked a significant shift in America's approach to immigration. While European immigrants could still enter during the Gilded Age, the precedent of selective exclusion had been established. This framework would eventually lead to the more comprehensive immigration restrictions of the 1920s, dramatically reducing the flow of newcomers until the mid-20th century.

Legacy and Continuing Debates

The varied responses to immigration during the Gilded Age established patterns and debates that continue to shape American society today. The tension between welcoming newcomers and preserving existing cultural identities remains a central theme in American politics and social life. The experiences of Gilded Age immigrants—their struggles, adaptations, and contributions—created a foundation for understanding today's immigration issues.

Both the challenges and achievements of this era continue to resonate in modern America. Immigrants and their descendants transformed American culture, politics, and society while pursuing their own versions of the American dream. Through their experiences, we can better understand the ongoing process of defining American identity in a diverse and changing nation. The debates over immigration that began during the Gilded Age reveal fundamental questions about who we are as Americans and what values unite us across our many differences.