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AP US History AMSCO Guided Notes

6.9: Responses to Immigration in the Gilded Age

AP US History
AMSCO Guided Notes
6.1 Contextualizing Period 6
6.2 Westward Expansion: Economic Development
6.3 Westward Expansion: Social and Cultural Development
6.4 The "New South"
6.5 Technological Innovation
6.6 The Rise of Industrial Capitalism
6.7 Labor in the Gilded Age
6.8 Immigration and Migration in the Gilded Age
6.9 Responses to Immigration in the Gilded Age
6.10 Development of the Middle Class
6.11 Reform in the Gilded Age
6.12 Role of Government in the Gilded Age
6.13 Politics in the Gilded Age
6.14 Continuity and Change Period 6

AP US History Guided Notes

AMSCO 6.9 - Responses to Immigration in the Gilded Age

Learning Objectives

  1. Explain the various responses to immigration in the period over time.
I. Opposition to Immigration

1. What were the main reasons different groups supported restricting immigration between 1865 and 1898?

A. Restrictions on Chinese and Other Immigrants

1. Why did western states, particularly California, lead efforts to restrict Chinese immigration?

2. What were the major federal laws passed in the 1880s and 1890s to restrict immigration, and what groups did they target?

3. How did the opening of Ellis Island in 1892 change the immigration process for new arrivals?

B. The Impact of Restrictions

1. Despite anti-immigrant restrictions, what does the foreign-born population data from 1860 to 1920 reveal about immigration trends?

2. How did the Quota Acts of the 1920s change the role of the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of immigration?

II. Boss and Machine Politics

1. What were political machines and how did they use newly arrived immigrants to build political power?

2. What services did political machines provide to immigrants and poor urban residents?

3. How did political machines like Tammany Hall engage in graft and fraud while maintaining support from immigrant communities?

III. Settlement Houses

1. What were settlement houses and what motivated middle-class reformers to establish them in immigrant neighborhoods?

2. What services and educational opportunities did settlement houses like Hull House provide to immigrants?

3. How did settlement houses and public education contribute to the social mobility of immigrants' children?

IV. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES: WAS THE UNITED STATES A MELTING POT?

A. The Melting Pot Idea

1. What did the melting pot concept suggest about how immigrants became American citizens in the 19th and early 20th centuries?

2. How did Israel Zangwill's play The Melting Pot (1908) popularize the melting pot metaphor for immigration?

B. The Salad Bowl Comparison

1. How does Carl Degler's salad bowl metaphor challenge the melting pot concept, and what evidence does he use?

C. Alienation

1. According to Oscar Handlin's study, how did first-generation immigrants experience alienation differently from their descendants?

2. Over how many generations did historians observe the assimilation process to reduce cultural differences among ethnic groups?

D. African Americans

1. How did the experience of African Americans migrating to northern cities differ from that of European immigrants?

E. Ongoing Debate

1. What are the main disagreements among historians about whether the melting pot concept accurately describes American immigration history?

Key Terms

Statue of Liberty

American Protective Association

Chinese Exclusion Act

Contract Labor Law of 1885

Ellis Island

political machines

"boss"

Tammany Hall

Jane Addams

settlement houses

melting pot