Immigration Case

City life and immigration during the early 1900's.

In the early 1900's many cities were dirty, overcrowded and housed many poor immigrants. New York City had the most new immigrants by far because of the location of nearby Ellis Island and New York City had more jobs than rural areas. New York City's population had doubled over a span of 10 years. In 1900 the foreign born numbered 1,270,080, or 37 per cent of the total population of the city. Soon after a large amount of immigrants became homeless and this caused unsanitary conditions for NYC. The number of immigrants pouring into NYC really put the mayor in a conundrum, so the city constructed poorly built tenements for homeless immigrants. The homeless family got a small, cramped apartment with a single window with no plumbing, garbage disposal, or elevator. The tenements gave the immigrants the bare necessities of a home. The Tenement neighborhoods were called the Slums. The Slums of NYC were littered with garbage and bad sewage which caused outbreaks of Cholera and similar diseases. In one Chicago Slum, half of all babies died before the age of one. Soon Settlement Houses were built for the homeless were immigrants were taught English and learned how to play sports and learn music. Many factory workers valued the little free time they had by going out to see new entertainment. Because of immigration many sports (that are still very popular in America today) became popular such as Basketball, Football, and Baseball. For many Immigrants coming to America and suffering many hardships was well worth it because back in their home countries many immigrants suffered inflation, unemployment, religious and politic persecution ect. For adults Assimilation and Naturalization was hard in America. Their children learned English faster but most of the parents still clung on to their old culture by living in certain sections of the city with people from the same culture. Cheap newspapers such used techniques such as Yellow Journaling to attract readers of all social classes. Newspapers really helped immigrants learn English and politics. (My great grandmother, Maria Rappazzo (1906-2009) taught herself how to speak, read, and write English because she always loved to read the morning newspaper). Entertainment such as the Opera, Vaurdeville, Zoo's, and a stroll in the park became very popular as well. Child Labor became a big problem in the Cities. It took several