Immigration and migration in the Gilded Age | Period 6: 1865-1898 | AP US History | Khan Academy

Summary

The video explains the rapid growth of American cities during the Gilded Age and the changing patterns of immigration and migration that helped drive it.

• Urbanization accelerated after the Civil War. In 1860, no U.S. city had a million residents. By 1900, New York had nearly 3.5 million people, while Chicago had grown from about 100,000 to 1.7 million. The video links this growth to industrialization, immigration, and internal migration. By 1920, more Americans lived in cities than in the countryside.
• Work increasingly meant wage labor. In 1880, for the first time, more Americans worked for someone else for wages than worked independently. Industrial expansion created many factory jobs, often for unskilled workers, marking a shift away from self-directed farming toward paid work under an employer.
• The immigrant population changed. Earlier immigrants had largely come from Northern and Western Europe and were often Protestant. After the Civil War, many “new immigrants” came from Southern and Eastern Europe, Mexico, and Asia. The video describes them as generally poorer and more likely to be Catholic or Jewish. African Americans also moved from the South to Northern and Midwestern cities.
• People faced both push and pull factors.
  • Push factors: Poverty and limited economic opportunity; agricultural mechanization, which displaced some farmers; persecution of Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe; and Jim Crow laws and lynching in the American South.
  • Pull factors: Cities had factory jobs. Steam power and electrification meant factories no longer needed to be next to waterways, helping cities become industrial centers. Some newcomers stayed where they arrived because they could not afford to travel elsewhere.
  • Community support: Earlier migrants often helped relatives and friends move and settle. Ethnic neighborhoods offered familiar languages, food, newspapers, entertainment, and mutual aid.
• Two immigrant accounts illustrate different experiences.
  • Lee Chu, who came from China to San Francisco in 1880 at age 16, described arriving hungry and finding work as a house servant. He learned household skills and some English, sent money to his parents, and saved money while participating in life in Chinatown, including theater and dinner parties.
  • Mary Anton, who came from what is now Belarus to Boston in 1894 at age 13, recalled encountering unfamiliar American foods and household items, starting school with help from a local child, learning English, and adopting American names arranged by an immigrant community committee.

Together, the accounts show that newcomers had to adapt to unfamiliar language, work, food, and customs while also drawing on family and community support.

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Narrator/host: Kim Kutz Elliott, identified in the video context
• Lee Chu: Chinese immigrant to San Francisco; quoted from his account of arriving in 1880
• Mary Anton: Immigrant to Boston from what is now Belarus; quoted from her account of arriving in 1894