Today April presented on Chapter 7 Section 1. The key questions are...Why did immigrants come to the US?I learned that people came to the U.S because of the promise of better life people came through the "Golden Door" to escape difficult conditions such as famine, land shortages, or political or religious persecution.Where did immigrants come from?I learned that between 1870 and 1920 approximately 20 million Europeans entered the United States, alot of people came from Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. These European immigrants arrived on the east coast of the United States at Ellis Island. I also learned that Chinese immigrants came to the West Coast in smaller numbers. Between 1851 and 1883 about 300,000 Chinese immigrants arrived. Many came because of the gold rush and many of these immigrants helped build the railroads. Another thing that I learned was that by 1920 200,000 Japanese lived on the West Coast.What problems/issues did immigrants face on the trip over and once they got here?I learned that most of the immigrants that came across the ocean to the United States traveled in the steerage of the boat. It was the cheapest place to travel, but they were rarely allowed on deck and very crowded. I also learned that they often had to sleep in infested bunk beds and had to share a toilet with many passengers. Because of these conditions disease spread quickly, and many immigrants died trying to find a better life. Another thing that I learned was that even if they survived the trip over, the immigrants faced challenges such as finding a place to live, getting a job, trying to understand a different language, and faced discrimination from other ethnic groups. They had trouble even getting along with normal life because they were in a strange place.Why did some people want to put restriction on immigration? What were those restrictions?I learned that some people wanted to put a restriction on immigration because native-born workers feared that their jobs would ne taken by immigrants that would work for lower wages. In 1917 Congress passed a bill that required that all immigrants coming into the country would have to pass a litercy test. I learned that one restriction was the Chinese Exclusion Act. The act banned entry of all Chinese except for students, teachers, merchants, tourist, and government officials. I also learned about another restriction was the Gentlemens's Agreement, the Japanese Government would limit immigration if the San Francisco segregation order would be stopped.Next Megan started to present on Chapter 7 Section 2. The questions are...Why did cities grow so quickly in the late 1800's and early 1900's?I learned that some reasons that cities started to grow so quickly in this time period include, that immigrants moved to cities because there were factories that they would be able to work in a get paid. Another reason is because farmers started to move to cities because in this period of time it cost a lot of money to farm, so they moved to cities. They moved to cities because they could work in factories and get a steady income, I also learned about this.What problems did cities face due to the rapid increase in population?I learned that because the cities grew so fast, the cities started to have many problems because of the increase in population. One reason was that there were very many fires because the houses were made of wood and built very close together. I learned that some other reasons are that the cities did not have very good police protection, very little firefighter, and the people in the cities would throw their garbage mout of their windows into the streets. Another reason is that the cities did not have clean water and the having running water was very rare. The people in the cities did not know how to make the water safe to drink, so they would get sick from the bacteria in the water, I also learned about this. There was also very little public transportation.What did some people do to try to help the bad situation in the cities?I learned that one way people tried to help the citizen of the cities was to form settlement house. These houses gave the poor people as well as immigrants, a place to live and get taught. I also learned that the police and firefighters got better training so they could stop the numerous amounts of fires and crime. They also started to build the houses out of better materials that wouldn't burn as much. The cities also started to get parks, more public transportation (the car was invented during this time), street lights, and entertainment, this is what I learned about.
Comments