Summary
Highlights
During the Gilded Age, immigrants from around the world settled in urban industrial cities, striving to maintain their cultural traditions amidst pressure to assimilate. The popular metaphor was the "melting pot," suggesting immigrants would become indistinguishable from native-born Americans. However, a more accurate analogy is the "vegetable soup," where immigrants maintained their unique cultural distinctions within American society, which caused discomfort among some native-born Americans.
Initially, wealthy industrialists welcomed immigrants for low-wage labor. By the 1880s, public debate arose regarding continued immigration. Chinese immigrants, who arrived during the California Gold Rush and fueled railroad construction, became scapegoats after the Panic of 1873. White workers accused them of stealing jobs, leading to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned Chinese immigration and denied citizenship to those already in the U.S. This act was the first U.S. law to target a specific racial group.
In 1898, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Wong Kim Arc that individuals born in the U.S. to immigrant parents were American citizens under the 14th Amendment's birthright citizenship clause. This significant decision established a precedent for birthright citizenship despite prevailing anti-Chinese sentiment.
Nativism, protecting native-born interests over immigrants', intensified during this period. Protestant ministers like Henry Cabot Lodge advocated against "race suicide" due to immigration. Groups like the American Protective Association formed to counteract the influence of Catholic immigrants. This nativist sentiment was fueled by social Darwinism, a misapplication of Darwin's biological evolution theory to human society. Sociologists like Herbert Spencer and commentators like William Graham Sumner argued that the wealthy were "fittest" and justified the poverty of immigrants as a failure to adapt, discouraging efforts to alleviate their suffering.
Despite widespread nativism, some Americans, particularly middle and upper-class women, worked to help immigrants assimilate. Settlement houses, like Jane Addams' Hull House in Chicago and the Hyram House in Cleveland, offered services such as English classes, vocational training, medical help, childcare, and citizenship exam preparation. While these initiatives provided crucial support, they also aimed to expose newcomers to "civilizing influences" to encourage assimilation into American culture.