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THEUNITEDSTATESLANDSCAPE.pptxTHE UNITED STATES LANDSCAPE
THE NEW “AMERICANS”
SHAPING THE “NEW WORLD”
OLD IMMIGRANTS
THE US
The US was a Nation founded upon the Processes of Colonization, Dispossession, and Slavery
The US was Fractured by Race-based Hierarchies or Inequality Racial-Ethnic Backgrounds, Class and Gender Contributed to the Making of Social Identity in the US.
These Identities are made in the Context of a Wider Idea of an American Nationhood—To Whom it Belongs and What Belonging means. Race and Ethnicity, Class, Gender, and Sexuality
Economic Practices, Political Policies, and Popular Discourse create the Social Construct of “Americans.”
Today, Disfranchisement, Segregation, Ghettoization, Profiling, And Other form of Structural and Systemic Racism, continue to Enforce the Material Rewards of “Whiteness.”
Democracy, Freedom, and Other Ideals that Americans hold sacred have Not been a “Given” but rather struggled for from the bottom up, often by those most Excluded.
EUROPEAN SETTLEMENTS BY 1742—THE OLD IMMIGRANTS
EARLY IMMIGRATION
Most Colonial and Early National Period Immigrants were Rural
The Immigrants since the 1820s were Urban
In 1830 The US was only 9% Urban
By1850 this had increased to 15%
SLAVERY IN THE AMERICAS
New World patterns of Race and Racism were part of a larger hemisphere-wide process.
European Planter Class consolidated itself as a Ruling-Class whose wealth came from Slave Labor
The Segregated Labor Force was at the very center of Racism.
It is at the Core of Race-Making itself.
The European “Americans” tried to enslave the Native Americans first and import European Debtors, Convicts, and African servants, singly and together as a group
Planter-controlled State Legislatures—17th century Segregation and Anti-Miscegenation Laws to keep those they subordinated from intermarrying and Rebelling “en mass.”
There was a Never-ending Effort by Planters to Prevent the Dispossessed from joining together to Rebel by inventing separate social places called “White,” “Black,” “Yellow,” and “Red”
Africans were enslaved because The Portuguese “invented” the Plantation Complex And used Africans as slaves that were forced into being “Chattel” that could be “used up” and replaced by other Africans purchased from Africa. In the Americas, slavery didn’t work for Europeans and Native Americans because they were able to run away more easily.
RACE IN THE US
Christians became “Whites”, people from the Diverse African Nations became “Negroes,” and Native Americans became “Indians.”
The Importance of African Slavery & the Idea of Race—The Principle upon which Capitalist Labor had continued to be organized
Planters were Agrarian Capitalists
Cotton was America’s major export prior to the Civil War.
Agrarian Slavery—A Kind of Template for the Way Industrial Labor came to be organized.
Characteristics of the Organization of Slave Labor—Closely supervised Intensely driven, and never-ending work for women and men.
Labor of Bondspeople was extraordinarily Profitable for the Planter Class
In the1850s there were As Many Slaves as there were Wage Laborers.
Profits from Slave Labor were vastly greater than those produced by “Free Labor.”
US NEED FOR IMMIGRANTS AS A LABOR FORCE
In the US, Domestic Manufacture had Grown as a Result of The Napoleonic Wars, There Was a Shortage of Wage Laborers.
Endemic Servant Problem in The US from The Jacksonian Era to The Great Depression.
Native-born “Americans” in the US Including Second-Generation Children of Immigrants Reluctant to Work as Servants (“I’d Rather Starve First”)
Solution Was Immigrant “Help”
First Choice Were The Irish Followed by German Or Swedish Immigrant Women And in The Far West Chinese And Japanese Men
The Exception Was The African Americans: They Were The One Native-born Group That Could Not Afford To Turn Down Domestic Service
CHANGES IN THE US 1860-1920
The US Grew from 30 Million to 105 Million
Changed from An Agricultural Nation to An Industrial One
Changed From Rural To Urban; More Urban in 1920
From Isolated and Self Absorbed to A World Power Engaged in Europe and Asia.
EMIGRATE--IMMIGRATE
Immigrants Tended to Live In Large Cities 30% Urban
Immigrants Lived in Places With Populations 2,500 To 25,000
Steamships Reduced the Time for an Atlantic Crossing
Transportation of Immigrants A Modern Big Business
European Passenger Companies—vast Network of Ticket Agencies
Use Of Prepaid Tickets, Purchased by Immigrants in America Increased Sharply
In the 1890s One Immigrant Ticket in Three Was Prepaid; After The Turn of the Century, Two of Three were Prepaid
1907 European Ports—Naples (Italy), Bremen & Hamburg (Germany) and Liverpool (England/UK)
The New Business—The Cunard Line Reps Met Trains in Liverpool, Escorted Passengers to A Dormitory—Housed, Fed, & Medically Examined While Waiting for the Next Ship
Conditions on The Ships Improved & The Price Of The Tickets Went Down—two Pounds (Ten Dollars) From Liverpool, Ten Days’ Pay For A Common Laborer in the US
THE EAST
Northeast Need For Labor—Boston—Timber Trade
New England Had Been The Most Homogenous of American Regions
IN THE FAR WEST
1870 San Francisco was almost Half Foreign Born and had The Highest Percentage Of Immigrants of Any Large American City—Irish Were More Than 15% And Members of The Lower Middle Class
Large Chinese Population Tended to “Promote” The Status of All Whites
IRISH HILL SAN FRANCISCO, CA
URBAN GROWTH
In The Middle Decades of the 19th Century American Cities Were Undergoing Rapid Growth And Beginning to Develop an Infrastructure and Creating The Government Machinery and Personnel Necessary To Run It
IMMIGRANT SECOND GENERATIONS
1880 Census Bureau First Began to Enumerate
The Second Generation—as Native-born of Foreign Or Mixed Parentage Mixed Meaning Foreign-born And One Native-born Parent
Third Generation Irish Americans Were Considered Native Born
WHITE AND NOT-QUITE WHITE
The Belief in European Races Took Root Most Deeply Among The Wealthy, US-born Protestant Elite who Feared a Fast-growing Working Class that Could Not Be Assimilated
By the End of the 19th Century Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Pressed Congress to Cut Off Immigration to The US
Theodore. Roosevelt Raised The Alarm of “Race Suicide” Because Anglo-Saxons Were Allowing “Native” Stock to be Outbred by Inferior Immigrants
There Were Three or Four European Races
Northwestern Groups The Nordics,
Southern and Eastern Races of The Alpines,
Mediterranean[s]
The Jews
WHITE AND NOT-QUITE WHITE
By the 1920s Pseudo-Scientific Racism Sanctified the Notion that Real Americans were “White” & that Real Whites came from Northern and Western Europe
1882 Racism by White Workers in The West Fueled Laws Excluding and Expelling The Chinese
1924-1927 This Led to the Closing of The Immigration Door to Virtually All Asians and Many Europeans
TO BE NOT-QUITE WHITE
System for Nonwhite and Not-quite-white People, & Another for Whites Constructed as if They All Had Middle-class Values, Family Circumstances, and Types of Jobs.
The Performance of Work That Was at Once Important to The Economy of The Nation & That Was Defined As Menial & Unskilled Was Key to their Nonwhite Racial Assignment
From Slavery To Modernism The American Idea That White Humanity Is “Civilized” And Superior To Nonwhite Humanity, & Its Ideals of Manliness and Feminine Domesticity Prove It
ETHNIC GROUPS LIVING IN URBAN AREAS
Neither Religion Nor Ethnicity Separated Immigrants at School Or In Neighborhoods
Neighborhood-Level: Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Italians, Irish, Poles “English” lived Together on The Block
In School They Thought of Themselves as Middle Class
Ethnic Background Seemed Irrelevant
Didn’t See Race And Racism as a Part of Peer Consciousness
SETTLER NATIVISM CONCERN: “RACE SUCIDE”
1900 Term first used by Edward A. Ross.
Ethnic Group CHOICE to reduce the number of children they have
19 through 20 centuries white “Anglo-Saxon” Protestant families choosing to Not have children OR Only one or two children.
FEAR LOSS OF THE WHITE PROTESTANT BASE
OVERWHELMED BY
RELIGIOUS RACISM AGAINST Eastern and Southern Europeans Religions: Catholic, East Orthodox Christians, and Jews Who Immigrated to the US
EUROPEAN POLITICAL THEORIES AND PARTIES: Socialism, Communism, Anarchism Social Actors who Immigrated to the US (found a way to DEPORT them)
1902 President Theodore Roosevelt said “Race Suicide” was the MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE in the US
RED SCARE 1919
Clearly Linked Anti-immigrant and Anti-working-class Sentiment
Fueled by An Economic Depression, A Massive Postwar Wave of Strikes, the Russian Revolution, And Another Influx of Postwar Immigration
THE RED SCARE 1919-1920
POST-LENIN COMMUNIST REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA = The Soviet Union
In the US:
1917 Espionage Act
1917 FBI disrupted the work of German-American Union & Leftist Organizations via raids, arrests, agents, prosecution. PLUS the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the work were opposed to the war so their Leaders like Eugene Debs were prosecuted for giving speeches against the war and the draft
1918 Sedition Act
1918 Immigration Act targeted Anarchists
Fear of Far Left Communism, Socialism, Anarchy in the American Labor Movement
Hyper-Nationalism after World War I
“Red Summer” January 22-November 13. 1919—Race Riots
Seattle General Strike Feb. 6-11, 1919
1919 US Anarchist Bombings April 29 through June 2, 1919—Major Factor in the Red Scare
1919 Boston Police Strike
1919 American Federation of Labor (AFL) –Steel Strike
1919 Coal Strike
1919 Attorney General A. Michell Palmer moved to attack possible disruptive groups—Palmer Raids
1919 the Buford Ship aka the “Soviet Ark” left NYC with 249 Deportees because of their membership in the Union of Russian Workers.
1920 Expulsion of Socialists from the New York Assembly
