496 Chapter 18 American Society in the Industrial Age
Industrialization does not entirely explain the
growth of nineteenth-century cities. All the large
American cities began as commercial centers, and the
development of huge metropolises like New York and
Chicago would have been impossible without the
national transportation network. But by the final
decades of the century, the expansion of industry had
become the chief cause of city growth. Thus the
urban concentration continued; in 1890 one person
in three lived in a city, by 1910 nearly one in two.
A steadily increasing proportion of the urban
population was made up of immigrants. In 1890 the
foreign-born population of Chicago almost equaled
the total population of Chicago in 1880; a third of
all Bostonians and a quarter of all Philadelphians
were immigrants; and four out of five residents of
New York City were either foreign-born or the chil-
dren of immigrants.
After 1890 the immigrant concentration became
even more dense. The migrants from eastern and
southern Europe lacked the resources to travel to
the agriculturally developing regions (to say nothing
of the sums necessary to acquire land and farm
equipment). As the concentration progressed it fed
upon itself, for all the eastern cities developed many
ethnic neighborhoods, in each of which immigrants
of one nationality congregated. Lonely, confused,
often unable to speak English, the Italians, the
Greeks, the Polish and Russian Jews, and other
immigrants tended to settle where their predecessors
had settled.
Most newcomers intended to become U.S. citi-
zens, to be absorbed into the famous American “melt-
ing pot.” But they also wanted to maintain their
traditional culture. They supported “national”
churches and schools. Newspapers in their native lan-
guages flourished, as did social organizations of all
sorts. Each great American city became a Europe in
microcosm. New York City, the great entrepôt, had a
Little Italy; Polish, Greek, Jewish, and Bohemian
quarters; and even a Chinatown.
Although ethnic neighborhoods were crowded,
unhealthy, and crime-ridden, and many of the resi-
dents were desperately poor, they were not ghettos in
the European sense, for those who lived there were
not compelled by law to remain. Thousands
“escaped” yearly to better districts. American ghettos
were places where hopes and ambitions were fulfilled,75% and over
50–75%
35–50%
25–35%
15–25%
10–15%
5–10%
Less than 5%Percent of Foreign-Born Whites and Native Whites of Foreign or Mixed Parentage in Total Population, by Counties, 1910In 1910, the
South had the lowest proportion of immigrants; in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, in the
regions bordering Mexico, and in parts of the Rocky Mountains, over half of the population was immigrant.