1

Midterm Essay Outline: Industrial Revolution

The years of 1877 to 1920 were the times when America had undergone rapid changes
through industrialization. Industrialization is the use of technology to mass-produce goods with
cheap labor, where each worker is responsible for only one simple component of the
manufacturing process.1 With the rise of industrialization came ambitious Chinese and Jewish
immigrants in search better work opportunities, along with the abuse of Native Americans in
order to acquire their land for further development. As many diligent Chinese and Jewish
immigrants poured into the US ready to go to work, the nation was able to make substantial
developments with their cheaper, but effective labor.2
Known as savages, the Native Americans and their way of life were considered inferior by the
Anglo Americans and as a result were pushed out of their land, despite their resistance, because
the Anglos had plans to develop a more civilized society.3 One way of accomplishing this was to
herd them all into reservations in order to segregate native peoples from white society and
postpone their assimilation. This idea came in form of the Dawes Act of 1887, which essentially
[allotted] reservation lands to individual heads of families in the amount 160 acres. These
lands were inalienable for a 25-year period and the remaining land were sold to white settlers in
160-acre units. This system of individual land owning replaced the idea of having a common
land that Senator Henry Dawes believed was at the bottom of civilization.4 As the Anglos
continued their push westward, they enacted another policy, the Homestead Act of 1862. With a
past amount of new western land available for them, the government would give away all this
excess land away for free in 160 acre units if the person it is issued to lives on the land for 5
years and develops it, or they could simply purchase an acre for $1.25 each if they dont want the
5 year commitment.5
After realizing they were wrong with the way they handled the Indians, the Indian affairs
commissioner, John Collier, devised a New Deal in form of the Indian Reorganization Act of
1934 that would reverse the initial intentions of dealing with the Indians. The law proposed the
abolition of allotment and the establishment of Indian self-government as well as the
preservation of Indian civilization6 Although the new law was enacted with good intentions
for the Natives, the Navajos did not appreciate Colliers efforts. The reason for this is, as a
Navajo minister put it: [we] dont think it is right for Collier to tell us we should govern
ourselves, and then tell us how to do it.7 So at the end of it all, the Anglos still believed that
their way of life was superior to the Indians and continued to control the Indians, even though
they came to the realization that it is better to let them have autonomy. An example of this can be
1 Lecture. The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era. 9/27/2015
2 Charles Postel, The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, 1877-1914 Globalyceum,
Introduction.
3 Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror: A History Of Multicultural America (New York: Back Bay
Books, 2008), p. 216-217
4 Ibid, p. 218
5 Lecture. The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era. 1/27/2015
6 Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror: A History Of Multicultural America (New York: Back Bay
Books, 2008), p. 222
7 Ibid, p. 225

2
seen through the sheep herding incident where Collier decided how to and how many sheep to
herd to prevent soil erosion as he believed was what he was actually doing.
The need for massive amounts of labor during the Industrialization period were
recognized by the Chinese and Jewish, who came to the US for those work opportunities, but
were faced with the challenge of dealing with major discriminatory acts, poor wages, and long
hours. Many of the Chinese immigrants had several reasons to flee their land in search of labor
work in the US, including the British Opium Wars, peasant rebellions, and harsh economic
conditions. Due to the abundance of railroad jobs that would earn them better wages along with
the harsh conditions in China, the Chinese [migrated] to seek survival in America. The
majority of the migrants were marriedthey realized that they would probably not see their
wives again for years. But they promised to return someday.8 The primary goal for the Chinese
was to make the temporary switch to America, earn higher wages, and return to their homes so
that they would have a greater amount of money saved up for better survival even in the harsh
environment that China was at that time. Not only did America provide them railroad jobs, but it
also had a large amount gold in California, still yet to be discovered. During the 1860s, twentyfour thousand Chinesewere working in the California mines in hopes of striking it rich by
finding a good amount of gold. However, once mining proved to not be as profitable, they turned
to railroad jobs and joined other fellow Chinese migrants.9
Although the Chinese were given jobs to earn higher wages than in China, the Anglos exploited
their cheap and abundant labor and made them do backbreaking work, as well create various
policies that didnt accept their differences into the American culture. Determined to accelerate
construction, the managers forced the Chinese laborers to work through the winter of 1866. The
indifferent employers were so focused on their mission to succeed in their industry that they
blocked out any of the concerns of the immigrant workers that would distract them from making
progress. Scared about the immigrants transforming the nation from being less white, the
legislatures passed discriminatory laws such as the foreign miners tax that required a monthly
payment of three dollars from every foreign miner who did not desire to become a citizen and a
1790 federal law that reserved naturalized citizenship for whites.10 To make matters for the
Chinese even worse, the white workers being replaced by the cheaper Chinese workers began to
resent them for it and their protests soon became violent as economic depression led to brutal
anti-Chinese riots by unemployed white workers throughout California.11 In 1882, Congress
passed its first and only law that discriminated a particular race called the Chinese Exclusion Act,
preventing only the Chinese laborers from further passage to the US.12
All this hostility and exploitation of the Chinese provoked them to hold strikes, take their
incidents to court, and try to preserve their ethnic culture. One of their strikes includes the time
when they demanded wages of forty-five dollars a month and an eight-hour day, but failed to
do so when they were isolated and cut from their food supplies, forcing them to surrender. One
particular incident that reflects on the governments indifference towards them is the decision of
the case People v. Hall in which the original decision to hang the murderer George W. Hall was
8 Ibid, p. 179
9 Ibid, p. 180
10 Ibid, p. 180
11 Ibid, p. 183
12 Charles Postel, The Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, 1877-1914, Globalyceum, Sec. 1.

3
repealed on the basis that Chinese and other people not white could not testify against
whites.13 In order to not feel so segregated and excluded from society, the Chinese decided to
feel more at home by creating a hub made up of stores catering to the Chinese only called
Chinatown, located in San Francisco.14
Another immigrant group known as the countryless people, that sought for an asylum were the
Jews, who were victimized in Russia. Unlike the Chinese, Jews were mostly educated, came as
families, and planned to stay permanently because the saw themselves as exiles, unable to
return to Russia as long as religious persecution persisted. Many of the Jews who came in huge
waves were headed for New York Citys Lower East Side. By 1890, 60 percent [of the Jews]
worked in the garment industry in New York City.
Like the Chinese, the Jews in the garment industry also faced tough times in their
factories. The garment factories had dangerous and cramped conditions that prevented them
from escaping during an accidental fire inside, forcing them to fall out the building and die.
These terrible working conditions have provoked the Jews to organize strikes. The strikes
were powerful, intimidating, and[the firms] had been forced to make some kind of
settlement. Fortunately, the workers received a fifty-hour workweek, wage increases, and
preferential hiring for union members. These gains were critical for empowering the Jewish
community, which was no longer afraid to have a sense of their Jewish identity in America.15
The post-Civil War era marked the start of major developments from industrialization and
territorial acquisitions from the Natives, which shaped America to the nation we are familiar with
today. Thanks to the substantial contributions made by the Chinese and Jewish immigrants, the
US was able to change its landscape at a fast rate. Industrialization came with major setbacks to
the immigrants as they were given countless hours of work to do in order to make the
developments possible with poor wages that reflected an indifference towards those who did not
have the same cultural background. The numerous protests that started with these immigrant
workers contributed to implementing the fair pay and hours we are accustomed to today. Out of
the 3 groups, the Natives faced the most brutality as they were pushed out of their vast amount of
land and were killed during the process. The Jewish were able to empower themselves and
become part of the nation through their successful protests along with the Chinese and embrace
their culture by creating communities where most of them settled. Both groups responded
differently to their poor treatments in the workplace since they did not share the same
occupations, but together were able to transform the American societys viewpoint on
immigrants and workers in general, while the Natives came to the brink of extinction as they
were pushed into small reservations across the west and were killed if they resisted.

Word
Count:
1577
13 Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror: A
History
Of Multicultural
America (New York: Back Bay
Books, 2008), p. 187
14 Ibid, p. 194
15 Ibid, p. 312