Immigrants made valuable contributions to the dramatic industrial growth of America during this period. Chinese workers helped to build the Transcontinental Railroad. Immigrants worked in textile and steel mills in the Northeast and the clothing industry in New York City. Slavs, Italians, and Poles worked in the coal mines of the East. They often worked for very low pay and endured dangerous working conditions to help build the nation’s industrial strength.
The student will apply social science skills to understand how the nation grew and changed from the end of Reconstruction through the early twentieth century by c) examining the contributions of new immigrants and evaluating the challenges they faced, including anti-immigration legislation;
Immigration