Great Famine of 1840’s
potato blight in ireland from 1845-1850 causes mass starvation and immigration to the united states
New wave of immigration
1840’s-1850’s
-Chinese, Irish, German & Mexican-Americans
Chinese Immigration
most immigrants from Guangdong- hard b/c illegal to leave
- Americans in Hawaii/California see Chinese as solution for shortage of workers on sugar plantations
- White miners resist Chinese workers
- Work on railroads
- lure of work & opportunity enticed themt
1852 Foreign Miners Tax
CA legislature adopts foreign miners license tax of $3 per month
Irish Immigration
- 2 million came
- Work in urban communities(NYC & Boston)
- Growth of the Catholic Church in America
- most were Protestants/Presbyterians
German Immigration
- had better financial resources
- came to midwestern cities
- -mainly kept to themselves
- not as distrusted as Irish
- introduced Christmas tree and beer
- diverse group of Catholics, Protestants, Lutherans and Amish
Know-Nothing Party
- Anti-immigrant group founded 1837 and political party in 1845
- platform=anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant, limiting Catholic political power and banning immigrants to hold office/making them wait 21 years before becoming a citizen
Committees of Vigilance
- in California mining camps, groups of people who took on extra legal means to assert law and order
- delivered whippings and lynched ppl they didn’t like
Growth of slavery
- after War of 1812- planters get economic gain from slavery including developments in tech and transportation
- cotton prices increase
- treatment improved slightly (pregnant slaves mean more workers, kids can play until 10-12 and then work)
Underground Railroad
- escape from Southern plantations to free Northern
- states support system set up by anti-slavery groups in upper south and north to assist fugitive slaves in escaping the south
- 1860- 50,000 slaves ran away every year out of total pop. of 4 million
Notable runaways
Henry Highland Garnet
Frederick Douglass
-Born slave in Maryland, 1817
-First attempt to run- 1835
-1838- ran to NY and succeeded
Harriet Tubman
-returned to south and helped others leave through Underground Railroad
-born 1820 and almost died at 14 when overseer threw weight at her head
-married John Tubman in 1844
-1849- went to Philly and worked domestically
Slave Rebels and Revolts
1822- Denmark Vesey and supporters plan to burn Charleston and burn residents, then sail to Haiti
1831- Nat Turner killed 60 slave owning whites and 100 slaves killed in process
=published The Confessions of Nat Turner
=Laws make slaves reading and writing illegal
-David Walker called for slave uprisings, wrote Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World
==Henry Highland Garnet said the same
The Liberator
1831- William Lloyd Garrison declares he will not retreat
-newspaper dedicated to antislavery cause
American Anti-Slavery Society
1833-Boston society dedicated to abolition in all of the U.S.
Oberlin Abolitionism
-Garrison sent out 70 organizers to preach sin of slavery and repentance of abolitionism
Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions
- resolutions passed at Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls in 1848
- called for full equality and right to vote for women
Letters on the Equality of the Sexes
Grimké sisters publish this book in 1838 and become first female reps for Anti-Slavery Society in 1836 in NYC
Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention
- organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott
- held in upstate NY 1848
- Mott and Stanton attended Anti-Slavery convention w/husbands and then decided to host a women’s convention the next week
- mostly brought negative attention
- Abolitionists supported it and more women spoke out like Susan B. Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage
Other issues with women’s rights
- Higher education for women, the right of women to control property, and the right to obtain divorces
- Black women were reluctant to join various integrated societies since white women tended to dominate them
