8.2A nation of immigrants and cities

Industry drew people to the cities in unprecedented numbers. Millions of immigrants arrived, increasingly from southern and eastern Europe—Italians, Poles, Jews, and others—alongside Chinese laborers in the West until exclusion laws barred them. Cities such as New York and Chicago swelled with newcomers.

Urban life offered opportunity but also overcrowded tenements, disease, and dangerous work. Political "machines" like New York's Tammany Hall traded services for immigrant votes, blending genuine help with corruption. The mixing of peoples reshaped American culture even as it stirred nativist backlash. The country was becoming more diverse, more urban, and more unequal all at once.