The gilded age pbs documentary worksheet answers

History Paper

For Part 1 of the Unit 1 Exam, read the three documents attached above, examine the image located below (also attached above), and watch the specified segment of the PBS documentary series American Experience: New York (link below). Using the documents, the video, and the textbook, write an essay (minimum 400 words) answering the questions listed below.

Part 1 Questions:

1. What do Documents 1, 2, and 3 each reveal about the social and economic changes experienced by many Americans during the Gilded Age (1865-1900)? Compare the experiences of each author.

2. How do the documents and the video reflect the growing racial, ethnic, gender, and economic inequality during the Gilded Age? What surprised you most about the conditions described in the video?
3. How does the image reflect the way many Americans perceived the nation's growing racial and ethnic diversity? How do those perceptions relate to the experiences described in the documents and the video?

Note: You DO NOT need to answer the questions at the end of the documents.

Video Link - American Experience: New York (2003), episode 3 - (you ONLY need to watch from minute 1:20:45 to 1:31:34 in the video)

https://dcccd.kanopy.com/video/episode-3-sunshine-and-shadow-1865-1898-0

In order to access the video, click on the link above. Then, log into the Kanopy website with your DCCCD eCampus user name and password.

Image 1: Miss Columbia’s School House (1894). The caption for this cartoon read “Please, Ma’am, May We Come In?” with the male figure standing outside the gate representing Hawaii and the female figure representing Canada.

The following selection is from a biography of a Chinese immigrant commissioned by the reformist journal The Independent. Note that Chew arrived in the United States before the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and was therefore dictating this as a middle-aged man. Chew was involved in many of the jobs associated with Chinese immigrants during this period-mining, laundry, and railroad construction.

From The Independent, 54 (2818), February 19, 1903, 417-423.

The village where I was born is situated in the province of Canton, on one of the banks of the Si-Kiang River. It is called a village, altho it is really as big as a city, for there are about 5,000 men in it over eighteen years of age-women and chil- dren and even youths are not counted in our villages....

...I heard about the American foreign devils, that they were false, having made a treaty by which it was agreed that they could freely come to China, and the Chinese as freely go to their country. After this treaty was made China opened its doors to them and then they broke the treaty that they had asked for by shutting the Chinese out of their country....

The man had gone away from our village a poor boy. Now he returned with unlimited wealth, which he had obtained in the country of the American wizards. After many amazing adventures he had become a merchant in a city called Mott Street, so it was said....

Having made his wealth among the barbarians this man had faithfully returned to pour it out among his tribesmen, and he is living in our village now very happy, and a pillar of strength to the poor.

The wealth of this man filled my mind with the idea that I, too, would like to go to the country of the wizards and gain some of their wealth, and after a long time my father consented, and gave me his blessing, and my mother took leave of me with tears, while my grandfather laid his hand upon my head and told me to remember and live up to the admoni- tions of the Sages, to avoid gambling, bad women and men of evil minds, and so to govern my conduct that when I died my ancestors might rejoice to welcome me as a guest on high.

My father gave me $100, and I went to Hong Kong with five other boys from our place and we got steerage pas- sage on a steamer, paying $50 each....

...Of the great power of these people I saw many signs. The engines that moved the ship were wonderful monsters, strong enough to lift mountains. When I got to San Francisco, which was before the passage of the Exclusion act, I was half starved, because I was afraid to eat the provisions of the barbarians, but a few days’ living in the Chinese quarter made me happy again....

The Chinese laundryman does not learn his trade in China; there are no laundries in China.... All the Chinese laun- drymen here were taught in the first place by American women just as I was taught.

When I went to work for that American family I could not speak a word of English, and I did not know anything about house work. The family consisted of husband, wife and two children. They were very good to me and paid me $3.50 a week, of which I could save $3....

In six months I had learned how to do the work of our house quite well, and I was getting $5 a week and board, and putting away about $4.25 a week. I had also learned some English, and by going to a Sunday school I learned more English and something about Jesus, who was a great Sage, and whose precepts are like those of Kong-foo-tsze.

It was twenty years ago when I came to this country, and I worked for two years as a servant, getting at least $35 a month. I sent money home to comfort my parents....

When I first opened a laundry it was in company with a partner, who had been in the business for some years. We went to a town about 500 miles inland, where a railroad was building. We got a board shanty and worked for the men employed by the railroads....

We were three years with the railroad, and then went to the mines, where we made plenty of money in gold dust, but had a hard time, for many of the miners were wild men who carried revolvers and after drinking would come into our place to shoot and steal shirts, for which we had to pay. One of these men hit his head hard against a flat iron and all the miners came and broke our laundry, chasing us out of town. They were going to hang us. We lost all our property and $365 in money, which a member of the mob must have found.

Luckily most of our money was in the hands of Chinese bankers in San Francisco. I drew $500 and went East to Chicago, where I had a laundry for three years, during which I increased my capital to $2,500. After that I was four years in Detroit. I went home to China in 1897, but returned in 1898, and began a laundry business in Buffalo.

The ordinary laundry shop is generally divided into three rooms. In front is the room where the customers are received, behind that a bedroom and in the back the work shop, which is also the dining room and kitchen. The stove and cooking utensils are the same as those of the Americans....

I have found out, during my residence in this country, that much of the Chinese prejudice against Americans is unfounded, and I no longer put faith in the wild tales that were told about them in our village, tho some of the Chinese,

496

Part Nineteen: Immigrant and Urban Nation

who have been here twenty years and who are learned men, still believe that there is no marriage in this country, that the land is infested with demons and that all the people are given over to general wickedness.

I know better. Americans are not all bad, nor are they wicked wizards. Still, they have their faults, and their treat- ment of us is outrageous....

The reason why so many Chinese go into the laundry business in this country is because it requires little capital and is one of the few opportunities that are open....

There is no reason for the prejudice against the Chinese. The cheap labor cry was always a falsehood. Their labor was never cheap, and is not cheap now. It has always commanded the highest market price. But the trouble is that the Chi- nese are such excellent and faithful workers that bosses will have no others when they can get them. If you look at men working on the street you will find an overseer for every four or five of them. That watching is not necessary for Chinese. They work as well when left to themselves as they do when some one is looking at them....

1. What stories of America had the author been exposed to? What were the author’s expectations upon coming to America? How did these expectations and preconceptions compare with the author’s actual experience?

2. Describe the measure of success and difficulty experienced by the author. To what does the author attribute his success? his difficulty?