A Study On The United States’ Immigrants And Social Transformation (1870-1920)

In this paper, with the method of sociology and history and so on, the period of 1870 to 1920 is selected for probing the United States’problem of immigrants and social transformation. This article argues that during this time the highly development of industrialization and urbanization of The United States is closely related with immigrants. Immigrants played an extremely important role in the United States’transformation from an agricultural country to an industrialized one and as well from a rural society to an urban one.This article is composed by four parts of introduction, text, endnotes and references. And the text is divided into three parts:The first part expounds the characteristics of the society transformation in the United States’and its immigrants profiles in transition period, which includes the definition of the social transformation, origin and settlement patterns of immigrants, immigration reasons analysis, etc.The second part mainly discusses the role of the immigrants in changing the United States from an agricultural nation into an industrial one. Firstly, immigrants had developed in the Midwest and Far West agriculture, laid a solid foundation for industrial development. Immigrants provided the necessary labor for agricultural development in the American; through the establishment of family farms in the Midwest and Far West, to accelerate the realization of agricultural modernization; the opening of the new agricultural areas, provided food for the country, industrial raw materials and consumer goods markets, promoting the U.S. industry development; Secondly, with American immigrants coming into the city, it provided a large number of cheap labor to the industrialization of the nation. Male immigrants were mainly responsible for the major industrial areas of the United States to provide the labor, while the female immigrants were involved in light industry and services, immigrant children are also involved in social work, they paid a huge industrial development in the U.S. labor force. What’s more, immigrants for the United States to provide advanced technology and rich industrial capital, the U.S. production of technological innovation and production played an important role in promoting capital accumulation. The third part discusses on the role of American immigrants in changing the US from a rural society to an urban one. Industrialization caused a large number of immigrants flooded into cities. The influence of Immigration to American urbanization can be seen in many aspects. Firstly, in the construction of immigration city itself, immigrants made such contribution as increasing urban population quantity, establishing "immigration city", to promote the city two and three industries, etc. Secondly, immigration affected the change of the social structure in the United States in urban area. Newcomers came into the city and formed a large team in the Labor market with low income, unskilled occupation workers, which became an important part of industrial workers; in particular, the influx of new immigrants also caused a large number of United States white and some old immigrant to the high technical and high income positions, in the mean time, a small number of new immigrants relied on tireless efforts, economic and social status rose, they jointly expanded the American middle-class team. Thirdly, immigration played a role in the city cultural view shaping. After the Immigrants went into the United States, their consciousness changed a lot, gradually they got used to new American way of life, ideas had a great changes. At the same time, immigrants had brought their excellent culture in their motherland to the United States, which helped to compose a diversity culture in the United States and made its cities more harmonious ones.Finally, this article concluded that 1870-1920, the high-speed development of industrialization and urbanization in the United States is closely related with immigrants. Immigrants had produced important influence in the United States in economic, social and cultural exchange. They changed the United States of America and at the same time also benefited from the United States of America. Their contribution to the United States was much larger than the United States to bring their interests.