U.S. History 1877-Present 4: Immigrant Workers and the Transcontinental Railroad

song well the Transcontinental Railroad may be the most important infrastructure

project in American history was built almost entirely on immigrant labor the

Union Pacific Railroad Lange track westward from Omaha orga Rockies was

built mostly by Irishmen the Central Pacific Railroad moving eastward from [Train sounding horn moving eastward]

California across the Sierras employed mostly Chinese laborers by 1915 Eastern

European Jews dominated New York city's huge garment trade they also introduced

New York to the bagel and nothing's been the same since [Woman eating a bagel]

well the story for immigrants wasn't always completely awful either yes they

faced harsh working conditions but many were escaping starvation and total [Immigrant children working in factory]

unemployment back home some like the Russian Jews were also escaping ruthless

government religious persecution Russia's Czarist government sponsored

widespread violent pogroms murdering thousands of Jews while Jewish

immigrants certainly faced anti-semitism in America at least the US didn't [Jewish man approaches banner on a wall]

exactly have state-sponsored anti-semitic killing sprees some Jewish

immigrants even ended up truly living the American dream by eventually owning

their own garment shops these few showed that it was actually possible for

foreign immigrants to come to America work unbelievably hard and move beyond

manual labor and welcome to America baby economists and historians are still [Woman soaking in a bath]

debating the effects of immigration up until 1920 they don't always agree [Men discussing immigration]

because well you know they're all kind of opinionated but they do see eye to

eye on a couple of things immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries

boosted the growth of the economy why well mainly because most immigrants were

working age immigrant communities had less kids and old folks who contribute

little to no economic growth then did the native-born population

between 2/3 and 3/4ths of immigrants worked as unskilled laborers

who were willing to do pretty much anything for not a lot of money as a [Man cleaning out elephant waste]

result Americans who made their livings in unskilled labour also had to work for

less money loads of dudes willing to do the same

job for less came into Ellis Island every day which made it nearly [Man picks up stack of cash]

impossible that they no to a pay cut which it wasn't exactly great news for

native unskilled laborers while scholars still hotly debated fective unskilled

labour on the wages of skilled laborers would John's hand rolled cigar store [Boy hand rolling cigars]

suffer if Tim opened a factory that rolled cigars with highfalutin machines

well to Z cigar connoisseurs may continue to purchase John cigars at full [Man smoking cigar]

price really there were a bunch of factors at play here so the wage level

of skilled laborers operated on a case-by-case basis making it hard to pin

down the overall effect some scholars also say that cheap immigrant labor

helped to raise the incomes of middle-class white-collar workers and

lowered the cost of living across American society as a whole if you had a

lot of competition making stuff cheaper so it was easier for a normal [Man stood at a peanut stand]

middle-class American family to just buy stuff so in the end we say that early

immigration impact on the American economy was mostly but not entirely

positive ok that's not exactly genitive but below cut us some slack history is

complicated [Woman looking sad and wanting a bagel]