Poverty
The Victorian Era in America was also a time of massive immigration. This wave of immigrants, referred to as the Third Wave (1880–1914), consisted of immigrants mostly from Southern and Eastern Europe. German and Scandinavian were very common.
| Decade | Number of German Immigrants | Number of Scandinavian Immigrants |
|---|---|---|
| 1830s | 152,454 | 1,202 |
| 1840s | 434,626 | 13,903 |
| 1850s | 951,667 | 20,931 |
| 1860s | 787,468 | 109,298 |
| 1870s | 718,182 | 211,245 |
| 1880s | 1,452,970 | 568,362 |
| 1890s | 505,152 | 321,281 |
| Total | 7,176,071 | 1,223,047 |
Cities expanded rapidly under the onslaught of immigrants and from 1880-1900 New York City grew from 1.9 million to 3.4 million. These immigrants settled in the North and obtained poorly paid jobs in factories. Housing was crowded, poorly ventilated, and unsanitary. Some blocks in New York City had as many as 10,000 residents, all living in buildings no higher than six stories. Some rooms in tenement houses had no outside windows or air ducts. Cities grew much faster than resources, so indoor plumbing and sewage were inadequate. Tenement buildings often had their own well in the basement, where the sewer drained, that tenants could use for water. However, in the summer, the water table often dropped below the level of the pump for many hours of the day. Child labor was common due to intense poverty.
Read more about this topic: Victorian America
Famous quotes containing the word poverty:
“Give a beggar a dime and he’ll bless you. Give him a dollar and he’ll curse you for witholding the rest of your fortune. Poverty is a bag with a hole at the bottom.”
—Anzia Yezierska (c. 1881–1970)
“People with a culture of poverty suffer much less from repression than we of the middle class suffer and indeed, if I may make the suggestion with due qualification, they often have a hell of a lot more fun than we have.”
—Brian Friel (b. 1929)
“In going to America one learns that poverty is not a necessary accompaniment to civilisation.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)