America, from 1870-1920, was the land of opportunity for most, but not for some. With industrialization came more jobs; however, at the same time those jobs were hardly enough money to raise a family. There was land to move into to farm thanks to the homestead act of 1862. However, due to the commercialization of agriculture such as cattle, the government held control over these farmers, which resulted in lost land and debt. There were strikes and protests, where workers could fight for fair working conditions, something that in other places of the world was maybe not a thing. However, sometimes these strikes were suppressed; an example of this being the police shooting down protesters at the Haymarket Strike. The sheer numbers of immigrants moving to America demonstrated how the US was the land of opportunity – at least compared to the country they were immigrating from. These immigrants sought to move to America thanks in part to the idea of the American dream. At the same time, however, there no doubt were less opportunities for non-white protestant men. Women couldn’t vote, the south was riddled with Jim Crow laws, Native American lands were settled into. Overall, America was the land of opportunity for many, but not for certain groups of people. However, as the US was such a young country at this time, there definitely was a clear improvement as time went by, for offering opportunities to most people in the country.
Hi Matt, while it is true that many factory workers were living in poverty, that does not change the fact that those jobs were major opportunities for anyone looking for work. City jobs were open to an incredibly wide spectrum of people because they were set up with Taylorism in mind, providing jobs that did not require skills. Those whose farms had failed due to commercialization always had the safety net of urban jobs. It was the very same for the waves of immigrants from southern Europe flocking to American cities.
Hi Matthew,
I really enjoyed reading your post. I agree that it was the land of opportunity for many people, but there were still many issues that needed to be addressed. Keep up the great work!