These immigrants were in search of more money than they could make back in their homelands, which wasn't much, and would work for less wages than the American citizens. This created more problems for many people, especially the laborers and workers in the factories. Because the immigrants would work for low pay, it made the standards of wages go down even further. .
The immigration of all of these people to the United States also affected the minorities, because they would take over the few trades that the blacks, or Hispanics controlled. .
Another change that affected Americans in this time was the expansion to the west. With four new railroads that traveled from the east to the west coast, the American frontier was rapidly disappearing. Many people were moving out of the cities to look for a new start in lands that had not been fully settled. This created smaller sub-cities to erupt all over the plains and the Midwest. With these smaller cities came large corporations, because big businesses wanted to expand. Eventually mergers would develop in the steel mill industry, banks, and other money hungry businesses. .
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Taylor 3.
Other towns that were causing problems were the company owned towns. The mining industries would purchase an area of land close to the mines that they were working. On this property they would open up company stores, which sold food, clothing, and supplies, where they could mark up the price on everything that they sold. They could do this, because there were no other stores for the workers to buy their supplies at. The companies also set up housing for the workers, that the companies would own and rent out to the workers at a high cost for the condition of the homes. .
At these company towns, men would work for low yearly wages, which were hardly enough to support their families for a full year. Because of this young boys would also have to work in the mines to help support their families.