solved Can you help me understand this History question? 1) list

Can you help me understand this History question?

1) list [at least 5] different groups of people or individuals [in US history] that we discussed in class thus far
and then
2) list the historical time periods or historical events they were particularly impacted by or influential upon

The Online Free Version of the Textbook: http://www.americanyawp.com/

Ellis Island
On the east coast, a large portion of immigrants traveled into the United States through New York City. Prior to 1900, immigrants were processed at Castle Gardens. Upon its construction in 1900, however, immigrants completed their processing at Ellis Island–a huge immigration complex located in New York Harbor. Ellis Island’s peak year for immigrant processing was 1907. Over the course of the year, more than 1 million people gained entry to the United States through Ellis Island (that was approximately 3,000 – 5,000 newcomers a day). On April 17, 1907, 11,747 immigrants were process through Ellis Island (HOLY MOLY!)! Watch the video below to learn more about the experience of immigrants coming in through Ellis Island.

 

 
Angel Island
Ellis Island’s west coast counterpart was Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. Today, you can visit Angel Island and tour the immigration station. However, Angel Island is now more popular as an outdoor biking locale. The processing station did not open until 1910 and served a predominantly Asian immigrant population. While immigrants at Ellis Island faced a challenging, uphill, and often demoralizing battle, those coming in through Angel Island faced overt Xenophobia and Nativism visible through the requirement of forced quarantine.
Note: most of these statistics come from The Transplanted, A History of Immigrants in Urban America by John Bondar.

Living Conditions
Urban growth during the Gilded Age was a result of both industrial development and immigration. Despite coming to the United States for hope and opportunity, most immigrants did not have that experience (at least not initially). The industrial elite and middle class benefited from the rise of corporate capitalism and industrialization. However, immigrants (in addition to working class 
Americans) did not. The immigrant living conditions in cities is a good example of the divide between the Haves and Have Nots during the Gilded Age.
In places like New York City, immigrants congregated in poor, crowded communities with inadequate housing. The apartment style housing that 
made up these neighborhoods, known as tenement housing, was cheaply constructed buildings with little to no waste removal, indoor plumbing, and poor ventilation. Sometimes dozens of people lived in one or two room apartments. It was not uncommon to have two families share one tenement. Rats, pigs, and orphaned children wandered the streets along with those tenement dwellers who needed to escape the confines of their overcrowded apartment. With the lack of sanitation and overcrowding, the tenement dwellers experienced high rates of disease and overall poor health.
Watch this video to learn more about tenement housing in the United States:

 
The Tenement House Museum in New York City highlights the lives of those individuals and families who lived within its walls. Located in the Lower East Side, the museum preserves what the neighborhood once was. By 1900, the population density of New York’s Lower East Side (where the city’s Jewish population resided) reached 700 people per acre. That density rivaled the poorest sections of Mumbai, India at the time.
Working Conditions
While the middle class and industrial elite could escape the chaos and overcrowding of the cities, immigrants and the working class could not. They neither had the money nor the time to escape. Those immigrants who lived in poor conditions did not have much better working conditions. During 
the Gilded Age, working class laborers (those who did the manual labor in factories, mines, and on railroad lines etc.) worked dangerously long hours for extremely low pay.
1 in 3 industrial workers were immigrants. Poorer immigrants (from places like Italy and Southern/Eastern Europe) entered into the laboring underclass (taking on the most dangerous and least desirable jobs). Because separate spheres was a middle class ideal (unattainable by much of the working class who needed more than one income to survive), immigrant women often worked in factories, labored as domestic servants, and washerwomen.

Child labor was common among the working class but even more so among immigrant families. All family members needed to contribute in order for the family to survive. Although immigrant laborers were taken advantage of (given lower pay and least desirable jobs), children were outright exploited by industrialists. The safety and well-being of the children was of no concern to the factory or mine owners. Children could be paid even less than their adult counterparts, and their little hands and bodies put them in the most precarious and dangerous positions (in the smallest of coal mines and in between the moving parts of large, factory machines).
Watch this video to learn a bit more about immigrant labor and working class labor during the Gilded Age:

 
In addition to goal mines and steal mills, immigrants worked in New York’s Garment District, Chicago’s meat packing district (it’s as gross as it sounds), and New England’s cotton textile factories. Hours were ridiculously long and breaks were rare, leaving workers fatigued and undernourished, which in turn, created the perfect conditions for increased job accidents and injuries. The poor workplace conditions that immigrants faced is best exemplified by the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911. Watch this video to learn more about the fire:

 

REQUIRED READINGS:

16 Capital and Labor, Sections I – III (Yawp) (Links to an external site.)
16 Capital and Labor Primary Sources, 1 – 4 (Reader) (Links to an external site.)
18 Life in Industrial America, I – III, VI (Yawp) (Links to an external site.)
18 Life in Industrial American Primary Sources, 1 – 2, 4 – 9 (Reader) (Links to an external site.)