Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth:
Andrew Carnegie was the symbol of the American self-made man in the late 1800s, who had risen from an impoverished Scottish immigrant to be one of the wealthiest men in America. In his 1889 book, The Gospel of Wealth, he laid out his theory of the responsibilities of the rich to devote the bulk of their wealth to public service. (If they didn't, however, they would only suffer public embarrassment.) Carnegie rejected traditional charities on the grounds that they only encouraged the poor to be "lazy," but encouraged building parks, museums, libraries, and the like รป which, in fact, would often serve mainly the middle class.
Founded in 1887 by Henry Bowers, this was a leading anti-Catholic secret society. It was closely tied in its heyday to the Masonic order, which often included the most influential people in many communities, and its secret ceremonies were modeled on Masonic rituals. Because so many immigrants came from largely Catholic countries, anti-Catholic sentiment was closely associated to anti-immigrant sentiment. Members of the American Protective Association swore a secret oath not only to oppose the Catholic Church, but to discriminate against Catholics in employment, and oppose any Catholic candidate for public office.
This was the first Congressional action to limit immigration to the United States by particular ethnic groups. It forbade Chinese immigration to the United States, unless the would-be immigrant fit into certain narrow classes, such as being the immediate family of a Chinese-American. As a result, a business grew up based on claiming family relationships, but nevertheless, most Chinese who attempted to immigrate were turned back. The Chinese Exclusion Act thus paved the way for later immigration restrictions.
Political machines were political patronage organizations, particularly in major cities with large immigrant populations, in the late...