Sra: Imagine It!, Themes, Risks and Consequences, Nature's Delicate Balance, a changing America, Science Fair, America on the Move, Dollars and Sense, Level 4 [Grade 4]

James Hoston

Hoston could always draw well. He won many high school art competitions. He says he decided to go to art school "because it was fun and I was good at it." Hoston was also very fortunate to have an uncle who was an artist and who gave him drawing and painting supplies. He likes to have his family and friends pose for him. He also has enjoyed coloring comic books and painting comic book covers.

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America on the Move: Theme Connections

Within the Selection

Across Selections

Beyond the Selection

Write about It!

Tell about a time you worked hard.

Remember to check the Concept/Question Board to see whether someone has been able to answer a question you posted.

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Genre

Feature

Henry Bessemer was born in England in 1813. He began inventing things when he was young. Most people know him as a "steel man." He is not a legend like John Henry. But he did do something that is pretty amazing. He turned iron into steel.

Steel is made from iron found in the earth. Crude iron has too much carbon in it. The carbon must be removed so that the iron can be molded into steel. Removing carbon from iron is called "refining."

People already were making steel in 1855, but it took a long time. It also cost a lot of money, and the steel was not very strong. The Bessemer process was faster and cheaper. This process took hot liquid iron and refined it with blasts of air. The blasting was done in a furnace called the Bessemer converter. It could make thirty tons of high-grade steel in thirty minutes.

England began to make a lot more steel each year. Americans began to use the Bessemer process too. This strong, flexible steel built the skyscrapers and railroads of our growing nation.

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Try It!

Vocabulary Strategy

Hoshi felt bad for her grandma, but she did not know what to do. Obaa-san did not want to live in America. She wanted to go back home to Okinawa--an island off the southern coast of the Japanese mainland .

Hoshi had grown up in California. She had only visited Okinawa twice, so she was not yearning for it like Obaa-san was. Hoshi spoke both English and Japanese fluently. Obaa-san struggled with English. Hoshi gladly translated for her, but it was hard on Obaa-san.

Hoshi's grandfather died before Hoshi was born. Obaa-san had found a job and earned her own wages . She was doing fine until the strikes began. It was not long before she and many others lost their jobs.

Her son, Hoshi's father, went to Okinawa and brought Obaa-san back to live with them.

Obaa-san had been with them for almost a year, and Hoshi had loved every minute of it. Obaa-san tried her best to be cheerful, but she missed her home. She loved her family but missed her life on the island. She had lived there for almost seventy years.

"I love you all," Obaa-san told Hoshi one day in Japanese, "but Okinawa is my home. I was born there, and I want to finish my days there as well."

Plans were made to take Obaa-san back to Okinawa. A friend of the family had a job waiting for her there. Hoshi dreaded the day she would leave. When it finally came, her dad had a surprise for Hoshi and her two sisters.

"How would you like to fly to Okinawa with me and Obaa-san for a two-week vacation?" he asked, smiling.

"Oh, Papa-san!" exclaimed Hoshi. "That would be wonderful!"

Game: Test Yourself

Write each of the six vocabulary words in a notebook. Beside each word, write its definition. Study the words and definitions for a few minutes. On another page, write only the vocabulary words. Then try to write the correct definition beside each word from memory.

Concept Vocabulary

The concept word for this selection is urbanization. Urbanization is the rapid growth of cities. How big is the city or town where you live? What is the biggest city you have ever visited? What do you think makes a city grow rapidly? What are some advantages of living in a big city? What are some drawbacks?

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Comprehension Skill: Sequence

As you read, understand the order of events in the text.
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Focus Questions

Why would people go through so much to come to America? How can people from so many places live together in one country?
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--from an 1883 poem by Emma Lazarus, on the Statue of Liberty

Waves of people washed onto the shores of the United States. The country was growing and needed workers. Between the 1820s and the 1920s, more than 35 million immigrants moved here from all over the world.

Immigrants arrived hungry, bruised, and hopeful. Some men traveled alone. They planned to work for a while and then return home. Others brought wives and children or sent for them later. Everyone was looking for a better life.

Most immigrants steamed toward the unknown on jam-packed ships. A woman who left Russia at age eight said, "Going to America then was almost like going to the moon."
Immigrants see the Statue of Liberty as their ship enters New York harbor.

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People fill the main hall at Ellis Island in about 1912.

At first, the government didn't keep track of immigrants. Then it set up stations at ports. By the 1890s, the busiest station was Ellis Island, off New York City.

Inspectors boarded ships and checked rich passengers. The rich could leave when the ship docked. The poor had to take ferryboats to Ellis Island.

The main building at Ellis Island looked like a redbrick palace. Scared and excited, immigrants lined up outside. They wore tags from their ships. Many had put on their best clothes. They wanted to pass inspection.

Immigrants left their bags in the hall. As doctors watched, everyone climbed the stairs to a huge, open room.

With chalk, doctors wrote letters on the clothes of anyone who seemed sick-- B for back, F for face, Sc for scalp, L for lameness. They paid extra attention to the marked people.

Boys and girls with common diseases like measles were sent to the island hospital. Many immigrants didn't speak English. Often they didn't understand what was happening. Nurses tried to explain and make children feel better.

Children who recovered rejoined their families. But the United States didn't accept people with serious health problems. They were sent back to their old homes.

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The exam hurt.

Next, immigrants faced an inspector. He asked where immigrants were from and how much money they had. He wrote notes about their hometowns, families, and jobs. The United States wanted people who could take care of themselves. Helpers translated the many questions and answers.

Within a day, most families received a landing card. Then they could leave. A dozen railroad companies sold tickets on the island, although the trains left from the mainland. Many immigrants put on new tags so that conductors could help them get onto the right train and off in the right town.

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Even women and children who passed inspection were not allowed to leave until a man from the family met them, or sent a letter or ticket. They waited days, weeks, months, even years.

Waiting families slept in dorms, in wire-mesh beds stacked like shelves. Immigrants ate in the dining hall. The food wasn't fancy, but there was plenty. Some boys and girls tasted ice cream for the first time. Twice a day, a man in a white uniform served mothers and children warm milk in paper cups.

Children played on swings, bikes, and a merry-go-round on a roof at Ellis Island. Everyone was wondering about America, across the water.

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--Hungarian folk song, 1920s

Immigrants settled all over the United States. Since western land was cheap, many tried farming. After the Homestead Act was passed in 1862, native-born and immigrant settlers headed west to claim free land.

Newcomers liked to live near others who shared their language and religion. They traded recipes and talked about the old country. Used to cold weather, people from Sweden and Norway felt at home in the Midwest.

The United States became a quilt of immigrants. Following jobs, they settled in patches. French Canadians moved to New England, near mills that made cloth. The Chinese lived in the West, near railroad tracks they laid. Miners from Europe dug for coal in Pennsylvania.

Most newcomers settled in cities. Immigrants helped make cities big and bustling. In New York, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit, immigrants and their children soon outnumbered the native born.

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Young and old Chinese immigrants in San Francisco.
Norwegian settlers relax in a field near Madison, Wisconsin.

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Crowded apartments sometimes made people sick and kept the sick from getting better. The father of this Washington, D.C., family suffers from tuberculosis.

Even in cities, people from the same country stuck together. Many cities had a "Little Italy" or a "Chinatown." These neighborhoods were like tiny nations.

Immigrants started newspapers in their own languages. Some families opened food stores. Shoppers could buy German pretzels or Dutch coleslaw. The Irish filled Catholic churches in Boston while the Jews built temples in New York.

Neighborhoods were lively. Immigrants ran theaters, bars, restaurants, music groups, dance halls, and sports clubs.

People fresh off the boat were nicknamed "greenhorns." They arrived with almost nothing.

The poor crowded into tiny apartments in tall buildings. Families often slept, cooked, and ate in one room. Even when the toilet in the hall worked, it stank. A nine-year-old girl who lived in a basement saw "rats as big as cats."

It was hard to keep anything clean, but mothers tried. They washed clothes and children once a week.

Buildings were noisy, smelly, and dark--cold in winter, hot in summer. Flies buzzed around the waste that horses plopped and people slopped into the streets. To cool off, families sat--or slept--on the fire escape.

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Immigrants struggled. But they still dreamed of a golden future. In most families, everyone worked. Women and children hemmed sleeves or made brooms at home. They got paid by the piece. The Mauro family earned $2.25 a week stitching feathers for hats.

Some girls took jobs as servants. Many worked in factories. Small factories were so hot, dark, and cramped that they were called sweat shops. Workers sewed long hours, sometimes without a single day off. Factories posted signs: "If you don't come in on Sunday, don't come in on Monday."

Boys worked on their own as well as in sweatshops. They shined shoes, sold newspapers, collected rags, delivered messages, or peddled peanuts.

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A terrible fire in New York City killed more than 140 factory workers in 1911. Most were young immigrant girls and women. After that, unions got more support from the public. States passed more laws against child labor.

After work, children played tag on the roof or swam in fountains. Girls rolled hoops on the pavement while boys shot marbles.

It was fun to watch the comings and goings on the street. Immigrant neighborhoods hummed. Peddlers sang songs about their vegetables. Shopkeepers argued politics. Horses pulled streetcars. With a few pennies, a child could buy a sweet from a Greek candy shop or an orange drink from a Syrian carrying a jug on his shoulder.

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Grown-up and young immigrants take classes at a Kentucky school to learn English and other skills.

--anti-immigrant verse, 1923

By law, children were supposed to go to school until they were 16. But many businesses posted "Boy Wanted" signs, and children went to work. Most families needed the wages of extra workers. Often only the youngest child studied full-time.

Children from a dozen countries sat next to each other in class. Public schools taught them to love their new home. Children saluted the flag. They played American games like baseball.

Parents had a lot to learn about their new country, too. Schools and companies offered evening classes for workers. Children usually leaped ahead of adults.

"We were embarrassed if our parents couldn't speak English," said one girl. When friends came over, she hid her father's Polish newspaper.

Older immigrant groups offered loans and advice to new arrivals. They didn't want Americans to see everyone from their country as a greenhorn.

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Schoolchildren at a public library in Gary, Indiana, hold signs showing their home countries.

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Rich Americans also felt a duty to help the poor. They opened settlement houses to help newcomers learn American ways. Part school and part neighborhood center, a settlement house usually had a playground, a library, a gym, and a kitchen. Volunteers gave classes in how to wash, dress, and cook American-style.

Many immigrants didn't want to change so much. They loved home as well as here. They felt they were losing their children. They started schools to keep their languages and religions alive.

In 1882, the government passed a law to keep out Chinese workers. The United States was filling up its land and its jobs.

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Next, inspections at the border grew tougher. Newcomers had to answer more questions. They had to pass a reading test. One boy crept under a table and whispered answers to his mother.

More laws, passed in the 1920s, slowed immigration from a wave to a trickle.

Children and grandchildren of immigrants grew up to be singers and scientists, painters and presidents. Their gifts made the United States rich. Bits of the old country crossed into the new. Soon Americans were eating Italian foods like pizza and using Yiddish words like klutz. And over time, every immigrant family became American in its own way.

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Meet the Author

Sylvia Whitman

Whitman has always loved stories. She learned about different types of stories at college. Whitman writes stories for children's magazines. She also writes history books for children. She loves to travel and has driven more than 140,000 miles in her car. Whitman and her husband have lived in Louisiana, Texas, New York, and Florida.
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Within the Selection

Across Selections

Beyond the Selection

Write about It!

Describe a time you or someone you know moved to a new home far away.

Remember to look for poetry and art about America on the move to add to the Concept/Question Board.

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Genre

Feature

In the 1800s, Mexico owned land in North America from the Pacific Coast to Texas. The United States was yearning to make Texas a new state and expand to the West Coast.

American settlers began moving into Texas in the 1800s. Texas was rich with land and resources. In 1835, Texas declared its independence from Mexico. But Mexico would not give up Texas without a fight.

The first big action took place at a fort called the Alamo. Mexico won the fort after an intense battle. Many famous Americans, such as Davy Crockett, lost their lives. The American soldiers fought back. In 1844, the United States added Texas to its other states.

Mexico did not agree that Texas should be a U.S. state. In 1846, Mexico and the United States went to war. Fighting started out West too, but America won the war in 1848. The land reaching from Texas to California became part of the United States.

Mexico received 15 million dollars, but it gave up more than half its land. It took a long time for Mexico and the United States to become friends.

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Think Link

Look at the photo and caption in this selection. Draw your own picture that fits the selection, and write an interesting caption underneath it.

Who won the Battle of the Alamo? Which country eventually won the Mexican-American War?

Do you think the United States was right to take land from Mexico? Explain your answer.

Try It!

As you work on your investigation, think about how captions can help you highlight facts.

Vocabulary Strategy

Lizzie's family was taking an eight-week road trip from New York City to South Dakota to visit relatives. Her mom and dad were teachers, so they had the whole summer free. Lizzie and her older brother Charlie had been looking forward to their big trip for months.

Their parents had given them a bunch of maps and brochures. "You two can help plan our route," they told Lizzie and Charlie.

"I want to stop at all the state parks along the way and hike," said Charlie.

"I want to stop at all the state borders we cross and get our pictures taken," said Lizzie.

"I would like to stop at every quaint little town and look for craft items made by locals ," said their mom. "Those are always in high demand here in the city."

"I just want some good food," Dad laughed.

"Hey, Dad," said Charlie with a gleam in his eyes, "how about if you let me drive part of the way?"

"Dream on," Dad said. "You have to wait a few more years."

"We just read in our history class that parents used to let their kids drive on long trips out West," Charlie argued.

"Nice try," Dad said, "but that was a completely different era . Those were covered wagons, not cars."

"Yeah, Charlie," said Lizzie, "we would like to stay out of the ditches as much as possible."

"Ha, ha! Very funny," said Charlie. "I will make you a deal," said Dad. "If Mom and I both break our arms and legs and get stranded in the middle of nowhere and cannot drive, I will let you drive us to the hospital."

"Even then, I don't think I would be desperate enough to let Charlie drive," Mom said laughing.

Game: Picture It

Draw a small picture of each vocabulary word that goes along with the story. Some of the concepts may be difficult to draw. You will need to be creative. Share your pictures with a classmate. See whether he or she can guess which picture matches which word. Then quiz each other on the definitions.

Concept Vocabulary

The concept word for this selection is depression. A depression is an economic collapse. What do you think it means for an economy to "collapse"? What could be some causes of a depression? In what ways do you think it would affect you and your family if our country went through a terrible depression for the next six months?

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