As industry was booming in the United States of America, many people from Europe decided to leave their homes and families to try and make their fortune in America. This massive immigration into the United States led to an abundance of cheap, unskilled labor in which the industries could take advantage. Many immigrants found themselves working in a very dangerous job, and living in poverty. The hardships the immigrants faced were various. These adversities included finding employment, finding decent housing and avoiding destitution.
             One of the biggest problems that immigrants faced was finding work. According to a graph found in America's History Volume 2: Since 1865 the number of immigrants from southeastern Europe increased from fifty thousand in 1880 to nearly seven hundred thousand by 1905 (Henretta 557). With amount of sheer numbers, the industries could pick and chose whom they wanted to hire. Since many of the immigrants coming over already had family here, they used this to their advantage. For example, when Kracha needs a job in Thomas Bell's Out of This Furnace he had his brother-in-law line him up a job working on the railroad (3). Later, when Kracha moved to Homestead, he again used his brother in law to set up a meeting with the sub-foreman, in which Kracha gave the man a bribe (Bell 28-29). When the immigrants came, they needed an "in" in which to get a job, just because there were so many of them all vying for the same positions. In the example above, Kracha's "in" was his brother-!
             in-law, who helped him get a job first on the railroad, then in the mill in Homestead. As the immigration continued, there was also a large immigration within the United States. Many African-Americans from the South, moved north in hopes of finding better lives. According to the text, this "Great Migration" started around 1910 (Henretta 720). This added to the already diffi...