Chicago Poem Excerpts
1. They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
2. And they tell me you are crooked,
The Urbanization of
America
 Migration from the
Countryside to Urban
Centers dominated
American life
 This was the case all over
the world as it became
more industrialized
The Lure of the City
 Urban population
increased by 7 times
from 1863-1913
 1920—most American’s
lived in urban areas
 What is an urban area?—
2,500 people or more
1860
New York
City
Chicago
1890
1 million 3 million
people
people
100,000
people
1 million
people
Urban Families
 Experienced




High infant mortality rates
Declining fertility
High death rate from disease
Harsh living conditions
SO?????
Why did people live in cities?
Causes of Urban Growth
 Immigration—people from other countries coming to
the U.S. and urban centers
 National Migration—Americans moving to urban
centers




Opportunities for African Americans
Opportunities for Woman
More readily available work
Excitement of living in a city
National Migrations
 Geographic Mobility—people had the ability to move
quickly, safely and cheaply
 Rural Farm life was limited for woman so they moved to
cities
 How was rural life limited for women?
 Southern Blacks moved to cities…
 Because of bigotry and racist segregation and violence in the
south
 There were jobs up north—Although factory jobs were rare
(most African Americans worked as servants in cities: cooks,
janitors, general labor, etc.)
Immigrants
 1860-1920—28 Million immigrants came to the U.S.
 Most from Europe (West Coast had Asian and Mexican
Immigrants)
 1880—Italians, Greeks, Russian Jews, and Slavs
 1890—half of all Immigrants came from South Eastern
European Countries
 Early Immigrants were educated and had modest wealth
 That changed…why?
The Ethnic City
 1890—87% of Chicago were foreign born, 80% of
New York, 84% of Milwaukee and Detroit
 New York had more Irish than Dublin and more
Germans than Hamburg
 Cities were extremely racially and culturally diverse
 This was both strength and weakness of cities
Immigrant Ghettos
 Ghetto—a section of a city, especially a thickly populated
slum area, inhabited predominantly by members of an ethnic
or other minority group, often as a result of social or economic
restrictions, pressures, or hardships.
 Brought the Old World with them to the New World
 Offered familiarity and belonging to immigrants
 Same food, culture, way of life, no language barriers
 Jews and Germans advanced economically faster
 Why?
Assimilation
 Assimilation—the act of becoming a part of something
 Most immigrants were young 15-45
 Wanted to be “True Americans”—Americanization
 Encouraged by native born Americans
 Supported by churches and public education
 Changing Gender Roles




America allowed immigrant woman more freedom
Arranged marriages were not popular in the U.S.
It was acceptable for women work outside the home
More acceptable for women to be on their own.
Exclusion
 The counter attack to assimilation/Americanization
 Nativism—native born American prejudice against foreigners
 Immigrants were blamed for the “ills of society”
 Why? Was this prejudice blind or was it based on who was coming
to the U.S.?
 Laws tried to curb immigration but failed
 Immigration fueled economic growth as a read and cheap
source of labor
American Protective
Association
 Founded by Henry
Bowers in 1887
 Stood against Catholic
Immigrants
 Had over 500,000
members
Immigration Restriction
League
 Another national
organization that stood
for strict restriction on
immigration
 Believed immigrants
should be “screened”
through literacy tests
separating the
“desirables” from the
“undesirables”
The Urban Landscape
 Cities stood in contrast: the poor were VERY poor, the
rich were VERY rich
 Small middle class
 Cities struggled with how to keep the poor and wealthy
separated
The Creation of Public
Spaces
 1850’s—cities started to be
“planned”
 Urban Parks
 Antidote to urban
crowding and congestion
 Fredrick Law Olmstead
and Calvert Vaux—
architects of New York’s
Central Park
 Believed in “Natural
Spaces”
Central Park
Central Park
Central Park
Public Buildings
 City Planners, architects, wealthy people, and
government officials started advocating public
buildings
 Libraries, museums, galleries, concert halls, theaters,
hospitals, etc.
 Wealthy citizens became philanthropic patrons who
donated money for public buildings
 This came with the immortality of having one’s name
and recognition assigned to a building: Carnegie Hall
Housing the Rich
 Housing was an issue in Cities—the rich wanted to be
away from the poor, the poor couldn’t afford to life far
from where they worked, etc.
 Growth of Suburbs—modeled after “countryside”
 Why? How do the suburbs look like the countryside?
 The rich owned houses and buildings, the poor had to
rent
Housing the Poor
 The Poor could not afford to own so they rented
 High demand for scarce space gave a lot of power to
landowners
 Manhattan Population Density in 1894
 143 people per acre of land average (304 sq ft per person)
 700 people per acre in the slums (64 sq ft per person)
Tenements
 Multi-family dwellings—usually apartment buildings
 Located in the slums
 At first tenements were a great improvement for poor people
instead of literal shacks
 Many were windowless rooms
 Little to no plumbing
 Privies (toilets) in the basement
 Jacob Riis
 Author and photographer who documents tenement living
 Wrote “How the Other Half Lives”
 Sensationalized writing that exploited the plight of the poor.
Tenement Apartment
Tenement Apartment
Riis’s Most Famous Photo
City Block
Urban Transportation
 Paved streets opened
congestion and allow for
quicker, safer travel within
cities
 Paved Roads
 Most were paved with
wooden blocks—where
we get the term “block”
from, meaning a section
of a city
 Later brick, stone and
asphalt
Urban Transportation
 Street Cars
 Horse drawn cars that
ran on tracks were the
first public forms of
mass transportation
 Boston, New York,
Chicago, Washington
DC, Philadelphia
Urban Transportation
 New York City
 1887
 First Elevated Railway
 Steam powered
Urban Transportation
 1887
 Boston
 First American Subway
(not the disgusting
sandwich shop…shame
on you for eating
that…YUCK!)
Urban Transportation
 1880’s
 New York
 Brooklyn Bridge
 Opened the Island of
Manhattan to the other
burrows of New York
 Engineering Marvel
The Skyscraper
 Cast iron, steel beams,
and elevators allowed for
taller buildings (over 5
floors)
 1890’s skyscrapers
started to be built (10 or
more floors)
 Why is this important for
cities?
Strains of Urban Life
 Urban Life was hard and
dangerous due to

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Crime
Fire
Disease
Poverty
pollution
Human Waste Problems
 Early Efforts at urban
sewage disposal
frequently
 Used open ditches to
remove waste
 Helped the spread of
disease
 Polluted the cities fresh
water supply
 Failed to provide clean
conditions
The Urban Political
Machines
 Urban Political Machines
helped newly arrived
immigrants adjust to
American life
 In return these “Bosses”
(elected officials) could
count on support from
voting immigrants
 Political bosses were the
primary source of welfare
for the urban poor.
 Goals of the Political
Machines
1.
2.
3.
4.
Make money for
political bosses (officials)
Provide services to
immigrants
Create city jobs for
machine supporters
Find jobs for the
unemployed
The Rise of Mass
Consumption
 Mass Consumption—the production and sale of
inexpensive everyday items that came about at the end
of the 1800’s
 Growth of middle class gave rise to mass consumption
 Middle class people could afford to buy lots of things in
quantity
 The most popular mass consumption items were the
making and marketing of ready-made clothes
 Middle class women were most effected by mass
consumption—why?
Patterns of Income and
Consumption
 Society changed, as did the market place, with the
growth of the middle class and their growing income
 This lead to

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
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The emergence of Department Stores
The making of large amounts of affordable products
The creation of marketing and advertisement
The rise of chain stores
Department Stores
 Giant “have everything”
destination stores
 Offered a wide range of
diverse products—bras and
guns
 Created a shopping
atmosphere of excitement
 Made shopping an activity
and glamorous
 Large quantities of goods
lowered prices
Hudsons
Inside Hudson’s Detroit
Hudson’s Now
Popular Culture in the late
1800’s
 Popular forms of entertainment

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Vaudeville
Musical comedy
Movies—silent movies
Professional baseball
Theatre
 Movies became the first truly universal mass-entertainment
medium which reached all over the country and all levels of
society
 Why?
Yellow Journalism
 A popular style
of journalism
that was
popular in the
early 1900’s
that used a
sensational,
lurid style of
reporting.
Art in the early 1900’s
Authors like Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser wrote very popular novels about
the mistreatment of the poor in urban industrial society.
Artists began painting realistic scenes of ordinary life
Education in the Early
1900’s
 Industrialization created a need for specialized skills
and scientific knowledge, the educational system
answered these needs through
1.
2.
3.
4.
Growth of women’s colleges
Rise in free public education
An increase in the number of colleges and universities
Growth of universities in western states
Women in the early 1900’s
 Graduates of Women’s colleges formed the first
“intellectual” women’s group who…
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Worked together for reform (divorce laws, suffrage, etc.)
Frequently married much later in life
Were career based instead of family based
Became faculty in women’s colleges
Started by philanthropic institutions
“Civilizing” the Indians
 Programs were created to “civilize” Indians through
white-run, reservation schools
 They failed in large part to…
 A lack of long term commitment and funds
 The teaching and administration was poor
 The ideas of transforming culture was unpopular with
the Indians
 White educators showed hostilities towards tribal
culture
Review Question 1
Because of rapid growth in the latter nineteenth century,
American cities:
a) protected traditional social and cultural values.
b)provided services and facilities inadequate to demands.
C) witnessed the flight of factories and corporate offices to
newer, less crowded locations.
D) supported efficient and honest governments.
Review Question 2
An important population trend that occurred in the United
States from 1860 to 1910 was:
a) a gradual decline of the rural population.
B) the mass movement of urban population of all classes
from city centers to suburbs.
C) a population shift from the North to the South.
D) a faster rate of growth for the cities than for the general
population.
Review Question 3
The movement of blacks from the rural South to industrial cities
began during the latter nineteenth century because of :
a)poverty and oppression in the South.
B)prospective professional opportunities in the cities.
C)the abundance of factory jobs in the North for blacks.
D) the lack of racial discrimination in the North.
Review Question 4
The new immigrants of the latter nineteenth century settled
primarily in Eastern industrial cities because they:
a)lacked the capital to buy land and begin farming in the
West.
B)found immediate employment as unskilled factory
workers.
C) found refuge and camaraderie among fellow nationals
there.
D) All of the above
Review Question 5
The formation of ethnic neighborhoods by immigrants in
American cities:
a)tended to preserve significant aspects of the cultural
values of their previous societies.
B)resulted from discriminatory zoning restrictions.
C)prevented their identification with and advancement in
American society.
D) intensified a sense of not belonging to a coherent
community.
Review Question 6
Nativist reaction against European immigrants of the latter nineteenth
century resulted from all of the following factors except the:
a) arrival of vast numbers of immigrants.
B)refusal of most immigrant groups to try to assimilate themselves
into American culture.
C) generalized fears and prejudices against foreigners.
D) economic concern that immigrant workers would
threaten the wages and positions of American workers.
Review Question 7
Which of the following was not a trend contributing to the rise of
mass consumption in latter nineteenth-century America?
A) The emergence of ready-made clothing as a basis of the
American wardrobe.
B) The breakup of marketing monopolies held by national chain
stores.
C) The development of canned food and refrigerated railroad cars.
D) The emergence of great department stores and mail-order
houses.
Review Question 8
The theory of evolution:
a) supported traditional American beliefs about the nature
of man and history.
B) et uniform resistance from middle-class Protestant
religious leaders.
C) gained greater acceptance in rural rather than urban
areas.
D) influenced new ways of thinking in the social sciences.
Things to Know for the Test
 Problems of urban growth
 Why people were coming/moving to cities
 Groups of people who migrated to cities
 Immigrants vs. migrants
 Which immigrant group advanced quickest
 Assimilation/Americanization
 exclusionists
Things to know for the Test
 Housing in cities
 The work of Jacob Riis
 Hazards/dangers of the city
 Urban sewage problems
 Urban political machine
 Who provided the most welfare to immigrants in cities
 What was “boss rule”
Things to know for the Test
 Mass Consumption and its affects
 Change of incomes in the late 1800’s
 Department stores and their impact
 What dominated popular culture in the late 1800’s
 Yellow journalism
 Late 1800’s authors and what they wrote about
 Late 1800’s artists and what they painted
Things to Know for the Test
 The Theory of Evolution and its impact on society
 The need for specialized scientific skills and knowledge
 The “civilization” of the Indians
 Women’s colleges and their impact on society