Urbanization, Growth of Cities
and Living Conditions
What trend to see you occurring
throughout the almost 200 years?
Urban Growth:
1870 - 1900
What was it like here for them?
►
Some native-born Americans
feared and resented the new
immigrants.
►
Their languages, religions, and
customs seemed strange.
►
They also competed for jobs.
►
Desperate for jobs, immigrants
often accepted lower wages
and worse working conditions.
►
The majority of immigrants
settled in the big cities where
factory jobs were available. By
1900, 4 out of every 5 people
in New York City were
immigrants or children of
immigrants.
Keeping the Culture Alive
►
►
►
►
Seeking familiar surroundings, immigrants tended to live
and work with people from their native country.
Although their children attended public schools and quickly
learned English, immigrant parents continued to use their
native tongue
Whether nicknamed Little Italy, Little Bohemia, or
Chinatown, immigrant neighborhoods were rich with Old
World languages, from the words printed in the newspaper
or heard on the streets.
These neighborhoods were terribly overcrowded,
unfortunately contributing to poverty, crime, and disease.
Mulberry Street –
“Little Italy”
Hester Street – Jewish
Section
When They Arrived…
Where Did They Live?
Tenement Buildings
►
Many immigrants lived in
crowded tenement buildings.
►
Families shared living space
and decent lighting & fresh air
were scarce.
►
People congregated outside,
made heavy use of the fire
escapes, and slept in summer
on fire escapes, roofs, and
sidewalks to get air
►
*
Layout of
an Early
Tenement
Building
Design of the
building,
which looked
like a
dumbbell,
had many
housing units
sharing a
corridor
In Their Opinion
► It
was a complete disaster.
► As House and Garden magazine wrote,
"The dumbbell block is perhaps the
worst type of tenement ever allowed
in a modern, enlightened community.
The halls and ten of the fourteen
rooms on each floor are dark and illventilated, dependent for light and air
solely upon narrow airshafts which
give little or no light below the top
floors."
Back of a Tenement
Overhead of tenement layout
Inside a tenement house
Living Conditions
Conditions were
uncomfortable, crowed,
and dirty.
► In New York, 1,231
people lived in only 120
rooms in one part of the
city.
► In Chicago in one year,
over 60% of newborns
never reached their first
birthdays.
► Many babies asphyxiated
in their own homes.
►
Crowded life in tenement 2
<>
Garbage was disposed of in
boxes set in front of the house.
A particularly lurid description of what some
garbage boxes contained was printed in the New
York Tribune in 1863:
“Composed of potato-peelings, oyster-shells, night-soil,
rancid butter, dead dogs and cats, and ordinary black
street mud, (the garbage boxes formed) one
festering, rotting, loathsome, hellish mass of air
poisoning, death- breeding filth, reeking in the fierce
sunshine, which gloats yellowy over it like the glare of
a devil whom Satan has kicked from his councils in
virtuous disgust."
Alley
between
Tenements
“Five Cents a Spot” Rooms
►
►
►
Many immigrants had no
home and slept in 5
cents a spot rooms
where people paid for a
small space to spend the
night.
Illegal housing quarters
Both the provider and
seeker were desperate
Jacob Riis:
How the Other Half Lived
(1890)
► Newspaper
reporter,
social reformer, and
photographer
► Shocked the U.S.
conscience in 1890
with a factual
description of slum
conditions
Excluded
from the melting pot
►
“Melting Pot”: immigrants assimilated
into culture through education and
acculturation.
►
Does not correspond with reality of U.S.
experience.
►
Many immigrant groups maintained their
ethnic identity.
►
Melting pot did not take into account
immigrants and ethnic groups who did
not easily blend into the culture.
►
Asians, African Americans, Native
Americans, and others were excluded
from this process of fusion and
amalgamation.
Main Idea 2:
People worked to improve the quality of life in U.S. cities.
►
Many private organizations stepped in to help the poor.
►
Reformer Lawrence Veiller led an effort to improve tenement
conditions through the Charity Organization Society.
 Helped to get the 1901 New York State Tenement House Act passed
►
Some individuals set up settlement houses, or neighborhood
centers in poor areas that offered education, recreation, and social
activities.
Settlement Houses
►
One of the most famous settlement houses was Hull House
 Founded in Chicago in 1889 by reformers Jane Addams and Ellen
Gates Starr
►
Florence Kelley, a reformer at Hull House, visited sweatshops
and wrote about the problems there.
 Convinced lawmakers to take action and in 1893, Illinois passed a law
to limit working hours for women and to prevent child-labor
 Became Illinois’s chief factory inspector and helped to enforce the law
►
Settlement houses continued to provide programs and services
through the 1900s.
Settlement Houses
►
One of the most famous settlement houses was Hull House
 Founded in Chicago in 1889 by reformers Jane Addams and Ellen
Gates Starr
►
Florence Kelley, a reformer at Hull House, visited sweatshops
and wrote about the problems there.
 Convinced lawmakers to take action and in 1893, Illinois passed a law
to limit working hours for women and to prevent child-labor
 Became Illinois’s chief factory inspector and helped to enforce the law
►
Settlement houses continued to provide programs and services
through the 1900s.