Chapter 15 Section 3
The Challenge of the Cities
Suburb

Residential
communities
surrounding cities

Most people lived in
the cities
 As they made more
money and
transportation
improved, they could
live further from
where they worked
Tenement

Low cost apartment
buildings designed to
house as many
families as the owner
could pack in

A group of dirty,
run-down tenements
could transform an
area into a slum
Dumbbell Tenement

Named for its dumbbell
shape

Each building narrowed in
the middle, and gaps on
either side formed air
shafts to bring light and air
inside the rooms
 An improvement but…
 Still not an open
balcony
 Garbage collected at the
bottom of the shafts
Describe living conditions
in a dumbbell tenement
 Overcrowded
 Unsanitary
 Disease
ridden
 Run
down
 Low
cost
How did Jacob Riis expose
the conditions that existed
in tenement houses?
 Mastered
new
technology of flash
photography
 Showed
the
photographs to
people in lecture
halls
What were three technological developments
that enabled cities to house more people?

Elevator

Subway

Cable car

Elevated trains

Electric trolleys

Bessemer process
Political Machine
 An
unofficial city
organization
designed to keep a
particular party or
group in power and
usually headed by a
single powerful
“boss”
What contributed to the
rise of political machines?
 As
city
governments grew
in size, wealth, and
power, they became
prizes to control.
The machine
enabled a local
faction of one
party to maintain
control
Who benefitted most from
Boss Tweed’s control of
New York City?
 Tweed
and his
allies benefitted the
most
 His political
machine was selfserving and bad
for the population
of New York City
Graft
 The
use of one’s
job to gain profit
Why did some people
criticize graft?
 Graft
is distasteful
because it involves
using one’s position
of power to exploit
others.
List 4 challenges that
people living in cities
faced.
 Overcrowding
 Disease
 Danger
of fires
 Contaminated
water
 Lack
in indoor
plumbing