1. Urbanization and the Lure of
the City
2. City Problems and Machine
Politics
GILDED
GILDED
GILDING
Urbanization

Growth of cities
due to
industrialization
◦ Labor and markets
1900 40% Urban
population
 1920 50+%

Changes in Cities


Expansion outward
Streetcars and
transportation
◦ Trolleys, railroads,
early subways
◦ Commute

Beginnings of
suburbs, segregated
workers by income
The ‘Burbs
Upper and middle class escape from city
life
 Factors:

◦
◦
◦
◦
◦
Abundant cheap land
Cheap transportation
Cheap construction
Ethnic and racial prejudice
Privacy/individual homes
Frederick
Law
Olmstead
 1900 –
suburbs
in every
major city
 World’s
first
suburban
nation

Skyscrapers


Expansion
upward
1885 –
Home
Insurance
in Chicago,
first with a
steel
skeleton
(10 stories)
Wainwrigh
t Building

Louis
Sullivan –
St. Louis
1890 (10
stories)
Carson
Pririe
Scott
Building

Louis
Sullivan,
Chicago,
1899 (12
stories)
ALICO Building

Roy Lane,
Waco, 1910
(22 stories)
Private city versus public city
At first, no call for services from
government. Cities didn't keep up with
the waste, pollution, disease, crime, and
other hazards
 Advocates had to convince citizens and
governments to purify water, build sewage
systems, waste disposal, police, zoning,
etc.

City Life

Ethnic Neighborhoods
◦ Culture, newspapers,
cuisine, language

Tenements
◦ Crowded inner-city
houses, often one room
◦ Up to 4000
people/block
◦ NYC window law
 Ventilation shafts
◦ Led to rampant disease
Water, isolated oat product, salt, chili pepper, onion powder, tomato
powder, oats (wheat), soy lecithin, sugar, spices, maltodextrin (a
polysaccharide that is absorbed as glucose), soybean oil (anti-dusting agent),
garlic powder, autolyzed yeast extract, citric acid, caramel color, cocoa
powder, silicon dioxide (anti-caking agent), natural flavors, yeast, modified
corn starch, natural smoke flavor, salt, sodium phosphate, less than 2% of
beef broth, potassium phosphate, and potassium lactate.
 All that plus 36% beef. Thirty-six percent—plus all the above making up for
the other 64% of the party in your mouth.
 According to the USDA, they can't call their mixture "beef" at all. Beef is
defined by the USDA as "flesh of cattle", and ground beef is defined as:
 Chopped fresh and/or frozen beef with or without seasoning and without
the addition of beef fat as such, shall not contain more than 30 percent fat,
and shall not contain added water, phosphates, binders, or extenders.

MACHINE POLITICS
Campaigns
Elections close. Split electoral and popular
vote
 Congress and President divided
 Party identity and loyalty

Patronage
Politics about gaining office, holding office,
and providing jobs to faithful
 Tammany Hall – NYC run by Boss Tweed

Issue 1: Civil Service Reform
James Garfield – Beset by job seekers.
Charles Guiteau shoots him in the back
 Pendleton Civil Service Act (1881) –
applicants took a test to qualify for jobs
 Civil servants couldn’t make political
contributions

Issue 2: Currency
To expand or not expand
 Haves vs. Have nots
 Debtors, farmers,
entrepreneurs want
expansion
 Bankers, creditors, investors

◦ Increase in dollar’s value by
300% 1865-1895
◦ Gold standard
Greenback Party
Money not backed by Specie like in Civil
War
 Demands for silver money
