CHAPTER 18
Urban Growth and Farm Protest
1887 – 1893
“In the essentials of life . . . the boy of 1854
stood nearer [to] the year one than to the year 1900.”
Henry Adams
"I firmly believe that before many centuries more, science will be the
master of man. The engines he will have invented will be beyond his
strength to control. Some day science shall have the existence of
mankind in its power, and the human race shall commit suicide by
blowing up the world." Henry Adams, [1862]
“There are never wanting some persons of violent and undertaking
natures, who, so they have power and business, will take it at any cost.”
Francis Bacon
The Labor Movement; the people who brought you the weekend.
Popular bumbersticker
Judas Iscariot was a gentleman compared to a SCAB. For betraying his
master, he had character enough to hang himself. A SCAB has not. Jack London
For every dollar the boss has and didn't work for, one of us worked for a
dollar and didn't get it. - Big Bill Haywood
When Mahatma Gandhi was asked about “Western Civilization” he
responded: “It’s a good idea.”
“We took away their country and their means of support, broke up
their mode of living, their habits of life, introduced disease and
decay among them, and it was for this that they made war. Could
anyone expect less?” Gen. Philip Sheridan
“Of course our whole national history has been one of expansion. . .
that the barbarians recede or are conquered . . . is due solely to
the power of the mighty civilized races which have not lost the
fighting instinct.” Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life
“The Anglo-Saxon race must pervade the whole southern
extremity of this vast continent. The Mexicans are no better than
the Indians and I see no reason why we should not take their land.”
Sam Houston
“. . . There was not a family in that whole nation that had not a home of
its own. There was not a pauper in that nation, and the nation did
not owe a dollar. . . It built its own schools and its hospitals. Yet the
defect of the system was apparent. They have got as far as they can
go, because they own their land in common. . . There is not enterprise
to make your home any better than that of your neighbors. There is no
selfishness, which is at the bottom of civilization.” Senator Henry
Dawes, author of the Dawes Act that broke up Indian reservations into
small private possessions in 1880s after a visit to the Cherokee Nation.
Sources
 Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House [Jane Addams Reader]
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http://www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/hull_house.html
Alfred Chandler Jr., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in
American Business [1977]
Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie
Marilyn Irvin Holt, The Orphan Trains: Placing Out in America, 1992
Matthew Josephson, The Robber Barons [1934]
Frank Norris, The Octopus [1901]
Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives [1890]
Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the Cities
Chapter Essay Questions
 Describe the “new urban society” of this era.
 What changes did the American workforce experience in the late
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nineteenth century?
What impact did new immigration migration have on cities in the
North?
Evaluate the Populists.
Who made up the new middle class?
Explain the changing nature of American labor during the 19th
century. [see “overview]
Explain how the “Gospel of Wealth” and “Social Darwinism” served
to discourage efforts to alleviate urban poverty. [Social Gospel
movement]
How had industrialization and urbanization opened new worlds for
rich and poor alike?
Concepts
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American Federation of Labor, 1886
Knights of Labor, 1869 [Haymarket riot]
Collective bargaining, binding arbitration
Chain migration
Gilded Age
“ Wealth” by Andrew Carnegie
Great Migration [Blacks move north]
Great Uprising [1877 RR strike]
Horizontal v. vertical integration
Nativism
Russian Pogroms and Jewish permanent migration
Social Darwinism – “survival of the fittest”
Sweatshops
Tenements, Jacob Riis, Lincoln Steffens, Muckrakers
Text Concepts
 Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrision
 Jane Addams, Hull House in Chicago
 Ellis Island, migration
 Political “boss”
 Battle of Wounded Knee
 Homer Plessy, 1896
 John L. Sullivan
 Edward Bellamy, Looking Backwards
 National American Woman Suffrage Association
 Sherman Antitrust Act
 Farmers’ Alliance, Populist party
 Homestead strike
 1905 IWW
 Centennial Exposition of 1876
 Mail order houses // chain stores [Sears]
 Department stores
 Jay Gould
 Horatio Alger
 Thomas Alva Edison
 Gilded Age, by Mark Twain
 Luna Park, Coney Island – “the poor man’s paradise”
 New cities – walking, railroad [Goshen] [Visalia]
 Orphan trains, “placing out” in America
 Balance of power v. collective security – [Woodrow Wilson and
League of Nations following WW I]
Hull House Firsts
First Social Settlement in Chicago
First Social Settlement with men and women residents
Established first public baths in Chicago
Established first public playground in Chicago
Established first gymnasium for the public in Chicago
Established first little theater in the United States
Established first citizenship preparation classes
Established first public kitchen in Chicago
Established first college extension courses in Chicago
Established first group work school
Established first painting loan program in Chicago
Established first free art exhibits in Chicago
Established first fresh air school in Chicago
Established first public swimming pool in Chicago
Established first boy scout troop in Chicago
Hull House Firsts
Investigations for the first time in Chicago of:
truancy, sanitation, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, distribution of
cocaine, midwifery, children's reading, infant mortality, newsboys,
social value of the saloon
Investigations that led to creation and enactment of first factory laws in
Illinois
Investigations that led to creation of the first model tenement code
First Illinois Factory Inspector, Hull-House resident, Florence Kelley
First probation officer in Chicago, Hull-House resident, Alzina
Stevens
Labor unions organized at Hull-House:
Women Shirt Makers
Women Cloak Makers
Dorcas Federal Labor Union
Chicago Woman's Trade Union League
Chronology
1862
1866
1869
1870
1871
1873
1876
1877
1879
1880
1881
Morrill Act authorizes "land-grant" colleges
National Labor Union founded
Knights of Labor founded
Standard Oil founded by John D. Rockefeller
Chicago fire
Financial panic brings severe depression
Baseball's National League founded
Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone
Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia
Great Uprising railroad strike [1st national work- stoppage]
Thomas Edison unveils incandescent bulb
Depression ends
Founding of League of American Wheelmen [bicycling]
Tuskegee Institute is founded
Assassination of Czar Alexander II, pogroms
1882
1883
1886
1889
1890
1892
1893
Peak of immigration to the United States (1.2 million) in 19th
century
Chinese Exclusion Act passed
Standard Oil Trust founded
1st US country club
National League merges with American Association
Campaigns for 8-hour work-day peak
Haymarket riot & massacre discredit the Knights of Labor
American Federation of Labor founded
Neighborhood Guild in NY, 1st settlement house
Jane Addams, Chicago’s Hull House
Sherman Antitrust Act passed
Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives
Homestead steel strike [fails against Carnegie]
Stock market panic precipitates severe depression
Eugene Victor Debs
“Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and bruised
itself. We have been enjoined by the courts, assaulted by thugs,
charged by the militia, traduced by the press, frowned upon in public
opinion, and deceived by politicians. But notwithstanding all this and all
these, labor is today the most vital and potential power this planet has
ever known, and its historic mission is as certain of ultimate realization
as is the setting of the sun.”
“Solidarity is not a matter of sentiment but a fact, cold and impassive as
the granite foundations of a skyscraper. If the basic elements, identity of
interest, clarity of vision, honesty of intent, and oneness of purpose, or
any of these is lacking, all sentimental pleas for solidarity, and all other
efforts to achieve it will be barren of results.”
I.
The New Urban Society
 Immigrants and internal migration cause population explosion in
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cities
Suburbs, skyscrapers, and tenements change cities
New services are needed
New ethnic communities arise
Prejudice and intolerance of immigrants increase
Political machines control local politics
Patterns of Immigration, 1820-1914
The migration to the United States was part of a worldwide transfer of
population that accelerated with the Industrial Revolution and the
accompanying improvement in transportation.
Ellis Island
For most immigrants beginning in 1895, entrance into the United States
meant processing at Ellis Island in New York Harbor.Library of Congress
Immigrants Aboard Ship, 1902
During the decade from
1901-1910, immigrations in
to the U. S. soared,
approaching one million per
year. Library of Congress
My mother’s mother came
to America from
Switzerland and my
father’s father came to
America from Ireland!
Irish Immigrants in Boston, 1882
Immigration to the United States soared to new heights in the 1880s and
1890s. Most of this new immigration came to existing national communities
in America's cities. Boston's Irish constituted one of the largest Irish
communities in the United States. In 1882, some of Boston's Irish found
work as clam-diggers. Library of Congress
Changes in the American Labor Force, 1870–1910
The transformation of the
American economy in the late
nineteenth century changed the
nature and type of work. By 1910
the United States was an urban,
industrial nation with a matching
work force that toiled in factories
and for commercial
establishments (including
railroads), and less frequently on
farms.
Responses to Poverty and Wealth
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Tenement Life
Settlement Houses, Hull House, Jane Addams
Gospel of Wealth [Social Gospel was religious movement]
Social Darwinism “survival of the fittest”
Jacob Riis – How the Other Half Lives
Lincoln Steffens – The Shame of the Cities
Workers Organize
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Knights of Labor, 1869
 Vertically integrated, 1883 started segregated African American
locals, supported Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, pro-boycott, antistrike
 Haymarket Square, 1886
Great Uprising, unsuccessful 1877 railroad strike
American Federation of Labor [AFL], 1886
Collective bargaining
Pullman strike, 1894
Eugene Victor Debs, national railroad strike
Industrial Workers of the World, 1905
 Big Bill Haywood, Joe Hill, Eugene Victor Debs, socialists, WW I
Growth of Cities, 1860 and 1900
II.
The Diminishing Rights of Minority
Groups
 Native Americans on reservations frighten whites with Ghost Dance
 Mexican Americans in Southwest clash with whites over land use
 Chinese Exclusion Act illustrates prejudice in West
 African Americans most discriminated against
Indian Reservations, 1875 and 1900
Photo of lynching c 1880s-90s
III.
A Victorian Society
 Relations between sexes strictly controlled, at least in public
 Strict moral code governs a patriarchal society
 Religion plays central role in families
 Sports enthrall Americans
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Spectator sports include football and boxing
 Active sport of choice is bicycling
Baseball
Thomas Eakins created this painting of baseball players practicing in 1875.
Originating as a sport of urban gentlemen, baseball eventually broadened
its appeal, drawing fans from all spectrums of city life. Eakins, Thomas,
Baseball Players Practicing, 1875. Watercolor; Museum of Art, Rhode
Island School of Design, Jesse Metcalf and Walter H. Kimball Funds.
Photography by Cathy Carver
Baseball, 19th century
By the late 19th century, baseball had become entrenched as a popular
sport all across America. Many believed it reinforced the nation's pastoral
ideal even as the country became more industrialized and urbanized.
Library of Congress
The New Fad, 1886
As workers made more money--and as more leisure time became available-Americans began to acquire non-essential items of material culture. This
well-dressed couple is displaying for the photographer their 1886-model
bicycle for two. Their choice of background is the South Portico of the
White House, Washington, DC, and may indicate that this is a souvenir of a
visit to the city. Library of Congress
IV.
Voices of Protest and Reform
 Social Gospel brings religion to slum areas
 To Christianize
 To minister to basic needs
 With free time, middle class women spearhead reform
efforts
National Woman Suffrage 1880
A meeting in 1880 of the National Woman Suffrage Association protested
the exclusion of women from electoral politics. Susan B. Anthony noted
with regret that “to all men woman suffrage is only a side issue.” ”The
Granger Collection, New York
''It is difficult for me to
write of Jacob Riis only
from the public standpoint.
He was one of my truest
and closest friends. I have
ever prized the fact that
once, in speaking of me,
he said, "since I met him
he has been my brother." I
have not only admired and
respected him beyond
measure, but I have loved
him dearly…and I mourn
him as if he were one of
my own family."
Theodore Roosevelt
Downtown New York City 1900's
Further downtown, Jacob Riis
found this tenement
courtyard.Getty Images Inc.
Hutton Archive Photos
Photograph by Jacob A. Riis,
The Jacob A. Riis Collection,
Museum of the City of New York
A tenement room, 1900
By 1900, cities had begun early regulation of tenement housing. Here, two
officials of the New York City Tenement House Department inspect a
cluttered basement room that had been inhabited by shoemakers. (Note the
''cobbler's bench,'' the shoemaker's tools, and materials such as leather for
soles and uppers on the floor.) Library of Congress
The "Airshaft, 1900"
Immigration brought so many
people into America's cities that
they had to be ''stacked'' on top
of each other in tenements. New
apartment buildings were
constructed with an airshaft,
which supposedly provided
interior apartments with fresh air.
In reality, these often became
filth-infested garbage pits. This
image shows the airshaft of a
dumbbell tenement, New York
City, taken from the roof, around
1900. Library of Congress
Molly Maguires
This lithograph shows a meeting of the secret organization of Irish coal
miners known as the Molly Maguires. They waged guerilla war against the
mine owners of the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania in the 1870s.
Library of Congress
V.
Looking Outward: Foreign Policy in the
Early 1890s
 External markets become more important with closing of frontier
 Americans fear being left behind by European nations
 United States works to improve relations with neighbors to
South, hoping to build canal
 Tensions in Hawaii grow due to American manipulation of
economy
VI.
The Angry Farmers
 Democrats play on people’s fears to win Congress
 Farmers organize politically
 People’s party (Populists) emerges as political arm of
Alliance
 Populists support Free Silver, but start off poorly
Populist Party Platform (1892)
The People's party, more commonly known as the Populist party, was
organized in St. Louis in 1892 to represent the common folk—especially
farmers—against the entrenched interests of railroads, bankers,
processers, corporations, and the politicians in league with such
interests. At its first national convention in Omaha in July 1892, the party
nominated James K. Weaver for president and ratified the so-called
Omaha Platform, drafted by Ignatius Donnelly of Minnesota.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Assembled upon the 116th anniversary of the Declaration of
Independence, the People's Party of America, in their first national
convention, invoking upon their action the blessing of Almighty God, put
forth in the name and on behalf of the people of this country, the following
preamble and declaration of principles:
Preamble
The conditions which surround us best justify our cooperation; we meet in
the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material
ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the Congress,
and touches even the ermine of the bench.
The people are demoralized; most of the States have been compelled to
isolate the voters at the polling places to prevent universal intimidation and
bribery. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion
silenced, business prostrated, homes covered with mortgages, labor
impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of capitalists. The
urban workmen are denied the right to organize for self-protection,
imported pauperized labor beats down their wages, a hireling standing
army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and
they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. The fruits of the
toil of millions are badly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few,
unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in
turn, despise the Republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific
womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes—tramps
and millionaires. The national power to create money is appropriated to
enrich bond-holders; a vast public debt payable in legal-tender currency
has been funded into gold-bearing bonds, thereby adding millions to the
burdens of the people.
RESOLVED, That we demand a free ballot and a fair count in all elections and
pledge ourselves to secure it to every legal voter without Federal Intervention,
through the adoption by the States of the unperverted Australian or secret ballot
system.
RESOLVED, That the revenue derived from a graduated income tax should be
applied to the reduction of the burden of taxation now levied upon the domestic
industries of this country.
RESOLVED, That we pledge our support to fair and liberal pensions to ex-Union
soldiers and sailors.
RESOLVED, That we condemn the fallacy of protecting American labor under the
present system, which opens our ports to the pauper and criminal classes of the
world and crowds out our wage-earners; and we denounce the present
ineffective laws against contract labor, and demand the further restriction
of undesirable emigration.
RESOLVED, That we cordially sympathize with the efforts of organized
workingmen to shorten the hours of labor, and demand a rigid enforcement of
the existing eight-hour law on Government work, and ask that a penalty
clause be added to the said law.
RESOLVED, That we regard the maintenance of a large standing army of
mercenaries, known as the Pinkerton system, as a menace to our liberties, and
we demand its abolition. . . .
RESOLVED, That we commend to the favorable consideration of the
people and the reform press the legislative system known as the
initiative and referendum.
RESOLVED, That we favor a constitutional provision limiting the office
of President and Vice-President to one term, and providing for the
election of Senators of the United States by a direct vote of the people.
RESOLVED, That we oppose any subsidy or national aid to any private
corporation for any purpose.
RESOLVED, That this convention sympathizes with the Knights of
Labor and their righteous contest with the tyrannical combine of
clothing manufacturers of Rochester, and declare it to be a duty of all
who hate tyranny and oppression to refuse to purchase the goods
made by the said manufacturers, or to patronize any merchants who
sell such goods.
Populists
Established interests
ridiculed the Populists
unmercifully. This hostile
cartoon depicts the
People’s Party as an odd
assortment of radical
dissidents committed to a
“Platform of Lunacy.”
Kansas City Historical
Society
VII.
The Presidential Election of 1892
 Election of 1892 makes for strange bedfellows
 Homestead Strike illustrates political unrest
 Populists run widespread campaigns
 Democrats regain control
The United States presidential election of 1892 – New York’s Grover
Cleveland returned to defeat incumbent President Benjamin Harrison,
becoming the only person to be elected to non-consecutive presidential terms.
Cleveland, who had won the popular vote against Harrison in 1888, won both the
popular and electoral vote in the rematch.
Cleveland also became the first Democrat to be nominated by his party three
consecutive times, a distinction that would be equaled only by Franklin D.
Roosevelt in 1940.
Election of 1892
©2004 Wadsworth, a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Thomson Learning™ is a trademark used herein under license.
Presidential Campaign, 1888
Grover Cleveland and Allen G. Thurman as the Democratic party
candidates for President and Vice President on a lithograph campaign
poster by Kurz & Allison, 1888.
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) at
the Democratic Convention, 1896, in
which he made the “Cross of Gold”
speech.Culver Pictures, Inc.
The Election of 1896
William Jennings Bryan carried
most of the rural South and
West, but his free silver
campaign had little appeal to
more urban and industrial
regions, which swung strongly to
Republican candidate William
McKinley.
VIII. The “Great White City”
 America redefines itself in Chicago
 Exposition lauds American accomplishments
 Frederick Jackson Turner bemoans end of frontier
The Growth of American Cities, 1880-1900
Several significant trends stand out on this map. First is the development
of an urban-industrial core, stretching from New England to the Midwest,
where the largest cities were located. And second is the emergence of
relatively new cities in the South and West, reflecting the national
dimensions of innovations in industry and transportation.
The "Grocery Store" at the turn of the 20th Century
In the days before neighborhood ''superstores'' and household refrigeration,
most urban residents shopped daily for perishable items. Here, shoppers
pick and choose their food items from an outdoor market, located on 7th
Street at Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. Library of Congress
“Hell, there are no
rules here—we're
trying to
accomplish
something.”
Thomas A. Edison
Andrew Carnegie
“People who are unable to
motivate themselves must
be content with mediocrity,
no matter how impressive
their other talents."
Child labor
Noted urban photographer Lewis Hine captures the cramped working
conditions and child labor in this late nineteenth-century canning factory.
Women and children provided a cheap and efficient work force for laborintensive industries. George Eastman House
The "old" and the "new": Philadelphia, 1897
By 1900, most major cities had
begun attempting a
reorganization of their clogged
transportation systems. Here, in
1897 Philadelphia, horse-drawn
wagons and carriages competed
with an electric trolley system
and pedestrians on a
cobblestone street. Library of
Congress
Bodie, California -- “ghost town” northeast of Independence, CA