Part 1: The Industrial City and
the “Gilded Age”
Part 2: The Progressive Impulse
Dr. Kevin B. Witherspoon
Lander University
Growth of the Cities
 NYC: 942k 1870; 3.4 mil 1900
 CHI: 298k 1870; 1.7 mil 1900
 PHI: 674k 1870; 1 mil 1900
 WASH: 109k 1870; 278k 1900
 ATL: 21k 1870; 90k 1900
 Cities: a mixed vision
Technology and Urbanization
 Transportation:
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The end of the “walking city”
Horse-drawn mass transit
Frank Sprague; electric trolley
Subways
Exodus to the suburbs
Construction methods
Streets
Water
Electricity
The pocket watch
Tenement Life
 “Pre-law tenements”
 Dumbbell tenements
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1879 design competition
Urban Problems
 Related problems:
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Alcoholism
Crime
Filth/health issues
Labor/working conditions
 Safety, child, women labor laws
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Pure food & drugs
Disease/mortality rate
 Chicago: 3 of 5 babies die before age 5
Immigration
 Germans
 Chinese
 “New Immigrants”
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Italians
Eastern Europeans
Russian Jews
 Southern blacks
Ideology, 1865-1900
 Conflicting themes:
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Growth, wealth
Masses who don’t benefit
The Railroads
The Railroads
 Government support
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1862 Pacific RR Act
 Provided $$ and land
 Technology
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Steel
Steam engine
Crocker
The Railroads
 Immigration
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1853 - 12 Chinese immigrants
1854 - 13,000
 Business tactics
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Competition
 Collis P. Huntington
 Southern Pacific RR
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Combination
Other Businesses
 Oil (John D. Rockefeller)
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Standard Oil
“Gospel of wealth”
 Steel (Andrew Carnegie)
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Vertical combination
Organized
Labor
 Working conditions
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Coal mines
Breaker boys
Organized Labor
 Unions
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National Labor Union, 1866
Colored National Labor Union, 1869
Knights of Labor, 1869
Organized Labor
 Unions
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American Federation of Labor,
1881
 Samuel Gompers
 More focused:
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Only trade unions
Hours, wages, working conditions
Strikes
1886 - 140,000; 1900 - 1 million
Organized Labor
 Haymarket Riot
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May, 1886 Chicago
Used against labor - KOL decline
 Homestead Strike
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1892, Homestead, PA
Henry Clay Frick
 Pullman Strike, 1894
 Big business favored over labor
 Ethnic diversity
The West Organizes
 Life on the frontier
 The Grange
 Populism
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Demands:
 Govt. to store surplus crops
 “free & unlimited coinage of silver”
 Govt. control transportation
 Govt. no give land to RR
 Coxey’s Army, 1894
The Progressive Era
 Ideology:
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Social Darwinism
 Herbert Spencer
 “Root hog, or die”
Ideology, 1865-1900
 Reform Darwinism
 Weaker elements can improve and change
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Social Gospel
 Charles Sheldon, “In His Steps”
 “WWJD”
 Social darwinism/reform darwinism
 Individual vs. environment
The Progressive Era
 Publicity of problems: “muckrakers”
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Stephen Crane*, Maggie, a Girl of the Streets, 1893
Jacob Riis*, How the Other Half Lives, 1890
Upton Sinclair*, The Jungle, 1906
Progressive Era Reforms
 “Active government on behalf of the
public interest”
 Local: Settlement Houses
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Jane Addams, Hull House
 Parks and playgrounds
Progressive Era
Reforms
 State: “Wisconsin idea”
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Robert LaFollette
Efficiency
Experts
Direct primary
 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire*,
Mar. 25, 1911
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NY State Factory
Commission
Progressive Era Reforms
 Federal: Teddy Roosevelt
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Trust-busting
Pure food and drugs
Conservation
 Woodrow Wilson
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Lower tariffs
Federal reserve
Anti-trust laws
 Shortcomings of the Progressive movement