Catherine Poirier
APUSH Period 1
12/22/10
C18 KTs p.490-501
Rapid Urban Growth (490): City populations increased seven fold within half a century after the Civil
War – everyone wanted to live in them; by 1920 most people lived in urban cities.
Geographic Mobility (491): Americans were leaving rural areas of the East at an alarming rate; some
moved to the new Western farmlands, most to the rising cities of the East & Midwest.
African-American Communities (492): community=10,000+ people; in over 30 cities, mostly in the South
but some in New York, Chicago, and Baltimore; paved the way for the populations movements to come
during WWI
The Diverse American City (494): There was no single group or country the immigrants were coming
from; sources all around the world; Italy, Germany, Scandinavia, Austria, Hungary, Russia, Great Britain,
Ireland, Poland, Greece, Canada, Japan, China, Holland, Mexico etc.
Benefits of Ethnic Communities (494): Moving into a diverse community was good for immigrants;
familiar – native languages, churches, foods, organizations; helped them connect with their nationalities
even in the US.
Americanization (495): Immigrants came with the idea of a romantic New World; this could be proved
wrong to them depending on their situations; many wanted to rid of their old cultures & become truly
Americanized (many 1st generation); 2nd generation was even more likely to get rid of their old ways
Changing Gender Roles (495): America was such a change from their native countries – arranged
marriages, kept inside all the time, domestic women; immigrants often went outside and began
working, creating friends, interests, and attachments outside of the family (unusual)
Nativism (496): the arrival of new immigrants & the way they held on to their cultures angered and
scared some native-born Americans; some acted out of prejudice as well – tensions; were less willing
got work for lower pay, lost their jobs to immigrants.
Immigration Restriction League (496): founded in Boston by Harvard alumni; 1887; based on the idea
that immigrants should be screened – literacy tests, and other standards – to separate those unworthy
& those worthy of being in America; sophisticated nativism  difficult for many to support them.
Advantages of Cheap Labor (496): Immigration was provided the growing economy and businesses with
a huge source of cheap labor; without which, many say, industrial development would have been
impossible to succeed like it did.
Frederick law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux (497): creators/landscape designers of Central Park in NY;
1850; biggest promoters of the idea that parks could create a refuge from the hussle and bustle of the
city; purposely created a space that looked nothing like the city at all, entirely natural.
“City beautiful” Movement (498): Began to take out the old neighborhoods & create new beautiful ones,
with monumental avenues & buildings; inspired by the 1893 Colombian Exposition in Chicago –
celebration of Columbus’ discovery of America – the center of the expo was a group of neoclassical
buildings, the “Great White City;” movement led by Daniel Burnham; planned to impose an ordered and
symmetrical life on the cities, like the “great white city”
The Back Bay (498): late 1850s, Boston; marshy tidal land, filled in to create a community; 40+ years to
finish the landfill project, one of the greatest public works projects up to that point.
Growth of Suburbs (498); middle class – moderately successful people; less expensive land, on the edges
of the city, linked to downtowns by trains; Chicago -1870- almost 100 residential suburbs.
Tenements (499): first used to describe multi-family homes; but in the 19th century to changed to
describe the slums only; first built in NYC in 1850; great improvement for the housing of the poor; cheap
lodgings.
Jacob Riis (499): Danish immigrant, NY newspaper journalist & photographer; 1890 – How the Other Half
Lives – shocked many with pictures and writings about tenement life; sunless, dark, miserable places.
Transportation Problems (500): old streets were too narrow for traffic; most were not paved; they
began paving more and more, usually with asphalt, bricks, or wooden blocks, but it still was not enough
for most big cities.
Mass Transit (501): 1870 – NY built their elevated railways – noisy, dirty, steam powered; NY, Chicago,
San Francisco and other places experimented with cable cars; West VA introduced the electric trolley
line in 1888, by 1895 it was operating in over 850 places. 1897 – Boston opened the first American
subway line – put trolley lines underground.
Steel-Girder Construction (501): made the modern skyscraper possible; first building to use this –
Chicago in 1884; skyscrapers became popular in Manhattan – when they couldn’t expand outward, they
expanded upwards.