APUSH
Presentation
Bailey Amos
Ashley Haynes
Shelby Hafley
Matthew Kidwell
The New Urban
Growth
The New Urban Growth
❏ In 1920, for the first time a majority of
people lived in urban areas (communities of
2,500 or more)
❏ Urban families experienced a high rate of
infant mortality, a declining fertility rate,
and a high death rate from disease
❏
Without immigration, cities would have grown
relatively slowly
The Migrations
❏ Among those moving to the industrial cities
in the 1880s were black women and men
trying to escape the poverty, debt, violence
and oppression they faced in the rural
South
❏
Urban blacks tended to work as cooks, janitors,
domestic servants and other service occupations
❏ Women often outnumbered black men in the
cities
The Migrations
*
❏ Immigrants were the most important source
of urban population growth
❏
❏
Some came from Canada and Latin America
Chinese and Japanese immigrants populated the
West Coast
❏ Greatest number of immigrants came from
southern and eastern Europe
❏
By 1980s more than half came from these regions
The Migrations
 Unlike past immigrants, these new
immigrants lacked the capital to buy
farmland and professional education
 Settled overwhelmingly in industrial cities
and worked unskilled jobs
 No single national group dominated in the
United States
The Ethnic City
*
❏ Some immigrants formed close-knit ethnic
communities called “immigrant ghettos”
❏
Offered newcomers a familiar feeling of home as
many immigrants kept close ties with their native
countries
 Immigrants made up...
87% of Chicago’s population
80% of New York’s population
84% of Detroit’s and Milwaukee’s population
The Ethnic City
*
❏ Immigrants who aroused strong racial
prejudice among native-born whites found
it very difficult to advance their talents.
Those who arrived with valuable skills fared better
than those who didn’t.
❏ ⅓ returned to their homelands within their first
few years
❏ In cities where a certain nationality dominated,
those people gained an advantage as they learned
to exert their political power.
❏
Assimilation and Exclusion
❏ The majority of newcomers were between
15 and 40 years old
❏
Many dreamed to become true Americans
❏ Second-generation immigrants were
especially likely to attempt to break with
the old ways
 Young women, in particular, sometimes rebelled
against parents who tried to arrange or prevent
marriages or who opposed them working
Assimilation and Exclusion
❏ The immigrants clinging to their old ways
provoked fear and resentment in natives
❏ Henry Bowers created the American
Protective Association to stop immigration
❏ By 1894 there were 500,000 members
❏ In 1894, 5 Harvard alumni founded the
Immigration Restriction League in Boston
❏ This League proposed screening immigrants with literacy tests to
separate the “desirable” from the “undesirable”
Assimilation and Exclusion
❏ Native-born Americans encouraged assimilation
❏ Public schools taught children English
❏ Most non-ethnic stores sold American products, forcing
immigrants to adapt to American norms
❏ Some immigrants embraced reforms to make their
religion more compatible with American religion
❏ Reform Judaism was an effort by Jewish
American leaders to make their faith less
“foreign” to the dominant culture
Assimilation and Exclusion
❏ In 1882, Congress excluded the Chinese,
denied entry to “undesirables” like
convicts, paupers, and the mentally
incompetent, and placed a 50¢ tax on each
person admitted
❏ Later legislation of the 1890s enlarged the
list of those barred from immigrating
❏ These laws only kept out a small number of aliens
Assimilation and Exclusion
❏ Other restriction proposals made little
progress in Congress, for immigrants
provided cheap and plentiful labor supply
❏
Many argued that America’s industrial and
agricultural development would be impossible
without it
Did You Catch...
Which regions in Europe the greatest number
of immigrants came from?
Answer: Southern and Eastern Europe
The Urban
Landscape
The Creation of Public Space
❏ In the mid-nineteenth century, reformers,
planners, architects, and others called for a
more ordered vision of the city.
❏ Parks would allow city residents a healthy
and restorative escape from the strains of
urban life by reacquainting them with the
natural world.
The Creation of Public Space
❏ This was established by Frederick Law
Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who also
designed New York’s Central Park in the
late 1850’s.
❏ Along with the creation of great parks,
great public buildings were being created
too.
❏
Libraries, art galleries, museums, theaters, opera
halls
Central
Park
The Creation of Public Space
❏ Wealthy residents were the principal force
behind the creation of these things.
❏ As the size and aspirations of great cities
increased, urban leaders launched
monumental projects to remake them.
❏ Some cities began to clear away old
neighborhoods and streets, and create new
and improved avenues and buildings.
The Creation of Public Space
❏ The efforts to remake the city did not focus
only on redesigning the existing landscapes.
❏
It also led to the creation of completely new ones.
❏ A great wave of annexations expanded the
boundaries of many American cities in the
1890’s and beyond.
The Search for Housing
❏ One of the greatest urban problems was
providing houses for the thousand of new
residents.
❏ The availability of cheap labor reduced the
cost of building and permitted anyone with
even a moderate income to afford a house.
The Search for Housing
❏ Modern people lived in the suburbs
❏ Chicago connected many suburbs by
railroads
❏ Most urban residents couldn’t afford homes
so they stayed in the city centers and
rented them
❏ Poor blacks lived in crumbling former slave
quarters
The Search for Housing
❏ Immigrants moved moved into cheap threestory wooden houses
❏ New arrivals lived in narrow brick row
houses.
❏ The first tenements were thought to be
improved living places for the poor but in
fact lacked heating, plumbing, and windows
Urban Technologies: Transportation
and Construction
❏ Urban growth posed monumental
transportation challenges.
❏ Sheer numbers of people mandated the
development of mass transportation.
❏ In 1870 New York opened its elevated
railway
Urban Technologies: Transportation
and Construction
❏ New York, Chicago, San Francisco also
experimented with cable cars
❏ Richmond, Virginia introduced the first
electric trolley line in 1888
❏ In 1897, Boston opened the first American
Subway
❏ New techniques on road and bridge building were
introduced
Urban Technologies: Transportation
and Construction
❏ One important technological marvel of the
1880s was the completion of the Brooklyn
Bridge
❏ Cities then grew upward and outward
❏ In 1884 the first skyscraper started being
built and this launched a new era of urban
agriculture
❏ A new technology of creation also came from this
Urban Technologies: Transportation
and Construction
❏ New steel grinders could support much
greater tension than that of the past
❏ Taller buildings were made possible by the
development of the passenger elevator
❏ The early Chicago skyscrapers paved the
way for other great construction marvels
later in the twentieth century
 New steel-frame made cities more fireproof
Did You Catch...
Who designed New York’s Central Park?
Answer: Frederick Law Olmsted and
Calvert Vaux
Strains of Urban
Life
Strains of Urban Life
❏ Increasing urban congestion and the
absence of public services produced serious
hazards such as crime, fire, disease, and
indigence.
❏ Chicago and Boston suffered “great fires”
in 1871, and other cities experienced
similar disasters.
Fire and Disease
❏ Because of the encouragement for the
construction of fireproof buildings, they
forced cities to rebuild at a time when
technological and architectural innovations
were available.
❏ Another great hazard other than fire was
disease, especially in poor neighborhoods.
Environmental Degradation
❏ Environmental degradation was a visible
and disturbing fact of life in many American
cities.
❏ The frequency of great fires, the dangers of
disease and plague, and the extraordinary
crowding of working-class neighborhoods all
exemplified the environmental costs of
industrialization and rapid urbanization.
Environmental Degradation
❏ The improper disposal of human and
industrial waste in most large cities and the
presence of domestic animals contributed
as well to the compromising of drinking
water and other environmental problems.
Riis’s exposure of the condition of New York's
water supply was mentioned in his fivecolumn story "Some Things We Drink," in the
21 August 1891 edition of the New York
Evening Sun. He wrote:
“I took my camera and went up in the
watershed photographing my
evidence wherever I found it.
Populous towns sewered directly into
our drinking water. I went to the
doctors and asked how many days a
vigorous cholera bacillus may live
and multiply in running water. About
seven, said they. My case was made.”
Jacob Riis
Urban Poverty, Crime, and Violence
❏ Urban expansion spawned widespread,
desperate poverty.
❏ Public agencies and private philanthropic
organizations were dominated by middleclass people who believed too much
assistance would breed dependency.
Urban Poverty, Crime, and Violence
❏ Charitable societies such as The Salvation
Army focused more on religious revivalism
instead of on relief of the homeless and the
hungry.
❏ Poverty and crowding also caused crime and
violence
❏ This caused the American murder rate to rise from 25
murders of every million people to over 100 by the end
of the century
Urban Poverty, Crime, and Violence
❏ Native-born Americans believed crime was
a result of the violent proclivities of
immigrant groups.
❏ Theodore Dreiser’s novel Sister Carrie
exposed another troubling aspect of urban
life: the plight of single women who found
themselves without support.
The Machine and the Boss
❏ Newly arrived immigrants were in need of
institutions to help them adjust to
American urban life.
❏
It was a political “machine” to most residents.
❏ Out of the chaotic growth of cities and
potential voting power of immigrant
communities emerged “urban bosses”
The Machine and the Boss
❏ The basic function of the political boss was
simple: to win votes for his organization.
❏ To win the loyalty of his constituents, he
would provide them with occasional relief—
a basket of groceries or a bag of coal.
❏ He awarded his followers with jobs.
The Machine and the Boss
❏ Machines were also vehicles for making
money.
❏
Politicians enriched themselves and their allies with
various forms of graft and corruption.
Did You Catch...
What two cities suffered great fires in 1871?
Answer: Boston and Chicago