Toward an Urban Society
1

By the early 1900s immigrant populations were overwhelming
American cities
 More Poles in Chicago than in Warsaw, Poland!
 More Irish in New York than in Dublin, Ireland!

Many immigrants often lived in neighborhoods with others
who shared their background
 This helped them adapt to the new culture

Many African Americans moved North to cities like Detroit
and Chicago
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4

Row houses became very popular

Working class families were moving out
of the city

Dumbbell tenements were oddly
shaped in include an air shaft
• Unfortunately people began
to use them as a garbage
disposal
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WATER/SANITATION
TRANSPORTATION




PROBLEM: People can’t get to
work
Streetcars
Cable cars
Subways


Many tenements did not have fresh water
Diseases were spread
• Horse manure in the streets
• sewage in the gutters
• foul smoke from factories
7
 Lack
of water
 Wooden
 1853
dwellings
– first paid fire
dept.
 1874
– first auto fire
sprinkler
 1844
– first organized
police force
Chicago Fire 1871
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Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Total Immigration, 1861-1900
13
Baltimore 1850
Baltimore 1910
 The Diverse Immigrant Populations
 Lived in ghettos together
 Why did this make it easier to
adjust?
 Importance of Ethnic Ties
 Felt more comfortable
 Continued traditions
 Advanced in society
15
 Assimilation Encouraged
 Mainly English
 Stores sold American food and clothing
 Immigration Restriction League
 Screen immigrants through literacy tests
 “desirable” and “undesirable”
 What was the benefit to so much immigration?
16
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17
“Immigration Under Attack,” 1903
18
(New York Public Library.
Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations)

About a one week trip

Immigrants stayed in steerage

Checked for diseases
• This could take up to 5 hours!

Needed to:
• Pass a test
• Able to work
• $25

From 1892-1943, more than 16
million immigrants passed
through!
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 Chinese
and others arrived off
the coast of San Francisco at
Angel Island
 Between
1910-1940 50,000
Chinese entered through Angel.
 VERY
long admission
process
 Kept
like prisoners
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• Built to represent something different than a city
• Libraries, parks, theaters
• Who supported the construction of these projects?
The Mall in Central Park, 1902 (Library of Congress)
25

What were the various positives and negatives of
Tweed and other bosses?

Often were vehicles for making money

“Boss” Tweed
VIDEO:
BOSS TWEED
26
 End
of Reconstruction marks shift of attention to
new concerns
 Population
growth
• 1877: 47 million
• 1900: 76 million
• 1900: population more diverse
 Urbanization,
industrialization changing all
aspects of American life
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 Victorian
morality dictates dress, manners
 Protestant
religious values strong
 Mugwumps
 Women’s
Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
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 Domestic
leisure: card, parlor, yard games
 Sentimental
ballads, ragtime popular
 Entertainment
•
•
outside home
Circus immensely popular
Baseball, football, basketball
 Street
lights, streetcars make evening a time for
entertainment and pleasure
30

"New women”: Self-supporting careers
• How were they viewed?

Demand an end to gender discrimination

Speak openly about once-forbidden topics
• Divorce, equal pay, etc..

Susan B. Anthony helped to create the
National American Women’s Suffrage
Association (NAWSA)
31
 Trend
is toward universal education: By 1900, 31
states and territories had compulsory education
laws
 Purpose
of public education was to train people
for life and work in industrial society
 1896:
Plessy v. Ferguson allows “separate but equal”
schools
• Challenges under the 14th amendment; loses in a 7-1 decision
32
 What
societal issues were created following the
ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson?
 What
is the obvious oversight in this court
decision?
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4Wyb7f-iNc
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
Booker T. Washington vs. W.E.B. Du Bois

National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP)
“Is it possible and probable that nine millions
of men can make effective progress in economic lines if
they are deprived of political rights, made a servile caste,
and allowed only the most meager chance for developing
their exceptional men?”
W. E. B. Du Bois
35
Most mainstream or old line Protestant
churches struggle to address plight of
urban poor
 Jane Addams: Reformer,
 Catholicism thrives, founds
studies social ills, founds Hull
schools and parishes
House in Chicago in 1889


SOCIAL GOSPEL is preached

(vs. SOCIAL DARWINISM)
Florence Kelley joined in
the movement to popularize
Settlement Houses
 founded to provide assistance to
poor and new immigrants

Provided aid and education
36
Political Realignments of the 1890s
© 2011, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
37
 Politics
was a major fascination of the late nineteenth
century
 White
males made up bulk of electorate
• Women allowed to vote in national elections only in
Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Colorado
• Black men denied vote by poll tax, literacy tests
 Grandfather Clause
38

Democrats emphasize state’s rights and limited government

Republicans see government as agent to promote moral progress and material wealth

One-party control of both Congress and White House rare

“Doubtful” states
• What were these?

Federal influence wanes, state control rises
39
 State
government commissions investigate, regulate
railroads, factories
 Munn
v. Illinois (1877) upholds constitutionality of state
investigations
 Wabash
case (1886) prompts establishment of Interstate
Commerce Commission (ICC)
 ICC
prototype for modern regulatory agencies
40
 Presidency
 Later
•
•
•
•
hits nadir under Johnson
presidents reassert executive power
Hayes ended military Reconstruction
Garfield asserted leadership of his party
Arthur strengthened navy, civil service reform
Cleveland used veto to curtail federal activities, called for
low tariffs
41
© 2011, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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 Discontented
farmers of West and South provide
base of support
 The
National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial
Union the result
46
 Worldwide
agricultural economy causes great fluctuations
in supply and demand
 Farmers’
•
•
•
complaints:
Lower prices for crops (although purchasing power rising)
Rising railroad rates (rates actually declining)
Onerous mortgages (loans permit production expansion)
 Conditions
 General
of farmers vary by region
feeling of depression, resentment
47
48
 1875:
Southern Alliance begins
 Alliance
movement segregated, Colored Farmer’s
National Alliance
• Destroyed after leaders lynched in 1891
 1889:
Regional Alliances merge into National Farmer’s
Alliance
49
 System
of government warehouses to hold crops for
higher prices
 Free coinage of silver
 Low tariffs
 Federal income tax
 Direct election of Senators
 Regulation of railroads
50
 Southern
Alliance splits from Democrats to form
Populist party
 Southern
Populists recruit African Americans,
give them influential positions
 1892:
Populist presidential candidate James Weaver
draws over one million votes
• Loses South to violence and intimidation by Southern Democrats
• Loses urban areas
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