Urbanization

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Urbanization Immigration

• Objective 5.01

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Big Cities

• NYC grew from around 800,000 inhabitants in 1860
  to almost 3.5 million by 1900
• Chicago also grew at an astounding rate, in 1860
  it was estimated to hold only 109,000 and by 1900
  had more than 1.6 million

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NYC skyline circa 1912
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People Who Came

• Lacked money to buy farms and an education to
  obtain higher paying jobs
• Included both rural Americans and immigrants

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What did big cities offer?

• Better paying jobs
• Bright lights, running water, plus many things to
  see and do
• Museums, theaters, etc.

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Leisure Activities

• Amusement Parks
• 1897Steeplechase Park at Coney Island opened
• Spectator Sports
• Baseball became a part of American life
• 1903First world seriesBoston won

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• Central Park
• Designed by Frederick Olmstead
• Completed in 1873
• Gave free leisure activity to city dwellers

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Urban Environment

• New approaches were used by engineers and
  architects to accommodate for the large flood of
  people into the cities

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• Skyscrapers began to appear
• 1stChicagos Home Insurance Building in 1885 (10
  stories)
• NYC soon caught up and had more than any other
  city
• By late 1880sthe electric elevator had been
  invented, which helped to make these buildings
  more practical

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• Mass Transit
• At first, horse cars were useda RR car pulled by
  a horse
• 1887Electric trolley is invented
• Later, cities would want public off streets
• Chicagoelevated RR
• Boston NYCfirst subway systems

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New Inventions

• Alexander Graham Bell
• 1876Telephone
• Revolutionized both business and personal
  communication

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• Thomas Edison
• 1877Phonograph
• 1879Light bulb and electric generator
• 1882Edison Electric Illuminating Company
  launched new industry to provide electricity to
  customers in NYC (Today is known as GE)

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• Charles and J. Frank Duryea
• 1893Gasoline Powered Car

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Conditions of Cities

• Major problems for working poor
• Crime
• Violence
• Fire
• Disease
• Pollution

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• Native-born Americans blamed immigrants for the
  increase in crime and violence
• Alcohol played a major role in the increase of
  violent crime
• Jacob Riisblamed alcohol for breeding poverty,
  corrupting politics, and bringing suffering to
  the families of drunkards

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European Immigration

• By 1890s more than half of all immigrants in the
  U.S. were eastern and southern Europeans
• (Italians, Greeks, Poles, Russians, etc.)

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• Why America?
• Plenty of jobs
• Few immigration restrictions
• To avoid military service back home
• To avoid religious persecutionJews from Russia
  and Poland

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• Where?
• They came to the U.S. through Ellis Island
• Ethnic groups bonded and lived in the same areas
• Little Italy Jewish Lower East Side
• Made cities a center of cultural pluralismone or
  more cultural existing side by side

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• Housing
• Many lived in tenementsapartment buildings that
  would share facilities
• Crowded and unsanitary but helpful to give
  shelter to those who were poor

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• Helping Immigrants
• Jane Addams created the Hull House for the poor
  in Chicago to provide social and education
  opportunities

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Asian Immigration

• Chinese began coming to the U.S in the mid-1800s
• Japanese also came but on a much smaller scale

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• Why America?
• Moneydiscovery of gold in CA, work in RRs
• Over population in China
• Taiping Rebellion
• Where?
• Arrived through Angel Island in San Francisco

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Resurgence of Nativism

• Focused on Irish-Catholics in the past
• Now began to focus on Asians, Jews, and other
  Eastern Europeans
• Labor unions disliked because immigrants would
  work for lower costs and undermine strikes

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• Chinese Exclusion Act
• Passed in 1882
• Barred Chinese immigration for 10 years and
  prevented those already in U.S. from citizenship
• Later renewed in 1892 and made permanent in 1902
• Remained in force until 1943

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Melting Pot

• As a result of immigration and urbanization, by
  the end of the 1800s, the U.S. was known as a
  Melting Pot