TOWARD AN URBAN SOCIETY, 1877-1900

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TOWARD AN URBAN SOCIETY, 1877-1900

• America Past and Present
• Chapter 19

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The Lure of the City

• City becomes a symbol of the new America between
  1870-1900
• Explosive urban growth
• Sources included immigration, movement from
  countryside
• Six cities over 500,000 by 1900

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Skyscrapers and Suburbs

• Steel permits construction of skyscrapers
• Streetcars allow growth of suburbs
• Two defining characteristics of American city

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Tenements and Privies

• Tenements house urban dwellers
• Tenement problems
• inadequate sanitation
• poor ventilation
• polluted water
• Urban problems
• poor public health
• juvenile crime

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Strangers in a New Land

• By 1900 most urban dwellers foreign-born or
  children of immigrants
• 1880s--eastern, southern European immigrants
  prompt resurgent Nativism
• Nativist organizations try to limit immigration

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Immigration to the United States, 1870-1900
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Immigrants and the CityFamilies and Ethnic
Identity

• Immigrants marry within own ethnic groups
• More children born to immigrants than to
  native-born Americans

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Immigrants and the CityInstitutions

• Immigrant associations
• preserve old country language and customs
• aid the process of adjustment
• Immigrant establish religious, educational
  institutions, media which preserve traditions

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The House That Tweed Built

• Urban party machines headed by bosses
• Some bosses notoriously corrupt, e.g. William
  Tweed of New York City
• Most trade services for votes
• Most bosses improve conditions in cities

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Social and Cultural Change 1877-1900

• End of Reconstruction marks shift of attention to
  new concerns
• Population growth
• 187747 million
• 190076 million
• 1900 population more diverse
• Urbanization, industrialization changing all
  aspects of American life

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Urban and Rural Population, 1870-1900 (in
millions)
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Manners and Mores

• Victorian morality dictates dress, manners
• Protestant religious values strong
• Reform underpinned by Protestantism

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Leisure and Entertainment

• 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

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Changes in Family Life

• Urbanization, industrialization alter family
• Family life virtually disappears among
  poorly-paid working class
• Suburban commute takes fathers from middle-class
  homes
• Tensions for women
• Domesticity encouraged
• Identity as mere housewife almost shameful

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Changing Views A Growing Assertiveness among
Women

• "New women"--self-supporting careers
• Demand an end to gender discrimination
• Speak openly about once-forbidden topics

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Educating the Masses

• Few students reach the sixth grade
• Teaching unimaginative, learning passive
• Segregation, poverty compound problems of
  Southern education
• 1896Plessy v. Ferguson allows "separate but
  equal" schools

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Higher Education

• Colleges and universities flourish
• Greater emphasis on professions, research
• More women achieve college education

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African-Americans and Higher Education

• African-Americans usually confined to all-black
  institutions like Tuskegee
• Booker T. Washington--accommodate racism,
  concentrate on practical education
• W.E.B. DuBois--demand quality, integrated
  education

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The Stirrings of Reform

• Social Darwinists see attempts at social reform
  as useless and harmful
• Reformers begin to seek changes in U.S. living,
  working conditions

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Progress and Poverty

• Henry George the rich getting richer, the poor,
  poorer
• Georges solution tax land, wealths source

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New Currents in Social Thought

• Clarence Darrow rejects Social Darwinism, argues
  poverty at crimes root
• Richard T. Elys New Economics urges government
  intervention in economic affairs
• Liberal Protestants preach "Social Gospel"
• Purpose reform industrial society
• Means introduce Christian standards into
  economic sphere

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The Settlement Houses

• Famous Houses
• 1886--Stanton Coits Neighborhood Guild, New
  York
• 1889Jane Addams' Hull House, Chicago
• 1892Robert A. Woods South End House, Boston
• 1893Lillian Walds Henry Street Settlement, New
  York
• Characteristics
• Many workers women
• Classical, practical education for poor
• Study social composition of neighborhood

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A Crisis in Social Welfare

• Depression of 1893 reveals insufficiency of
  private charity
• New professionalism in social work
• New efforts to understand povertys sources
• Increasing calls for government intervention
• Social tensions engender sense of crisis