The Emergence of Urban America

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The Emergence of Urban America

• Chapter 7 and 8

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Introduction

• American society changed in 5 fundamental ways
  from the 1860s to 1900
• Industrialization
• Close of the Western frontier
• Urbanization
• Immigration
• Intellectual challenge

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The Modern City

• The modern city was the product of
  industrialization. Cities contained the great
  investment banks, mills, sweatshops, railroad
  yards, housing tenements, mansions, department
  stores, and skyscrapers.
• During the 50 years after the Civil War, the
  population of the United States increased from 31
  million to 91 million.
• In 1860, one American in six lived in a city with
  a population of 8000 or more in 1900, one in
  three did. By 1920 more than half the nation
  lived in cities.

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The Modern City

• Before industrialization, cities were not as
  common. Cities at the time of the American
  Revolution, for example, all had small
  populations. Philadelphia was the largest with
  30,000.
• Move ahead to 1870, Los Angeles barely had 6,000
  people. By 1900 it was the second largest city on
  the Pacific coast with 100,000 residents.
• Large urban centers began to dominate whole
  regions, tying the country together in a vast
  urban network. Who were the people contributing
  to this urban explosion?

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Populationthe Great Global Migration

• People came from places as near as the
  countryside and as far away as Italy, Russia, and
  China.
• Between 1820 and 1920, some 60 million people
  across the globe left farms and villages for
  cities.
• In Europe the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815
  launched a cycle of baby booms that continued at
  20-year intervals for the rest of the century.
• Improved diet and sanitation reduced deaths.
• Meanwhile the machinery cut the need for
  farmworkers. Surplus farmworkers became a part of
  a vast international labor force, pulled by
  industry to cities in Europe and America.

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New Immigration

• Earlier European immigrants to the U.S. had come
  from northern western Europe.
• In the 1880s, immigrants came from southern and
  eastern Europe.
• Ex. Russians, Polish, Italians, etc.
• Few spoke English
• Most were not Protestants.
• Ex. Catholic, Russian Orthodoxy, Jewish, etc.
• Difference in culture, language, and religion
  brought new problems with assimilation.
• By 1900 immigrants made up about 15 percent of
  the population.

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NewImmigration

• Ellis Island in New York/New Jersey
• Opened in 1892 near the Statue of Liberty (1886)
• By 1902, it was processing 5,000 immigrants per
  day
• Purpose to process immigrants, not welcome them
• They had to pass a medical examination, have
  their names recoded by customs officials, and pay
  an entry tax. At any point, they could be
  detained or shipped home.
• Angel Island in San Francisco

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NativistResponse

• Nativism
• A defensive and fearful nationalism
• New immigrants viewed as a threat
• Attacked Catholics, Jews, and foreigners
• Many immigrants were illiterate or appeared to be
  because they could not speak English
• Immigration restriction
• Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
• The urgent need for railway labor had ebbed
• Chinese made up one-ninth of Calif. population in
  1880
• Not repealed until 1943
• In 1917, Congress excluded illiterates

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The Cities Take ShapePatterns of Settlement

• In colonial days, walking cities developed
  ringed patterns of settlement. Shops and upper
  classes in the city center and poor along the
  fringe.
• By the late 19th century, industrialization had
  reversed that order as the middle and upper
  classes moved out of the growing industrial core.
  
• Evolving system of urban transportation
• San Francisco developed trolley cars pulled by
  steam-driven cables in the 1880s.
• Electric trollies were introduced in 1888. Boston
  had the first subway in 1897.
• Allowed cities to grow horizontally.

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Bridges and Skyscrapers

• Bridges connected parts of cities that grew along
  rivers. The Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883 (13
  years to build)
• Steel and elevators allowed buildings to become
  skyscrapers, thus combating the growing
  congestion came to symbolize the modern
  industrial city. Allowed cities to grow
  vertically.

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Slum and Tenement

• Below the skyscrapers lay the slums and tenements
  of the inner city were the city poor lived. Often
  places of disease, filth, and cramped living
  conditions.
• Perils of a slum neighborhood
• Congestion average block had 4,000 people
• Sanitation sewers dumped in rivers used for
  drinking water communal water closets (16
  families would share 2 toilets), no windows
• Epidemics cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis
• 25 of children born in American cities in 1890
  did not reach their first birthday

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Running and Reforming the City

• Running cities became a full-time job
• Schools and houses had to be built, streets
  paved, garbage collected, sewers dug, fires
  fought, etc.
• A new breed of full-time politicians rose to the
  task.
• Problem city governments were often
  decentralized and at odds with one another
• Boss Rule (Urban Political Machines)

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Boss Rule (Urban Political Machines)

• Furnished cities with the centralization needed
• A crude welfare system (Adjust to city life)
• A Christmas turkey, a load of coal for winter,
  jobs for the unemployed, English-language classes
  for recent immigrants, sports teams, etc.
• In return, citizens expressed their gratitude at
  the ballot box and the boss became wealthy with
  kickbacks and payoff money.
• Example Boss William Tweed (New York)

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A Culture of Consumption

• The city spawned a new material culture built
  around consumption
• Affluence enabled many to enjoy greater leisure
  time and rising discretionary income
• Mass consumption was giving rise to a mass
  culture department stores, chain stores
  (working-class), and mail order
• Urban Middle-Class Life
• The home as haven and status symbol
• Over 1/3 of middle class urbanites owned homes
• The middle-class homemaker
• A woman was judged by the state of her home

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City Life Mass Entertainment

• Civic leaders built museums, libraries, and
  public parks (Central Park)
• Cities also offered dance halls (rise of popular
  music)and sporting events, amusement parks and
  vaudeville (variety) shows
• Barnum and Baileys traveling circus and Buffalo
  Bills Wild West Show crisscrossed the U.S. and
  the world.

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City Life Mass Entertainment

• Leisure
• Croquet and tennis courts
• Bicycles
• Saloons offered pool tables, bowling alleys, and
  dart boards
• Spectator sports for the urban masses
• Horse racing and boxing
• College, football, basketball, and baseball
• Sports and class distinctions

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Baseball

• Americas national pastime
• Started in 1845 in New York by Alexander
  Cartwright
• First professional team was the Cincinnati Red
  Stockings in 1869
• Most democratic sport in America
• All social classes attended the game
• A common loyalty to a city baseball
  team and a sense of belonging
• Adapting to America (Assimilation)
• Blacks played in Negro leagues

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Education

• Public Education in an Urban Industrial World
• Americanize immigrant children
• Spread of secondary schools
• 1860 100 public high schools 1900 6,000
  
• Higher Learning
• Postgraduate education
• 1870 52,000 1920 600,000
• Higher education for women
• Graduate School
• By the 1890s the Ph.D. was becoming a requirement
  for professors
• Professional schools for theology, law, medicine,
  dentistry, pharmacy, and veterinary medicine.
• Professional licensing began

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Victorianism and the Pursuit of Virtue

• Victorianism dictated that personal conduct be
  based on orderly behavior and disciplined
  moralism.
• Reformers attempted to address the disorder of a
  rapidly industrializing society increasing
  alcoholism, venereal disease, gambling debts,
  prostitution, and unwanted pregnancies.
• Womens Christian Temperance Union
• No alcohol and promote sexual purity
• Comstock Law (1873)
• Banned from the mail all materials designed to
  incite lust.

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Conclusion

• As the 19th century drew to a close, the city was
  reshaping the country, just as industrialization
  had reshaped the economy.
• Cities stood at the center of the new industrial
  order.
• Some celebrated the city as a great melting
  pot. Others feared the attack on traditional
  American values.
• All Americans had to search for ways to make that
  world work.

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Significant Events
? 1870 Elevated rail begins operation in New York
City
? 1873 Comstock Law enacted
? 1874 Womens Christian Temperance Union founded
? 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
? 1883 Brooklyn Bridge opens
? 1885 Worlds first skyscraper constructed in
Chicago
? 1889 Hull House opens in Chicago
? 1892 Ellis Island opens
? 1894 Immigration Restriction League organized
? 1897 Boston opens first subway
Chapter 20