HIS 112 Chapter 19

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HIS 112Chapter 19

• Toward an Urban Society

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A Move to The Cities

• 1861 1/6 of Americans lived in cities of 8000
• 1900 1/3 did
• 1920 1/2 did
• Americans moved to the cities because of
• Isolation
• Tedious, hard labor with few benefits
• Better-paying jobs for the literate and
  mechanically inclined

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• The migration at this time was primarily a white
  migration
• However, 500,000 blacks did join in this move in
  the 1890s
• Immigrants added to these numbers
• 1880s -1900 it was primarily the Irish and
  Germans who came
• 1900 1915 immigrants were primarily from
  Eastern Europe approximately 1 million came each
  year

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• Many of these immigrants stayed in the cities
  making them both diverse and crowded
• Many settled in ethnic ghettos usually near
  others from their various countries
• The complacent, settled-in American way of life
  was shaken up a bit, and then it took on a
  different, more blended appearance as it settled
  in once again

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Immigration

• East coast cities grew at a rapid rate
• Chicago and Boston -1/3 of the population in 1890
  had been born abroad
• Philadelphia ¼ of the population in 1890 had
  been born abroad
• Those figures would be much higher in 1900

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• Immigrants settled in neighborhoods according to
  their ethnic background
• Neighborhoods acted as buffers against prejudice
  and hostility
• In these neighborhoods they could cling to their
  language, customs, and food for security
• Other new arrivals wished to assimilate as soon
  as possible
• Usually it was the younger ones open to change

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• Most who came were unskilled laborers between the
  ages of 15 and 40
• 2/3 were male job-seekers
• Aid societies were created to help immigrants
  adjust to their new circumstances
• This sometimes encouraged clannishness

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Aid Societies

• Irish Benevolent Society
• German-American Society
• Polish National Alliance
• Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
• Young Mens and Young Womens Hebrew Associations
• St. Vincent de Paul Society begun by Catholics

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• Salvation Army
• First established in England by Methodists in
  1865
• Brought to U.S. in 1880 to provide food, shelter,
  and temporary employment for families

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• New York Charity Organization Society
• Begun by Josephine Shaw Lowell in 1882
• Tried to foster self-sufficiency
• Visits made to immigrants homes
• The society believed that moral deficiencies were
  at the root of all poverty
• Applied middle class values
• Tried to change peoples ways
• Disciplinarians

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• Settlement Houses
• The Neighborhood Guild founded in New York in
  1886
• Jane Addams Hull House was established in
  Chicago in 1889
• She felt hardships of slum life were beyond the
  control of individuals
• Relief workers lived and worked in poor
  neighborhoods
• Pressure placed on politicians to improve
  sanitation

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• Robert A. Woods South End House founded in
  Boston in 1892
• Lillian Wald Henrys Street Settlement
  established in New York in 1893
• The middle class would give them food, clothing,
  and shelter, teach them English, take them to
  concerts or art shows, and showed them American
  values
• Not only were Americans teaching American ways,
  they were also learning about other cultures

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Cities

• Originally there were walking cities
• Before the 1870s, people walked, had horses, or
  horse-drawn carriages
• Think of a circle within a circle
• Center circle 1 or 2 factories
• Next circle surrounding the other one this is
  where factory workers lived
• The next circle surrounding the last one Small
  businessmen and shop owners

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• The next circle mill owners and supervisors
• The last circle shantytown with no services
• That was the most common lay-out
• Changes in transportation brought changes to the
  citys layout

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• 1870s Before Walking, horses, and carriages
• Then Horse-car Lines that were horse-drawn
  streetcars that cost 5 cents and were used by
  middle class
• Next El or Elevated Train that was a
  steam-powered train that ran at high speeds above
  the streets. This allowed the rich and middle
  class to move to the suburbs. This made those in
  shantytowns move to city centers. The El was
  expensive to build and was noisy

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• The Electric Trolley
• built by Frank Sprague
• Changed walking city to commuting city
• Economical, fast, fairly quiet, clean, and easy
  to stop
• First built in Richmond, Virginia in 1887
• By 1895 there were 850 others

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• City center became more for business as people
  moved out
• Real estate values soared and led to muti-storied
  buildings
• Running out of land
• Too costly
• Electric elevator invented

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• I-shaped girders were created and formed the
  skeleton of the building
• Walls, then, did not have to be so thick
• Buildings seemed to scrape the sky skyscrapers
• New York was the most dramatic of skyscraper
  cities closely followed by Chicago
• Chicago had the first skyscraper built with steel
  girders 1871 Chicago Fire and the city had to be
  rebuilt

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• Louis H. Sullivan and John Root were the leaders
  of the skyscraper movement
• Another technological invention the Suspension
  Bridge by John Roebling
• German immigrant
• Arrived in 1831
• Engineer
• Had factory that made cables from twisting steel
  wire

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• Believed bridges could span broader rivers if
  they were hung from steel cables
• Wished to build a bridge to span East River that
  separated New York from Brooklyn
• Died in 1869 before bridge was completed
• His son Washington carried out his plan
• Brooklyn Bride was completed in 1883
• This eventually led to the incorporation of
  Brooklyn into the city of New York by law in 1898

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Death Rates in Cities

• Death rate in U.S. was 20 in the late 19th
  century
• In the cities, especially in the slums, the rate
  was much higher
• In New York 25 generally
• In New York slums 38
• Children under 5 in New York 136
• In Chicago slums in 1900 200
• In Chicago in 1900 1 in 5 infants not yet 1 year
  old died

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Why?

• Crowded living conditions
• Former single-family homes were carved up into
  tenement housing for 100 or more with one
  outhouse in backyard for 100
• Some lived in buildings without windows, without
  sun, and 20,000 living in basements which flooded

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• Jacob Riis
• Newspaper reporter
• Exposed the living conditions of the cities
• 1890, published How the Other Half Lived
• Found 330,000 people living in a square mile of
  slum
• 986.4 people per acre -- a living hell

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• Crowded conditions led to disease and epidemics
• Smallpox, cholera, measles, typhus, scarlet
  fever, diphtheria
• Chicken pox, mumps, whooping cough, croup,
  influenza
• Could prove fatal
• Hard to quarantine

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• Poor Sanitation
• Led to disease
• Outhouses for 100
• Trash, garbage
• Horse manure and dead animal carcasses
• Sewage dumped in river the same rivers people
  bathed in and used for drinking water
• Water piped in to houses full of chemicals
• Wealthy bought spring water
• Wells and public bath houses

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• Crime
• Petty thieves, pickpockets, purse-snatchers,
  violent robbery, gang violence, homicide
• Homicide rate tripled in cities in 1880s
• Prison populations grew by 50

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Social Thinkers

• Those concerned about the gap between rich and
  poor
• Those who wished to alleviate the misery of the
  factory workers and to create a better standard
  of living
• Henry George wrote Progress and Poverty in
  1879 proposed a solution for the uneven
  distribution of wealth
• Edward Bellamy wrote Looking Backwards in 1888
  about a man who falls asleep in 1888 and wakes up
  in 2000 in a Utopian society

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• Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital in 1867
• introduced Marxism
• Proletariat vs. Factory Owners
• Proletariat rises up and takes over the means of
  production (factories) and the state
• Withering away of the state
• Classless society

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Change

• Cities were changing and developing
• The way people lived changed
• How people were educated changed
• How people thought changed
• Products they used changed
• Sewing machines
• Clothes off the rack
• Breakfast cereals
• Canned meat

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• Indoor plumbing
• Washing machines
• Ice boxes
• Stoves, furnaces
• Electric lights
• Telephones
• Campbells soup
• Department stores
• Mail order Sears

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Higher Standard of Living

• For the rich, the middle class, and for laborers
• Spread of public education helped people to
  advance
• 1860 300 secondary schools in U.S. for 31.4
  million people
• 100 were free
• Girls attended for only a few years
• 560 colleges and universities mostly for elite
  there were some female seminaries

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• 1900 - 6,000 free secondary schools
• 1915 12,000 free secondary schools educating
  1.3 million students
• High schools began teaching courses to lead to a
  job in industry or business

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• Millionaires founded universities
• Harvard, Yale, and Princeton had long been
  established
• Cornell was founded in 1865
• Drew was founded in 1866
• Vanderbilt was founded in 1872
• Johns Hopkins was founded in 1876
• Carnegie Institute of Technology was founded
  in1905

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• Temple was founded for poor boys in 1884
• University of Rochester was founded by George
  Eastman

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• Some Midwestern colleges admitted women
• There were also colleges expressly for women
• Wesleyan (pre-Civil War)
• Mt. Holyoke (1837)
• Vassar (1865)
• Wellesley (1875)
• Smith (1875)
• Bryn Mawr (1885)

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• Barnard (1889)
• Pembroke ( 1891)
• Radcliffe (1893)
• The percentage of colleges admitting women rose
  from 31 in 1880 to 71 in 1900.
• These colleges aimed to develop self-confidence
  and less passive behavior.
• They wished to enable women to compete equally
  with men.

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• Catholics established the first university in the
  nations capital Catholic University ( 1889)
• Catholics also established
• Notre Dame (1842)
• Holy Cross (1843)
• Boston College (1863)

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Education for Blacks

• Segregation in the South was supported by the
  Supreme Court decision of 1896 in Plessy vs.
  Ferguson
• Schools were to be separate but equal
• In reality, they were separate and unequal
• Black schools were dilapidated, had outdated
  books, and poorly paid teachers
• 35 of black children attended school in 1890

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• In U.S. there were some higher educational
  opportunities for well-qualified blacks
• Example W.E.B. Du Bois earned a Ph.D. at
  Harvard and then founded the National Association
  for the Advancement of Colored People to agitate
  for advancement

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• Some colleges were founded just for blacks
• Howard University D.C. 1867
• Lincoln University -- Pennsylvania 1854
• Fisk University Nashville -- 1866
• Tuskegee Institute Alabama 1881 by Booker T.
  Washington who advocated getting skills, getting
  education, and working hard to get ahead
• On average 1 black in 3 above the age of 10
  couldnt read or write

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Victorian Morality

• Took hold at the end of 19th century
• Named for Queen Victoria of England
• Strict standards of dress, manners, and sexual
  behavior
• Intense morality
• Victorians believed progress would come through
  strenuous effort
• Strict codes of behavior with a heavy emphasis on
  self-control and self-discipline

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• Stressed the importance of culture
• Knowledge of the social graces
• Knowledge of literature
• Knowledge of the fine arts
• Knowledge of classical music
• Education all important

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• Refinement in speech and action
• Victorians supported museums of fine art
• They were pre-occupied with manners, rituals, and
  proper etiquette
• Strong belief in country and in religion
• Many middle class, writers, architects, and
  regular people began to react against Victorian
  practices at the turn of the century

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Thirst for Knowledge

• Went beyond formal education
• People read novels, poetry, and magazines
• They read Emerson, Longfellow, Whitman, Whittier,
  and Emily Dickinson
• They read Mark Twain, Henry James, Stephen Crane,
  Frank Norris, Jack London, and Theodore Dreiser
• Magazines were new and sold for 5, 10, or 35 cents

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• Magazines used the new advertising to help defray
  costs
• Literary Magazines Atlantic Monthly, Harpers
  Forum, and the Arena
• presented poetry, stories, and elegant essays
• Followed the genteel tradition
• Only certain subjects were deemed acceptable
• These magazines cost 35 cents.

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• Not so intellectual magazines Ladies Home
  Journal, Cosmopolitan, Munseys, and The Saturday
  Evening Post
• These magazines cost 10 or 15 cents
• They discussed womans role as wife, mother, and
  homemaker

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• Libraries were established
• Enoch Pratt donated 1 million to establish
  Baltimore libraries
• Samuel Tilden gave New York City 2 million
• William Newberry gave Chicago 4 million
• Andrew Carnegie helped found 2,000 free public
  libraries

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• Lyceum Movement ( a.k.a. Chautauqua)
• Travel to the mountains, lakes, nice healthy
  spots for training or lectures of some kind
• Originally for Sunday school teachers
• Later general topics were discussed marriage,
  childbearing, parenting
• Started in Chautauqua, New York
• Died out in 1930s during depression and revived
  in 1990s

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Leisure Time

• More of it
• Shorter work week
• Fewer children gave parents more time and money
• Middle class hadnt entirely accepted the concept
  of leisure time, so they went to the mountains
  for Chautauqua fun but educational
• Upper classes went to the Springs for the mineral
  waters for better health

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• Lower classes could take the trolley to an
  amusement park or go to a park for a picnic
• Coney Island N.Y.
• Willow Grove Philadelphia
• Paragon Park Boston
• Cheltenham Beach Chicago
• New Yorks Central Park
• The Boston Commons

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• Americans also turned to sports, both amateur and
  professional
• Croquet
• Archery tennis
• Baseball National League founded in 1876 the
  American League around 1901 with the first World
  Series held in 1903
• Football popular in schools and was seen as
  violent had to be regulated to prevent death

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• Boxing- people paid to watch a match initially
  for upper classes and later for others
• Basketball invented in Springfield,
  Massachusetts in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith and
  became popular in womens schools
• Cycling rivaled baseball in popularity could
  combine courtship with exercise and no
  chaperones influenced fashion

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• Golf enjoyed by both sexes
• A fitness craze spread across U.S. at turn of
  century there was a need because jobs were more
  sedentary

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• Show Business
• Circuses traveled more with the help of
  railroads
• Popular dramas and musical comedies gave
  Americans an escape from their harsh lives
• George M. Cohan musical comedy
• Lillian Russell comic opera
• Victor Herbert composer of comic operas
• Jerome Kern - composed more sophisticated
  musicals and musical comedies

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• Vaudeville probably the most popular
  entertainment of the early 20th century variety
  show
• Early movies perfected by Thomas Edison in
  1880s
• Phonographs
• Photographs

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Women

• Went through a few changes at the turn of the
  century besides the change in fashion fostered by
  the bicycle
• New Look the Gibson Girl, fine-featured, trim,
  coy, flirtatious, and seductive but also
  self-assured, athletic, and had some
  independence an image from a magazine
  illustrator, Dana Gibson