• The Urbanization of America

• The Life of the City

• Urban pop- increased 7x in 50 yrs after Civil War

• 1920- majority of ppl lived in urban areas.

• Occurred partly b/c of natural growth

• immigrants and rural ppl flocked b/c offered better paying

jobs than rural areas

• cultural experiences available, transportation to cities easier

than ever

• Migrations
th
• Late 19 century saw geographic mobility-

• Americans left declining Eastern agricultural regions for new

farmlands in West and for cities of East

• Women moved from farms where mechanization decreased their

value

• Southern blacks moved to cities to escape rural poverty,

oppression, violence

• Largest source of urban growth immigrants: until 1880s mainly

educated N Europeans

• skilled laborers, businessmen or moved West to start farms.

• After 1880s largely S and E Europeans,

• lacked capital (like poor Irish immigrants before Civil War)

so took mainly unskilled jobs

• The Ethnic City

• amount of immigrants tremendous

• diversity of immigrant population (no single national group

dominated)

• Most immigrants were rural ppl

• formed close-knit ethnic communities to ease transition-

offered native newspapers, food, links to national past

• Assimilation of ethnic groups into capitalist economy

• depended on values of community

 • prejudices among employers, individual skills and capital

• Assimilation

• Most immigrants had desire to become true “Americans” and

break with old national ways.

• Particular strain w/ women who in America shared more

freedoms- adjust to more fluid life of American city

• Assimilation encouraged by Natives thru public schools and

employer requirement to learn English, religious leaders

• Exclusion

• Immigrant arrival provoked many fears + resentments of some

native-born ppl.

• Reacted out of prejudice, foreign willingness to accept lower

wages

• Political response to these resentments

• American Protective Association founded by Henry Bowers

1887,

• Immigration Restriction League sought to screen/reduce

immigrants.

• 1882 Congress passed Chinese Exclusion Act, also denied

entry to all “undesirables” and placed small tax on

immigrants

• New laws kept only small amount out.

• Literacy requirement vetoed by president Grover Cleveland—anti-

immigrant measures failed mainly b/c many natives welcomed it,

provided growing economy w/ cheap and plentiful labor

• The Urban Landscape

• The Creation of Public Space

th
• By mid-19 century reformers and planners began to call for

ordered vision of city, resulted in creation of public spaces and

public services
 • Urban parks solution to congestion, allowed escape from strain of

urban life. 1850s Central Park famously planned by Frederick

Olmsted and Calvert Vaux

• Great public buildings (libraries, museums, theaters), spurred by

wealthy residents who wanted amenities to match material and

social aspirations

• Urban leaders undertook massive city rebuilding projects- “City

Beautiful Movement” inspired by architect Daniel Burnham-

provide order and symmetry to disorderly life of city (faced

opposition from private landowners)

• Housing the Well-to-Do

• Availability of cheap labor + materials lowered cost of building in

th
late 19 century. Most wealthy lived in mansions, but later

moderately well-to-do and wealthy both began to build and

commute from suburban communities nearby

• Housing Workers and the Poor

• Most residentsforced to stay in city and rent- demand high and

space scarce led to little bargaining power. Landlords tried to get

most ppl in smallest space

• “Tenements” came to refer to overcrowded slum dwellings.

Poverty and rough tenement life showcased by reporter Jacob Riis

in his 1890 How the Other Half Lives. Some immigrants also

boarded in small family homes

• Urban Transportation

• Old, narrow dirty streets insufficient to deal w/ urban growth and

need for ppl to move everyday to difft parts of city- new forms of

mass transit needed

• Cities experimented w/ elevated railways, cable cars, by 1895

electric trolley lines, and in 1897 Boston opened first subway in

nation

• New road, bridge tech also developed (e.g. John Roebling’s

Brooklyn Bridge)
 • The “Skyscraper”

• Inadequate structural materials and stairs prevented tall buildings

until 1870s iron and steal beam development. After Civil War

buildings grew successively taller, 1890s term “skyscraper”

introduced

• Steel girder construction allowed city’s w/ limited space to

expand upward if not outward. Architect Louis Sullivan famous

skyscraper designer

• Strains of Urban Life

• Fire and Disease

• Fires destroyed large parts of downtown areas w/ buildings made

mainly of wood. “Great fires” led to fireproof buildings,

professional fire departments

• Diseases from poor neighborhoods w/ inadequate sanitation and

sewage disposal threatened epidemics that could spread thru

whole city

• Environmental Degradation

• Industrialization and rapid urbanization led to improper disposal

of human and industrial waste that threatened waterways and

drinking water, air quality suffered from burning of stoves and

furnaces
th
• By early 20 century reformers: seeking new sewage and

drainage systems; Physician Alive Hamilton looked to identify and

correct pollution in workplace; 1912 fed govt created Public

Health Service created factory health standards to prevent

occupational diseases (weak b/c no enforcement power)

• Urban Poverty

• Expansion of city created poverty, sheer number of ppl meant

many unable to earn decent subsistence. Public agencies and

private philanthropic groups offered limited relief, and if they did

mostly only to the poorest

 • Some groups focused on religious revivalism as relief; others

alarmed at great number of poor children in streets (some lives

on their own)– “street arabs”

• Crime and Violence

• Poverty and crowding created violence, crime. Murder rate rose

nationwide, and rising crime rates prompted cities to create

larger, more professional police forces. Armories also developed

b/c of fear of urban insurrections

• Fear of the City

• City offered allure and excitement, but also alienation and

feelings of anonymity (e.g. Theodore Dreiser’s 1900 Sister Carrie

about displaced single women)

• The Machine and the Boss

• Newly arrived immigrants sought assistance from political

machines- created by power vacuum of cities, voting power of

large immigrant communities

• Urban “bosses” sought votes for his organization by winning

loyalty of constituents thru relief, jobs for unemployed, patronage

• Machines enriched politicians b/c of graft and corruption from

contractors or investment from inside knowledge- most notorious

was William Tweed of NY’s Tammany Hall during 1860s/1870s

• In spite of middle class reformers citing machines as obstacles to

progress, boss rule possible b/c immigrant voters wanted services

first and foremost & weakness of city govts

• The Rise of Mass Consumption

• Patterns of Income and Consumption

• Growing markets and demand turn of century b/c of production

and mass distribution made goods less expensive, also b/c of

rising incomes of “white collar” professionals and working-class

ppl despite union failures

• Mass market also grew b/c affordable prices and new

merchandising techniques allowed goods to reach more

 consumers (e.g. ready-made clothing after Civil War and rise of

fashion)

• Food transformed by tin cans, refrigerated RR cars for

perishables, home iceboxes. Allowed for better diet and higher

life expectancy

• Chain Stores and Mail-Order Houses

• Way in which Americans bought goods altered- local stores faced

competition from “chain stores” whose national network could

sell manufactured goods at lower prices. Customers couldn’t

resist great variety + lower prices of chains

• Chain stores slow to rural areas but gained access thru mail-order

houses-notably 1880s Montgomery Wary and Sears Roebuck mail

order catalogues

• Department Stores

• Dept stores transformed shopping by bringing together many

products under one roof (clothing, furniture) previously in

separate shops; gave allure and excitement to shopping;

economies of scale enabled lower prices than comp

• Women as Consumers

• Mass consumption affected women greatest b/c primary

consumers in family. Spawned consumer protection movement w/

National Consumers League 1890s under Florence Kelley to force

retainers for better wages, conditions

• Leisure in the Consumer Society

• Redefining Leisure
th
• Leisure had been previously scorned, but redefinition in late 19

century b/c economic expansion and greater worker time away

from work leisure began to be a normal part of everyday life

(economist Simon Pattern wrote of this in his 1902 The Theory of

Prosperity and 1910 The New Basis of Civilization)

• New forms of leisure had public character- time spent mostly in public spaces, part of

appeal of leisure was time spent w/ large crowds

• Spectator Sports

• Search for public forms of leisure led to rise of organized

spectator sports

• Saw rise of baseball as “national pastime”, leagues formed in

1870s. Football became standardized 1870s and began to grew.

Boxing grew in the 1880s after adoption of Marquis of

Queensberry rules

• Spectator sports had close association with gambling w/

elaborate betting syndicates. Prompted sports to “clean up” and

regulate games

• Music and Theater

• Large market of cities allowed theaters to be maintained in ethnic

communities, musical comedies developed, and vaudeville widely

popular

• The Movies

• Thomas Edison and others laid tech for motion picture 1880s,

soon projectors allowed showings on big screens in theaters w/

large audiences. By 1900 very popular, especially after DW

Griffith introduced his silent epics

• Working-Class Leisure

• Workers spent great amt of leisure time on streets b/c had much

time but little money. Also popular were neighborhood saloons

(often ethnic), served as political centers b/c saloonkeepers often

involved in political machines (largely b/c they had regular

contact w/ many men in a neighborhood)

• Boxing also emerged as a poplar sport- bare knuckle fights by

ethnic clubs

• The Fourth of July

th
• B/c most ppl worked six-day workweek w/o vacations, 4 of July

became a full day of leisure and an impt highlight in the year of

ethnic, working-class communities. Massive neighborhood

celebrations often w/ drinking

 • Private Pursuits

• Reading remained popular as leisure activity, w/ Louisa Alcott’s

Little Women (1869) capturing a large women audience

• Public music performances popular, but also learning instrument w/in home

• Mass Communications

• Large urban market for transmitting news and information in

urban industrial society- rise in publishing in journalism after Civil

War w/ increase in newspaper circulation, rise of national press

services using telegraph to supply news to papers across country

• Rise of newspaper chains, especially competition btwn William

Randolph Hearst + Joseph Pulitzer (rise of sensational “yellow

journalism to sell papers)

• High Culture in the Age of the City

• The Literature of Urban America

• Some writers responded to new industrial civilization by evoking

more natural world, others sought to use literature to recreate

urban social reality

• Realism led by Stephen Crane (famous for The Red Badge of

Courage in 1895) who showed urban poverty and slum life.

Theodore Dreiser highlighted social dislocations and injustices.

There authors followed by Frank Norris’ The Octopus (1901) and

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906) which showed depravity of

capitalism by exposing abuses in meatpacking industry

• Art in the Age of the City

• By 1900 many American artists breaking from Old World

traditions of Eur and experiment w/ new styles. Some turning

away from traditional, academic style toward exploring grim

aspects of modern life

• Ashcan School produced stark portrayal of social realities,

showcased expressionism and abstraction at famous 1913 art

“Armory Show”
 • Beginning of modernism- rejected past and embraced new

subjects, glorified the ordinary, coarse over genteel tradition

+“dignified” aspects of civilization, embraced the future over

“standards” of past- individual creativity

• The Impact of Darwinism

• Darwin argued evolution from earlier species thru “natural

selection”, challenged traditional American religious faith. By end

of century most urban professionals and members of educated

classes converted; taught in schools

• Darwinism led to schism btwn culture of city receptive to new

ideas and the traditional, provincial culture of rural areas tied to

religion and older values

• Other intellectual movements included Social Darwinism of

William Sumner, “pragmatism” of William James that valued

scientific inquiry + experience

• Relativism spawned by Darwinism led to growth of anthropology

and study of other cultures (notably Native American culture)

• Toward Universal Schooling

• Dependence on specialized skills and scientific knowledge led to

demand for education. Spread of free public primary and

secondary education, compulsory attendance laws in many

states. Rural education still lagged

• Some reformers including Richard Pratt targeted native tribes to

“civilize” them- urged practical “industrial” education. Failed b/c

resistance, funding
th
• Colleges grew late 19 century, benefited from Morrill Land

Grant Act of Civil War era that donated large amt of land for

colleges; also from contributions made by business and financial

tycoons

• Education for Women

• Expansion of educational opportunities for women (although

lagged behind that of men). Public high schools accepted women,

and network of women’s colleges emerged that served to create

distinctive women’s community