Urbanization

Unit 1 Part 4
Expanding Cities/Urban Problems
U.S. population doubled 1870-1900 & urban population TRIPLED
Industrial jobs & lure of urban lifestyle
Immigrants crowding into cities aggravating problems of
Overcrowding
Public health
Crime
Immorality
Immigrants made up increasing proportion of urban population
They had few resources to buy land or farm equipment
All eastern cities develop ethnic neighborhoods Little Italy, Chinatown,
etc.
Cities expanded up (skyscrapers) and out (trolley)
Cont.
Problems in cities included:
Sewage (Chicago River an open sewer by 1890s)
Lack of drinkable water
Garbage disposal piled up in streets, rooting pigs
Mounting waste showed shift to consumption
Fire protection inadequate (all wood bldgs.)
GREAT CHICAGO FIRE! 1871 3 days, 300 dead, 100,000 homeless,
$200 million destruction
Unsanitary living conditions led to disease
Overcrowding & shoddy housing
Tenements
Tenement Slum Living
The New Immigrants
25 million between 1866 and 1915
FROM SOUTHERN & EASTERN EUROPE
Italians, Greeks, Jews, Slavs, Armenians, etc.
Push factors:
European pop growth due to US food imports & European industrialization
Led to collapse of peasant farming in central and southern Europe
Political & religious persecution (Russian Jews)
Pull factors
Demand for labor in US due to industrialization
Active promotion by railroads
Steamship travel better safer and speedier crossings at a cheaper
price
Birds of Passage
Cont.
Mostly peasants; harder to assimilate than Old Irish & German immigrants
Why?
Language barriers; lacked education
Clannish created ethnic neighborhoods
Religious differences CATHOLIC
Older Americans conclude they are incapable of becoming good citizens &
should be kept out
Is the U.S. a melting pot or dumping ground?
Nativism thrives against Europes human & inhuman rubbish
Taking away jobs & holding down wages!
CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT OF 1882!
American Protective Association, 1887 (anti-Catholic)
U.S. Office of Immigration establishedwith power to exclude immigrants
The Return of Reform
The Settlement Houses
Community centers in poor urban areas
to improve plight of the disadvantaged &
aid in assimilation into mainstream
society
Provide guidance, education services,
legal advice, English, home ec, etc.
Run by female, college-graduate,
middle-class volunteers
The Hull House
Jane Addams
Outstanding cultural program with
classes in music, art
Gym, day nursery, social clubs
Settlement houses fighting a losing
battle because they need government $
to keep abreast of the problem
Cont. The Social Gospel
A FEW, NON-TRADITIONAL
Protestant clergymen began
to preach Social Gospel
Churches need to tackle
social issues / poverty
Focus on improving
living conditions of poor
rather than saving souls
decent homes, food,
opportunities will lead
to purer lives
Publics receptiveness to
Social Gospel?
Seen by popularity of
Charles H. Sheldons
novel In His Steps
(1896) [What Would
Jesus Do?]
Cont.
The Proliferation of the Written Word
libraries found in almost all states by 1890s
Private donors, like Carnegie, contribute
millions to the cause
Library of Congress by 1897
Newspapers
Primary medium for disseminating
information and educating public
New technology print simultaneously on
both sides of paper (web press), etc.
Associated Press 1840s, news-gathering
association
Major publishers are Joseph Pulitzer &
William Randolph Hearst
Cont.
William Randolph Hearst
New York Journal
San Francisco Examiner
Pulitzer's main rival BUT
YELLOW JOURNALISM!!
Much more sensationalized
Not as serious
Less integrity
Fundamental in creating war fever in Spanish-American War,
1898
Cont.
The Temperance Movement
Womens Christian Temperance Union, 1874
Carrie Nation and her Hatchet!
Fanatical Temperance Advocate
Used hatchet to hack up saloons in Kansas
First husband died of alcoholism
Anti-Saloon League, 1893
Successful by 1919 18th Amendment on Prohibition