*america’s transition to city life began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. *crowded...
TRANSCRIPT
SHAVONTE MCGOWANENGLISH IV3RD PERIOD4002838
CITY LIFE IN THE 1900’S
City Life In The 1900’s
Transition Into City Life
*America’s transition to city life began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
*Crowded living arrangements necessitated closer attention to hygiene and sanitation.
* New cultures emerged within the cities, and new diversions occupied urbanites leisure time.
FIGURE 1Google.com
Over Crowded With Immigrants
*Life in the city, especially New York City, back in the early 1900's was extremely over-crowded.
*Immigrants were coming into the city everyday from overseas.
*In such rookeries where dozens of families living in the same nest and each one was in the other one's way.
FIGURE 2Google.com
Children & Society
* Children were took to the streets to barter and try to work for pennies.
* They children even formed gangs that would fight and steal.
* The kids were called street rats who gnawed the foundations of society.
FIGURE 3google.com
Health Issues
*As American families flocked to cities to find work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, crowding and a lack of clean water gave rise to diseases of epidemic proportions.
*Largely a product of the utter lack of sanitation, influenza, cholera (spread through contaminated drinking water), typhus, typhoid, polio and tuberculosis outbreaks raged through crowded cities.
* Sanitation later , greatly improved the health conditions of people living in cities. [email protected]
FIGURE 4Google.com
Settlement Houses
* Settlement houses were first built in America in the late 1890's.
* The original mission behind them was to help better transition new immigrants into American society.
* Settlement houses were most prevalent in large cities in the northeast and Midwest.
FIGURE 5Google.com
Rapid Expansion For U.S.
*The Progressive Era was a period of rapid expansion for the United States.
*The institution of shorter work weeks meant that American workers were gaining more free time and needed ways to spend it.
* The United States’ entertainment and leisure market started to explode.
FIGURE 6Image property of Chris clay drakkar.com
Popularity Of Motion Pictures
* Outdoor activities were popular for those that wanted to leave the inner city for a while.
* Other popular shows included Wild West shows, circuses, and motion pictures.
*The increasing popularity of motion pictures gave birth to the Nickelodeon theatres and then to larger theaters.
FIGURE 7Google.com
Entertainment
* The opening of Coney Island Amusement Park in 1897 marked the beginning of a new era in amusement and entertainment.
* These parks also provided an ideal venue to showcase the latest technological innovations.
* Various spectator sporting events, including boxing, horse racing, baseball, basketball, and football, also gained popularity during this period.
FIGURE 8Google.com
Skyscrapers
*Believe it or not, Chicago was once the home of the tallest and greatest number of skyscrapers.
*They were merely 10-20 stories high and made possible by Henry Bessemer and George Fuller.
* Architects took advantage of the Chicago steel industry’s technological innovations.
FIGURE 9Google.com
Famous Buildings Of 1900
* Skyscrapers were designed to resemble centuries of the past including Classical, Gothic, and Renaissance.
* Skyscrapers also had another element of appeal.
* Skyscrapers were a true marvel, except if you lived or worked on the top floor.
FIGURE 10Google.com
New York City Sky Scrapper
*The New York World Building stood until 1955 at 18 stories.
*This was one of the first “skyscrapers” that ranged from 10-20 stories). Skyscrapers were a symbol of America’s rising social, global, and industrial power.
* The skyscraper solved geographical and social issues that were rising in the early 1900’s
FIGURE 11Google.com
People In The City Of 1900’s
*According to U.S. Census, Towards the end of the 19th century, Americans primarily lived in rural communities.
*About 35% of the population lived in urban areas.
* By 1920, It became a majority urban nation (at 51%). A lot of this urban growth came from immigrants coming from European nations.
FIGURE 12Google.com
Adventurers To The City Life
*It was a likely place for newcomers to city life to start out.
* It was not uncommon to find neighborhoods where immigrants from the same country would gravitate.
* Places like New York City or Chinatown in San Francisco were among the many sub-communities that adventurers populations lived.
FIGURE 13Google.com
More Immigrants
* Historians use the words "push" and "pull" when they studied migration.
* Something "pushes" migrants away from their original homes. Something "pulls" them to their new home.
* It wasn’t easy for them to decide to leave home, but people must decide if what they gain is worth what they must give up.
FIGURE 14Google.com
Deciding Where To Go
* Most migrants choose a place where they know they can find work.
* They also look for a place where they can afford to live.
* Even when life was hard, people loved their homelands. It was hard to make the decision to leave for America.
FIGURE 15Google.com
Issues Upon The Irish And The Indians
*Most scientists believe that the first people migrated to Pennsylvania thousands of years ago.
* Indians greeted the first Europeans. Dutch and Swedish settlers came to trade with the Indians. They came to make money. Soon the Swedish were farming.
*Then the Scots Irish came. They were Presbyterians who were pushed out of Ireland because of their religion.
FIGURE 16Google.com
The Irish
*About half of the new immigrants were Catholics from Ireland.
*A terrible plant disease had killed Ireland's main food crop, potatoes.
*They became penniless and didn't have many job skills, so they decided to turn to a city life.
FIGURE 17Google.com
More Germans, Welsh, and English
*Things weren't going well in Germany, so revolted and tried to join the states together into one free nation, this didn’t go so well , so they once again decided to turn to the city life.
*Some came with enough money to buy farms.
* Others had skills needed by glass and other factories.
FIGURE 18Google.com
The Underground Railroad
*During the 1900’s some brave souls became involved in a secret migration.
* Many African Americans wanted to escape from slavery in the South.
* Free black and white abolitionists helped them on the Underground Railroad.
FIGURE 19Google.com
Theodore Roosevelt & the protection of the Reclamation Act
*President Theodore Roosevelt secures passage of the Newlands Reclamation Act, an unprecedented law authorizing federal construction of dams and reservoirs in the West funded by public land sales.
* This act was designed to promote settlement (rather than industry) by limiting tracts within the water project areas to 160 acres.
* After all this law instituted a massive federally-funded public works program operating under bureaucratic control that measures its success by the number of dams built and the millions of acres of water impounded.
FIGURE 20Google.com
Earthquake Hits!!!
* In the 1900’s The most devastating earthquake had hit.
* It had set off fires that burned out eight square miles in the city, leaving 250,000 homeless.
* This earthquake made dramatic changes on life in the city.
FIGURE 21Google.com
1st Set of Five Work Cited
•Stacks, Marcy S. before Harlem: The black experience in New York City before World War I (politics and culture in Modern America).New York: University of Pennsylvania Press (September 14, 2006)•Wright- Gridley, Jodi. Galveston: A city on stilts. Chicago: Jennifer Marines, 1989.•Fitzpatrick, Sheila. Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times. New York: Oxford University Press, USA (May 11, 2000).•Kyvig, David E. Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940.Mchenry, USA: Films Media Group, 1990.•Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920’s. Chicago: TJ. Hudson,1993.
2nd Set Of Five Work Cited
Ernest, Robert. Immigrant Life in New York City. Houston: Films Media Group, 1950.
Lewis, Philippa. Forgotten London: A Picture of Life in the 1920’s. Bloomington, USA, 1975.
Plunz, Richard. A history of housing in New York City. New York: McHenry, USA, 1975.
Simon, Bryant. Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the fate of urban America. Colorado Springs, USA: Focus on the family, 1996.
Joyce, James, and Stephen Watt. Dubliners. New York: Washington Square Press, 1998.