Chapter 25: America Moves to the Cities (1865-1900)

• The Urban Frontier

• The New Immigration

• Southern Europe Uprooted (or, Why the New

• From 1870 to 1900, America's entire population doubled, while its urban population tripled• By 1900, 40% of Americans lived in cities

• By 1900, New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia had over 1 million inhabitants, and NYC was the second largest city in the world after London

• Starting 1885 and made possible by the perfection of the electric elevator, skyscrapers allowed cities to grow upwards, ex. those by Chicago architect Louis Sullivan (“form follows function”)

• The rise of public transportation, ex. electric trolleys, allowed cities to grow larger and more sectional, because size was no longer limited by walking distance

• Rural Americans were attracted to cities by industrial jobs, engineering marvels (ex. 1883 the Brooklyn Bridge), and modern amenities (ex. electricity, indoor plumbing, telephones)

• Huge department stores, ex. Macy's and Marshall Field's, attracted shoppers from the new urban middle class, provided jobs for the urban working class, and demonstrated the new era of consumerism and widening class divisions; ex. 1900 Theodore Dreiser's novel Sister Carrie

• With the move to cities came an increase in waste generation; was a shift from thrift to convenience, ex. no animals to eat food scraps, ready-made clothing, changing fashions, packaged products

• But cities were also crime-filled and dirty• Cities juxtaposed the very wealthy with the very poor• The slums, ex. NYC's Lung Block, were filthy, crowded, infested areas of the city that often

housed new immigrants in dumbbell tenements or the unemployed in flophouses; however, many worked their way out of the slums into ethnic neighborhoods in the city

• The wealthiest moved out of the cities and into the semirural suburbs (“bedroom communities”)

• From 1850 to 1870, 2 million immigrants arrived each decade; in the 1880s, 5 million arrived, with the highest rate ever reached in 1882 with 788,992 immigrants

• Before the 1880s, most immigrants fit more easily into American society; most were from Britain and western Europe, Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic, Protestant, literate, and used to representative government

• But starting in the 1880s, 19% of immigrants were “New Immigrants”; were from southern and eastern Europe, were Jewish or orthodox, came from countries with little representative government, and mostly illiterate and impoverished

• By the 1900s, New Immigrants made up 66% of all immigrants• The New Immigrants clustered together by ethnicity, ex. Little Italy in NYC and Little Poland

in Chicago• Some Americans feared that the New Immigrants would not assimilate into American society

• The Old World population almost doubled in the 19th century because of abundant food from America and the cultivation of the potato

• Much of the peasantry became unemployed because of industrialization and American food

Immigrants Came)

• Reactions to the New Immigration

• Narrowing the Welcome Mat

imports, so moved into European cities; some stayed in the cities and some 60 million went on to move abroad, with about half going to America

• “America fever” was spread by “America letters” written by those already settled and the promise of freedom from military conscription and freedom of religion

• Industrialists, railroads, states, and steamships advertised the attractions of America because wanted labor, customers, population, and cargo

• Steam-powered shipping had become cheap and easy• 1880s, the Russians persecuted their Jews, so many of them went to East Coast cities, esp.

NYC; unlike most other New Immigrants, had experienced city life before and were skilled; were often shunned by the German Jews who had arrived decades earlier

• About 1/4 of the 20 million immigrants from 1820 to 1900 were “birds of passage” who returned to their home countries with their earnings from working in America

• The immigrants tried to preserve their culture, ex. established Catholic and Hebrew schools, printed foreign-language newspapers, and established restaurants, social clubs, food stores, and parishes

• Children of immigrants often favored American culture over that of their parents'

• The government, ill-prepared for rampant urban growth, could do little to help the immigrants, so the unofficial “governments” of the political machines, ex. New York's Boss Tweed, had to do it

• Bosses helped immigrants get city jobs, housing, food, clothing, schools, parks, and hospitals; in return, they received the immigrants' votes

• A reform movement began to clean up cities and help the immigrants:◦ Protestant clergymen Walter Rauschenbusch and Washington Gladden preached the “social

gospel”; said that society should be based on the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, and that socialism was the next logical step in Christianity (“Christian socialism”)

◦ Settlement houses:▪ 1889 middle-class and college-educated Jane Addams established the Hull House, the

most prominent American settlement house, in order to teach English, counsel, care for children of working mothers, and provide cultural activities; despite opposition, Addams received the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize

▪ Other women followed Addams in establishing settlement houses, ex. 1893 Lillian Wald founded the Henry Street Settlement in New York

▪ Settlement houses became centers of feminism and social reform, ex. 1893 in Illinois a sweatshop law was passed to protect female workers and prohibit child labor after agitation by women from Hull House under Florence Kelley

• The cities presented new job opportunities for women; though it was taboo for wives and mothers to work, and though available jobs were determined by class and ethnicity, and though wages were low, still gave women a degree of economic and social independence

• Nativism , or anti-foreign sentiment, started in the 1840s and revived in the 1880s• Old Immigrants were hostile to the New Immigrants despite having immigrated for the same

reasons, to escape poverty and seek opportunity• Nativists' feared that:◦ Anglo-Saxons would be outnumbered and outvoted

• Churches Confront the Urban Challenge

◦ Anglo-Saxon blood would be polluted by “inferior” southern European blood◦ The immigrants were the cause of the degradation in urban government◦ The immigrants brought in dangerous ideas, ex. socialism, communism, and anarchism• Antiforeign organizations were established, ex. 1887 the American Protective Association

(APA) that discouraged voting for Catholics and that published dirty fantasies about runaway nuns

• Organized labor opposed the New Immigrants because:◦ Could not compete with their willingness to work for “starvation wages”◦ They were hard to unionize because they spoke a different language◦ They were often used as strikebreakers◦ If industry was entitled to protection from foreign goods, workers were entitled to

protection from foreign laborers• Congress' reaction:◦ 1882 passed law that turned away paupers, criminals, and convicts; would eventually come

to exclude lunatics, polygamists, prostitutes, alcoholics, anarchists, and those carrying contagious diseases

◦ 1882 passed the Chinese Exclusion Act◦ 1885 prohibited foreign workers from arriving under contract◦ 1917, after much opposition, enacted a literacy test• 1886 the Statue of Liberty, a centennial gift from France, was erected in New York Harbor

• Because of the move to the city, many Protestant churches and their teachings were becoming more materialistic (ex. God granted wealth to the righteous, Trinity Episcopal Church in NYC held slum property), and people were becoming less serious about churchgoing

• The older churches were slow protest because of their wealthy parishioners, ex. Rockefeller of the Baptist Church and J.P. Morgan of the Episcopal Church (“the Republican party at prayer”)

• An urban revival movement began, ex. 1870s and 1880s Chicago shoe salesman Dwight Lyman Moody traveled to cities preaching to crowds a gospel of kindness and forgiveness, and 1889 the Moody Bible Institute was founded to continue his work

• By 1900, the Catholic church had 9 million followers was the largest single denomination in America because of immigration, and had kept the common touch, ex. Cardinal Gibbons who urged American unity and helped the labor movement

• Judaism in America also got a boost from immigration• By 1890, there were 150 religious denominations in America• There were two new denominations:◦ 1879 the Salvation Army arrived from England, did practical good, appealed to those down

on their luck◦ 1879 Mary Baker Eddy founded the Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian Science) that

preached that true practice of Christianity healed sickness, as explained in her 1875 book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures; appealed to hectic and stressed urbanites

• Founded before the Civil war, the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) and its female counterpart combined education and physical activity with religious instruction; by 1900 nearly every major city had one

• Darwin Disrupts the Churches

• The Lust for Learning

• Booker T. Washington and Education for the Black People

• Old-style religion was being upset by rising sales of books on comparative religion and on historical criticism of the Bible

• 1859 Charles Darwin published book On the Origin of Species that called into question the the belief that God created the world

• The Fundamentalists rejected Darwin's ideas, while the Modernists rejected the Bible as history and science

• Some liberals reconciled Darwinism with Christianity by saying that Darwinism was a revelation of the ways of God

• Darwinism caused:◦ Division in churches and schools as they rejected Modernist clergymen and teachers◦ An increase in irreligion, ex. orator and agnostic Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll who attacked

orthodox religion

• By the 1870s, Americans were realizing that a free government needed educated citizens to function, so were supporting tax-supported elementary schools and making grade-school education mandatory; helped fight child labor

• Before, private academies were much more common than tax-supported high schools, but starting 1880s public high schools and free textbook became more common as people began thinking of a high-school education as a birthright

• After the Civil War, teacher training schools (“normal schools”) became more common• Kindergardens , borrowed from Germany, began to gain support• New Immigration caused an increase in Catholic parochial schools• Starting 1874, the Chautauqua movement organized public lectures and held home study

courses in order to educate adults• Generally, urban schools had better facilities than rural schools• 1870 to 1900, the illiteracy rate fell from 20% to 10.7%

• The South was behind the rest of America on education, esp. for blacks• 1900 44% of all nonwhites were illiterate• Ex-slave and self-made Booker T. Washington was the leader of black education:◦ 1881 started Tuskegee Institute in Alabama to teach blacks useful trades in order to gain

self-respect and economic security◦ Was “accomodationist”; wanted to further black education and economic independence, but

avoided the issue of social equality• Tuskegee professor George Washington Carver became a famous agricultural chemist who

boosted the Southern economy by discovering new uses for ex. the peanut, sweet potato, and soybean

• Historian, sociologist, and poet Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois opposed Washington's accomodationism, gradualism, and separatism:

◦ Earned a Ph.D. at Harvard, becoming the first black to earn one◦ Said that Washington's methods condemned blacks to manual labor and inferiority◦ Wanted complete black social and economic equality◦ 1910 founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)◦ Exiled himself to Ghana

• The Hallowed Halls of Ivy

• The March of the Mind

• The Appeal of the Press

• Apostles of Reform

• The number of universities and university attendance were increasing; esp. for women, ex. Vassar College, so by 1900 made up 25% of college graduates

• Black universities, founded during Reconstruction, were also gaining strength, ex. Howard University, Atlanta University, Hampton Institute

• The growth of higher education was made possible by the 1862 Morrill Act that granted land for colleges in exchange for promises to ex. establish agricultural experiment stations (1887 Hatch Act) or provide military training

• Many new millionaire industrialists donated money to universities for a total of $150 million from 1878 to 1898, ex. 1865 founded Cornell University, 1891 Leland Stanford Junior, 1892 University of Chicago with much money from Rockefeller

• Professional and technical schools, with modern laboratories instead of experiments demonstrated in front of the class, became more common, e. 1876 Johns Hopkins University opened

• Before, many Americans went to Germany to attain a degree because of Britons’ snobbishness and Germany’s painstaking methods, but Johns Hopkins borrowed from German methods, so less scholars learned abroad

• College curriculum was shifting from the classical to the practical and scientific, ex. the elective system as 1870s popularized by president of Harvard Dr. Charles W. Eliot

• Despite the popularity of baseless medicines, medical schools, medical science, and life expectancy were on the rise because of the work of ex. French scientist Louis Pasteur and English physician Joseph Lister

• Harvard faculty member William James impacted many fields; 1890 Principles of Psychology helped found modern behavioral psychology, 1897 The Will to Believe and 1902 Varieties of Religious Experience explored the philosophy and psychology of religion, and 1907 Pragmatism said that truth was to be tested by consequences rather than theory (concept of pragmatism)

• 1880s bestsellers included such oldies as David Copperfield and Ivanhoe• Public libraries were becoming more common, ex. Andrew Carnegie contributed $50 million

for the construction of public libraries and 1897 the Library of Congress was made public• Change in newspapers:◦ Newspapers were selling more copies and investing more in machinery than ever, thanks in

part to the 1885 invention of the Linotype◦ Were running more noncontroversial articles for fear of offending advertisers and

subscribers◦ Despite criticism, sensationalism, ex. sex, scandal, and celebrities, was in demand by

semiliterate immigrants and urban commuters (“presstitution”)◦ Hungarian-born Joseph Pulitzer was a leader in sensationalism, ex. his colored comic

supplements featuring the “Yellow Kid” that gave rise to the term “yellow journalism”◦ William Randolph Hearst , built a powerful chain of newspapers, staring 1887 with the San

Francisco Examiner◦ Founded in the 1840s, the Associated Press somewhat offset scandal and rumor with

syndicated material

• Magazines, unlike newspapers, tended to provide more valuable reading; ex. Harper's, the Atlantic Monthly, and Scribner's Monthly

• 1865 Irish-born Edwin L. Godkin launched the New York magazine Nation that argued for civil-service reform, honesty in government, and a moderate tariff

• Postwar Writing

• Literary Landmarks

• Informally educated Henry George 1879 published Progress and Poverty that said that landowners reaped undeserved profit from rising property values due to the increasing population, so a 100% tax on their profits should be instated; influenced Fabian socialism and other schools of thought on the maldistribution of wealth

• 1888 Edward Bellamy published novel Looking Backward in which a man from 1888 awakens in 2000 to find a utopian society brought about by the government nationalizing big business to serve public interest; many Bellamy Clubs were formed to discuss such utopian socialism

• More people were reading books, esp. “dime novels” about virtuous and trigger-happy men in the wild West, though the older generation disapproved of them

• Dime novelist Harlan F. Halsey was the best of his kind, sometimes finishing one a day• Lawyer, soldier, and author General Lewis Wallace 1880 published anti-Darwinist novel Ben

Hur: A Tale of the Christ• Clergyman Horatio Alger wrote books that featured poor young boys gaining success, wealth,

and honor through virtue, honesty, industry, and a little bit of luck• Poet Walt Whitman updated his Leaves of Grass every year and wrote O Captain! My

Captain!” and “When Lilac Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd” in response to Lincoln's death• Reclusive poet Emily Dickinson's works were largely published after her death, with only

two published in her lifetime and against her will• Poor and sickly Southernor Sidney Lanier wrote “The Marshes of Glynn” inspired by the

conflict between Darwinism and orthodox religion, died young of tuberculosis

• Romanticism was giving way to realism• Feminist author Kate Chopin 1899 published The Awakening that touched upon adultery,

suicide, and women's ambitions; was unrecognized in her time• Mark Twain (born Samuel Langhorne Clemens):◦ Rose to fame with 1867 The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and 1869 The

Innocents Abroad◦ 1873 with Charles Dudley Warner wrote the The Gilded Age that satirized post-Civil War

politicians and speculators◦ Was one of a new wave of authors who rebelled against the old, refined New England

school of writing◦ 1872 memoir Roughing It described his journey to CA◦ 1876 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and 1884 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn were

considered “trash” in his time◦ Economic troubles forced him to begin lecturing to “the damned human race”◦ Recaptured frontier realism and humor in authentic American dialect• Bret Harte was a two-hit wonder with his gold-rush stories “The Luck of Roaring Camp” and

“The Outcasts of Poker Flat”• Informally educated editor of the Atlantic Monthly William Dean Howells' 1882 A Modern

Instance dealt with the once-taboo subject of divorce, 1885 The Rise of Silas described a newly rich paint manufacturer's troubles in the socially stratified Boston, and 1890 A Hazard of New Fortunes portrayed Gilded Age reformers, strikers, and Socialists in New York

• Stephen Crane wrote 1893 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets that followed a poor prostitute driven

• The New Morality (or, “Sex O'Clock in America”)

• Families and Women in the City

to suicide and 1895 The Red Badge of Courage that told the story of a young Civil War recuit• Lawyer Henry James wrote 1879 Daisy Miller, 1881 The Portrait of a Lady, and 1902 The

Wings of the Dove that dealt with the confrontation of innocent Americans with subtle Europeans and 1886 The Bostonians about the rising feminist movement; often had female central characters and with psychological realism

• Jack London wrote 1907 The Call of the Wild, and 1907 The Iron Heel that depicted a possible fascistic revolution

• Frank Norris wrote 1901 The Octopus about the power of the railroads and corrupt politicians over CA wheat ranchers and 1903 The Pit about the rise and fall of Chicago wheat speculators

• Black writers:◦ Used black dialect and folklore to capture the richness of Southern black culture◦ Poet Paul Laurence Dunbar 1896 wrote Lyrics of Lowly Life◦ Charles W. Chesnutt wrote short stories in the Atlantic Monthly and 1899 The Conjure

Women• Social novelist Theodore Dreiser's 1900 Sister Carrie was a narrative of a poor working girl

in Chicago and New York with realism and disregard for moral standards

• Sisters Victoria and Tennessee Woodhull upset conventional morality; published radical periodical Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly and 1872 accused famous preacher Henry Ward Beecher of having an affair, and 1871 Victoria announced her belief in free love

• Anthony Comstock dedicated his life to fighting the “immoral”; after the 1873 Comstock Law, confiscated scores of obscene pictures and medicines to induce abortion

• Late 19th century, conflict over sexual attitudes and the place of women; with increasing women's economic freedom came increasing sexual freedom (the “new morality”), as seen in increased divorce rates, use of birth control, and open discussion of sexual topics

• Cities were emotionally isolating because families had to survive without clan or village, so family became the only place for emotional intimacy, so unprecedented stresses put on family, so beginning of the “divorce revolution”

• Family size was decreasing through delayed marriage and birth control because more children meant more people to feed, house, and support; in rural areas, more children meant more hands to help with farmwork

• In addition to fathers, mothers and children as young as ten often worked• 1898 feminist Charlotte Perkins published Women and Economics that urged women to

become independent, contribute to the economy, reject the belief that woman’s character was fundamentally different from man’s, and form centralized nurseries and cooperative kitchens

• Women’s suffrage movement:◦ Women had been demanding the franchise since before the Civil War◦ 1890 formed the National American Woman Suffrage Association, including Elizabeth

Cady Stanton who 1848 organized the first women’s rights convention and Susan B. Anthony who 1872 illegally voted in the presidential election

◦ By 1900, the leader of the movement was Carrie Chapman Catt◦ Now, instead of arguing that women deserved the franchise because they were equal to

men, said that women needed political power in order to ensure the health and education of their children

◦ Effects:

• Prohibition of Alcohol and Social Progress

• Artistic Triumphs

▪ Gained support and started being allowed to vote in local elections▪ 1869 Wyoming was the first state to grant unrestricted women’s suffrage, and many other

states followed▪ By 1890, most states had passed laws permitting women to own property after marriage▪ Excluded black women, so black women made their own organizations; ex. Journalist and

teacher Ida B. Wells went on an antilynching crusade and 1896 established the National Association of Colored Women

• Prohibitionists wanted to ban alcohol because kept poor families poor and increased alcohol consumption since the Civil War

• Immigrants opposed prohibition because were used to alcohol in the Old Country, and others opposed because saw it as the middle class’ attack on the working-class lifestyle

• 1869 the National Prohibition Party was formed and had little support in presidential elections

• 1874 the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was formed under Frances E. Willard who was honorable and supported planned parenthood and Carrie A. Nation who brought disrepute to the movement for smashing liquor bottles with a hatchet

• 1893 the Anti-Saloon League was formed and had much success• Increasing statewide prohibition until 1919 the Eighteenth Amendment constitutionally

banned alcohol• Other social reformers:◦ 1866 the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was formed◦ 1881 Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross

• Painting:◦ Several American painters lived abroad:▪ James Whistler lived in England and was famous for his portrait of his mother▪ John Singer Sargent lived in England and was acclaimed for his portraits of nobles▪ Mary Cassatt lived in Paris and did sensitive impressionist paintings of women and

children◦ George Inness was self-taught and famous for his landscapes◦ Thomas Eakins painted highly realistic portraits◦ Winslow Homer was famed for his realistic, bold portrayals of seamen and the ocean• Irish-born sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens was known for his Robert Gould Shaw memorial• Music:◦ For the elites, 1880s and 1890s quality symphony orchestras were founded, ex. in Boston

and Chicago, and 1883 in New York the Metropolitan Opera House was built◦ Black spirituals and “ragged music” were developing into the blues, ragtime, and jazz◦ Thomas Edison 's phonograph reproduced music mechanically, was gaining in popularity• Architecture:◦ Louis Sullivan was famed for his skyscrapers◦ Henry H. Richardson created a new “Richardsonian” style characterized by high-vaulted

arches, ex. the 1885 Marshall Field Building in Chicago◦ 1893 the Columbian Exposition in Chicago revived classical forms, raised American artistic

standards, and Promited city planner

• The Business of Amusement

• Had aristocratic lodges• Popular on-stage entertainment:◦ Vaudeville 's acrobats coarse jokes◦ Minstrel shows , now performed by black singers and dancers instead of blackfaced whites◦ After 1881, the circus came of age under Phineas T. Barnum and James A. Bailey◦ Starting 1883, Wild West shows under William “Buffalo Bill” Cody and with sharpshooter

Annie Oakley• Sports:◦ Starting 1870s with a professional league formed, baseball became the national passtime◦ Trend toward spectator, as opposed to participative, sports, ex. football starting 1889 with

Walter C. Camp's team, though foreigners looked down upon the violence◦ 1892 pugilism (boxing) gained respectability when Jim Corbett stole the world

championship from John L. Sullivan◦ Croquet gained much popularity, though moralists oppose the showing of feminine ankles

and the flirtation it promoted◦ Bicycling became more popular with the introduction of the low-framed “safety” bike◦ 1891 YMCA instructor James Naismith invented Basketball