City Life

Age of Immigration

How was life for Immigrants in the city?

City Life

• The city was broken into sections– Rich in one part– Poor in the others

• Very different lives for these two groups of people.

WEALTHY UPPER CLASS

• Located: Outside the inner city• Housing: Mansions in gated communities– Examples: 5th Avenue NYC, Lake Front Chicago and

Nob Hill San Francisco

• Employment: Owners of business– Very rich [millionaires]

WEALTHY UPPER CLASS

• Lifestyle: NEVER spent time with poor– Had outlandish parties– Spent money easily, on theme parties, artwork,

vacation homes, etc…

MIDDLE CLASS

• Located: Close to inner city• Housing: Row Houses– Newer apartments; with trees, yards and

sidewalks.

• Employment: Managers– Skilled machinists and office workers

MIDDLE CLASS

• Lifestyle: Had strong community bonds• Life had a purpose, a good life!– Bowling leagues, charities and singing societies

POOR LOWER CLASS

• Located: Lived in the inner city– Near the factories and docks

• Housing: Lived in slums, in tenements– Ghetto

• Employment: Cheap, unskilled labor

POOR LOWER CLASS

• Lifestyle: Lived in very tight communities• Ethnic Neighborhoods– Had very little possessions– Had language issues, problems assimilating– Very Poor: Hard Life– Diseases: Typhoid, Cholera and Tuberculosis

PROBLEMS & REFORMS

Housing & Buildings

• PROBLEMS:• Shortage of homes/buildings: Not enough• Corruption: Corrupt builders build cheap

buildings.• Create slums and tenements

• Wood: Buildings made of wood burned easily [Chicago Fire]

• NO Safety Precautions: Many deaths at workplace [Triangle Shirtwaist Fire].

Housing & Buildings

• SOLUTIONS: • Building Codes: Forced builders to use– Good materials– Correct building techniques– Fire escapes– Indoor plumbing– Steel girders

Housing & Buildings

• SOLUTIONS: • 1st Fire Department: Created in NYC– 1905: Engine Co. #1 NYC– Paid to put out fires quickly so they would spread

and destroy the city

Overcrowding

• PROBLEMS: • Diseases spread• Garbage & Sewage in streets• Unemployment & Homelessness• Crime – New York City: The Bowery. The “Five Points”

neighborhood, was known for a murder a night!

Overcrowding

• SOLUTIONS: • Sanitation Department: Garbage gets picked

up• Police Department: Arrests criminals• Settlement Houses: Helped the poor and

homeless• Public Transportation: People could move

away from cities

Pollution

• PROBLEMS: • Factories: Running all day and all night– Caused water and air pollution. – Workers lived near these factories, suffered

through the pollution

Pollution

• SOLUTIONS: • Zoning Codes: Forced factories outside the

city limits• Public Water System: Made drinking water

safer• Gas & Electric Company: Made power cleaner

and safer.

END

INVENTIONS & TECHNOLOGY

Skyscrapers

• New Buildings: No more room in city, so they built up!

• Skyscraper: A building of 10-20 stories in the air was known as “elevator buildings”– Home Insurance Building [Chicago]– Woolworth Building [New York City]– Wainright Building [St. Louis]

Skyscrapers

• Inventions:– Steel girders– Central Heating– Electrical Plumbing Pumps– Telephones– Elevators: Built by Elias Otis

Public Transportation

• People could move away from inner city and still get to work• Suburb: Towns outside inner city

• Subways, Horse-drawn carriages and carts, electric trolley cars and steam passenger trains• 1897: Tremont Street Subway [Boston] first

subway in America [Green Line]• 1904: New York City subway built

Bridges

• 1883: Bridge opened and charged a 1cent toll! • This bridge linked Brooklyn to Manhattan

Island– Very impressive structure

Open Spaces

• To preserve “open space” for the public– Remind the immigrants of their homelands

• Examples: Parks, gardens, public zoos, and local grassy areas with trees within the city– Central Park [New York City]– The Fens [Boston].

Reform Movement

• Settlement Houses: Places where people could get help

• Hull House: [Chicago] Created by Jane Addams– Alice Hamilton: Doctor at the Hull House

Reform Movement

• Florence Kelly: Fought to stop Child Labor• Mother Cabrini: Founded many hospitals for

the poor• Salvation Army: Helped feed and clothe the

poor• YMCA: Local groups for poor kids– Swimming, Athletics, etc…

END

ENTERTAINMENT

Circus

• Ringling Bros. & Barnum Bailey: New amazing circus show– Fun for families

Acting Companies

• Wild West Shows• Buffalo Bill: Stories written by William Cody

Music

• Phonograph: Could play music in the home• Ragtime: Singer Scott Joplin recorded the

biggest hit, “The Maple Leaf Rag”• Marching Band Music: John Philip Sousa was a

famous band leader

Variety Shows

• Vaudeville: A was very popular with Americans.

• Performers:– George Cohen– Roy Rogers– The Marx Brothers– Will Rogers

Sports & Leisure

• Basketball: Created in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith• Springfield, MA

• College Football: Very Popular sport• Red Grange: University of Illinois “The Galloping

Ghost”• Dangerous: 44 people died for injuries in the game.

• Baseball: “National Pastime” and the most popular sport in America

END

EDUCATION REFORM

Education Reform

• The Three R’s of Education– Readin’– Ritin’– Rithmetic

Public Education

• 1870: Less than half of the school-age children attended school

• Schools: – Little supplies– Few qualified teachers– Small one-room schoolhouses

Public Education

• 1st Kindergarten: 1873 in St. Louis, MO.• 1900: Over 4,000 kindergartens/elementary

programs in America

Public Education

• Reforms:– New laws requiring kids to attend school– More High Schools built– Adult Education programs created– Colleges & Universities created

New Reading Habits

• Better educated people=Better reading habits• Magazines: – Ladies Home Journal– Harper’s Monthly– The Nation

New Reading Habits

• Dime Novels: Written by Horatio Alger– Popular adventure stories about a poor boy who

becomes rich through hard work, luck and honesty

New Reading Habits

• Realist Novels: True/Harsh stories about real life issues– Stephen Crane: Civil War stories. “Red Badge of

Courage”– Hamlin Garland: Farming stories– Jack London: Mining and Sailing stories– Paul Laurence Dunbar: African-American life

New Reading Habits

• Realist Novels:– Kate Chopin: Women’s stories– Mark Twain: An American Icon. Used “local color.”

Wrote famous books; Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Gilded Age

Newspapers

• Helped immigrants assimilate:– Learn English– Follow politics– Current events– Sports– Popular Culture/Entertainment

Newspapers

• Joseph Pulitzer: Hungarian immigrant• New York World – Used scare tactics– Cartoons, crime stories, gossip and political

scandals

Newspapers

• William Randolph Hearst: American• New York Journal– Yellow Journalism– Stories about crime, politics, gossip and scandals

Newspapers

• Nellie Bly: Women Investigative reporter– Worked for New York World

• Women’s Lunatic Asylum [Blackwell’s Island]– She pretended to be insane, got committed and

lived there doing her research for story!

Realism in Art

• Winslow Homer: Civil War paintings• Thomas Eakins: Medical anatomy paintings• Henry Tanner: Paintings of African-American

life.– Sand Dunes at Sunset: 1st African-American

painting ever hung in the White House collection

END

For Quiz• Florence Kelly Vaudeville• Jane Addams Central Park • Red Grange Salvation Army• Skyscrapers Tenements• Tremont Street Subway Brooklyn Bridge• James Naismith YMCA• Scott Joplin [THREE MOVIES]• Building Codes • Sanitation