Urban America 1870-1900

Population Shifts 1860 1 in 6 Americans lived in cities of 8,000 or more OR nearly 20 percent lived in cities 1890 3 in 10 lived in cities OR 33.3 percent lived in cities 1900 40 percent lived in cities 1920 50 percent lived in cities Urban population increased 700 percent between 1865 and 1905

Economic and Social Forces that Changed the Cities Industrialization Railroads Immigration Rural to urban migration Americans left the declining agricultural regions Almost all moved to cities Young rural women frequently left Southern Blacks began moving during the Gilded Age, but it would be later that would experience the greatest movement

Transportation Revolution , Cities could spread farther Distance was cut down Horse railways, 1880s Subways, elevated trains and electric trolleys,1890s

Fifth Avenue in New York City on Easter Sunday in 1900 Cities created shared Public Spaces Parks and areas of recreation

Hester Street, New York City c. 1902 Immigration led to scenes like this one

Mass Consumption Department Stores Mail Order Catalogues Women Targeted

1913 1897

New York tenements at the turn of the century First tenements built in mid 1850s 500,000 people per square mile in the Lower East Side. One person per square foot.

Diagram of a dumbbell tenement, c. 1879 Illegal by 1901 The 1879 law required that every inhabitable room have a window opening to plain air, a requirement that was met by including air shafts between adjacent buildings. Old Law Tenements are commonly called "dumbbell tenements" after the shape of the building footprint: the air shaft gives each tenement the narrow-waisted shape of a dumbbell, wide facing the street and backyard, narrowed in between to create the air corridor. They were built in great numbers to accommodate waves of immigrating Europeans from troubled nations. The side streets of Manhattan's Lower East Side are lined with dumbbell structures.

Children sleeping in Mulberry Street (1890) Jacob Riis (1849-1914) Photographer and author of How the Other Half Lives (1890) Jacob Riis was a progressive Reformer Photographer Looked to impact change Photgraphs would ultimately change the history of cities Children sleeping in Mulberry Street (1890)

Street Arabs in sleeping quarters Jacob Riis

Sabbath Eve in a Coal Cellar Jacob Riis

Police Station Lodger Jacob Riis

Showing Their Tricks: Hell’s Kitchen Boys, 1888-1889 Jacob Riis

Bohemian Cigar Makers in a Tenement Sweatshop, 1889 Jacob Riis

Museum of the City of New York Room in a Tenement Flat, 1910 Jessie Tarbox Beals Museum of the City of New York

Chicago Slums c. 1900 Children playing near a dead horse

Jane Addams, founder of Hull House (1860-1935) In 1931, Addams became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize  

Hull House, Chicago 1889

Lillian Wald (1867-1940), nurse, social worker Wald introduced the pioneering concept of public health nursing

Lillian Wald founded Henry Street Settlement in New York in 1895 Lillian Wald in her office

One of Lillian Wald's nurses takes a short cut across tenement roofs to visit a patient, c. 1908

Home of an Italian Rag picker, 1888 Jacob Riis

Political Machine Immigrants fueled the machine as voters. Organized group  that controlled the activities of a political party in a city. Immigrants fueled the machine as voters. They Received: Naturalization Housing Jobs Newly arriving immigrants needed support, political machines offered it Principle job of a political boss was WIN votes These were essentially vehicles for making $$$ Offered services to voters and businesses in exchange for political and financial support. Pyramid with local precinct workers at bottom and political boss at top. Led to high levels of corruption, graft, and greed City governments had been historically weak---also these people tended to be

Tammany Hall and Machine Politics Boss City Hall Mayor Bd. of Aldermen Urban Machine kept society running Politicians who could mobolize and gain power were able to dominate -Found jobs for those who needed them—Example of this type of Government- A politician might learn where a new street car line was going to be built and would have his cronies buy the land there and then sell it back to the state or city for a great profit -Most famous was Boss Tweed- in NYC- His actions landed him in jail 2nd Ward 3rd Ward 4th Ward 1st Ward VOTES MONEY