URBANIZATION

Rural to Urban Shift By 1900, 40% of Americans lived in cities, by 1920 it was 50% Push Factors Farm technology meant needing less farmers Poverty of immigrants from other countries Pull Factors Availability of jobs Lure of the cities Great Migration (Black Nadir/Diaspora) Between 1890 and 1930, over 1 million southern Blacks moved to northern cities. Large numbers during World War I for jobs.

City Changes Skyscrapers – impact of safety elevator and steel frames Transportation improvements – streetcars, subways, electric trolleys, elevated railways, and bridges Sanitation problems – waste, disease, pollution (as public services could not keep up with increase) Fire and Crime problems – (Chicago and Boston fires 1871)

Leisure Activities Dance Halls, Social Clubs (Ethnic), Concert Halls Charity Girls Vaudeville entertainment acts Fraternal Organizations (Elks, Moose) Pubs Amusement Parks Coney Island Shopping Chain Stores / Department Stores Marshall Fields in Chicago Macys in NY Tea Rooms

New Sports and Entertainment Theater – Vaudeville and “Movie Palaces” 1 st Silent movie – Great Train Robbery Music Ragtime (Scott Joplin) Sports “new” sports of baseball, basketball (Dr. Naismith) Biking, tennis, golf growth NCAA – football, crew, swimming track

Print Entertainment Newspaper growth Cheaper, and more widely read by masses Yellow Journalism – sensationalism of news William Randolph Hearst Joseph Pulitzer Magazines Beginning of muckrakers Ladies Home Journal (Edward Bok) Harper’s Weekly (Thomas Nast) Dime Novels Realism: Alger, Twain, Stephen Crane William Dean Howells – described shallowness of Americans Theodore Dreiser – Sister Carrie (showed plight of single women in cities)

Consumer changes More people bought “store-bought” clothing (sewing machine effect) More Canned goods (meat-packing and steel effects) Shopping became a “fun” activity of middle class Department Stores (Macys, MF), Tea Rooms Mail Order Catalogs for rural areas (Sears, Mont. Ward) Increased Advertising and Mass Marketing

Education Changes in late 1800s Expansion of Public Schools Americanization of Immigrants Dawes Act effect (Carlisle School for Indians) More mandatory schooling for younger ages Expansion of Colleges and Technical Schools Gospel of Wealth effect (Vanderbilt, Stanford, Stetson) Morrill Land Grant Colleges Growth of Women’s College (Mt. Holyoke and “sister schools”)

Late 1800s society Victorian Age For many of the middle and upper classes the idea of being proper Many worked for temperance and moral laws. Compare the “proper” and “common” classes (Charity girls) Growth of the Middle Class “Vacations” become more common (using trains and Pullman Sleepers) Effect on woman? Victorian architecture and suburbs

Misc. Late 1800s Biggest holiday shared by all – 4 th of July Chautauqua Movement Middle and upper classes Many in vacation-type resorts Lectures on literary, scientific, and theological subjects Helped to spread Social Gospel idea and Progressive movement

Urban Poor Ethnic Communities Tenements Dumbbell Apartments Plight shown by Muckrakers Jacob Riis How the Other Half Lives

Social Gospel Movement Social Gospel – concerned with the social and economic injustices Biggest group – White, Middle-class, Protestant women Salvation Army started in 1879 to help homeless and hungry Settlement Houses Wanted to change “unhealthy environment” Tried to combat ignorance, poverty, crime Most famous – Hull House led by Jane Addams (Chicago)

City Beautiful Movement One of the ideas of clearing away slums Gospel of Wealth – help in adding of Concert Halls, Museums, Libraries and other “cultural” aspects Frederick Law Olmstead – designer of Central Park

Women Movements More Education opportunities Many in new Social Science fields Involved in many movements Temperance WCTU – Woman's Christian Temperance Union Frances Willard Carrie Nation Suffrage Susan B. Anthony Settlement House Jane Addams Labor (Mother) Mary Jones

Reflection Questions How was the growth of leisure activities and entertainment a contradiction of Victorian ideals? What was the impact of middle class women on various aspects of urban life? What were the reasons so many came to the cities and what did they face once they arrived? What changes to urban life from the late 1800s do we still see today?

Links – urbanization tenements – Riis photo slideshow – urban life, entertainment in late 1800s =related – tenement life slideshow =related