The Rise of the American City Hmm would you want to live here?

New York City

Immigrants at Ellis Island in the early 1900s wait to have a physical examination. Doctors and inspectors decided who was healthy enough to be allowed to stay in the United States.

Ellis Island in the early 1900s. Ellis Island was the landing point for immigrants in the early 1900s. They would be examined, and then continue on into New York. The immigration of many different nations to the United States eventually gave it the name “The melting pot of the world”. This term is formed with the cultures of all the different nations coming together to form one new culture, or a “melting pot”. Although the idea seems interesting, there were cases of nationalism and racism during the early 1900s, as many native Americans were in favor of keeping their native culture and way of living.

From 1910 to 1940, immigrants arriving on the West Coast of the United States had to pass through the Angel Island Immigration Station. East Indians had to endure questions and medical examinations before gaining admittance into the United States. Many were sent back to India.

Sources of Urbanization Steam replace water power for mills, industries concentrated geographically Large-scale production instantly created small cities of workers – company towns dominated by one industry. Gateways for immigrants provided abundant cheap labor (New York, Boston, San Francisco)

Hastings, Colorado, circa Showing Victor Coal Company (later the Victor American Fuel Company) mining town, mine buildings, railroad, residential housing for miners

sad-faced young boy sweeps the floor of the spinning room while a man, presumably his supervisor, and two other boys look at the camera. Possibly a photo. taken by Lewis Wickes Hine, the sociological photographer and child labor reformer, during a 1908 investigation of child labor practices in the Carolinas. Note that all of the children appear younger than 12, the legal working age in South Carolina and other localities.

The Everett Massacre Sunday, November 5, 1916 marked the bloodiest battle in Pacific Northwest labor history. On that day, about 300 members of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) boarded the steamers Verona and Calista from Seattle and headed north toward Port Gardner Bay. The I.W.W. (or Wobblies) planned a public demonstration in Everett that afternoon, to be held on the corner of Hewitt and Wetmore, a spot commonly used by street speakers. Hoping to gain converts to their dream of One Big Union, the Wobblies began street speaking in Everett during a local shingleweavers' strike, encountering brutal suppression by local law officers. Free speech soon became the dominant issue. The number of demonstrators and the violence of the response from law enforcement grew as the weeks wore on.

The Disgrace of Child Labor "The worst conditions," according to Harold Faulkner,"prevailed in manufacturing in which about 16% of the child workers were engaged. The picture of children kept awake during the long night in a Southern mill by having cold water dashed on their faces, of little girls in canning factories 'snipping' sixteen or more hours a day or capping forty cans a minute in an effort to keep pace with a never exhausted machine, of little ten-year-old breaker boys crouched for ten hours a day over a dusty coal chute to pick sharp slate out of the fast moving coal, of boys imported from orphan asylums and reformatories to wreck their bodies in the slavery of a glass factory, or a four-year old baby toiling until midnight over artificial flowers in a New York tenement-these were conditions which might well shame a civilized people into action."

Problems of Cities Mass Transit –Until 1890 the horse car accounted for 70% of city traffic. –Limitations: Slow Limited pulling power Left piles of manure Cable Cars replace horses in many cities –First used in San Francisco 1873 –Electric trolley cars

Corruption in the Cities Police Forces –Poorly defined duties –Ineffective in controlling theft, prostitution, gambling –Symbiotic relationship between police and institutions they were to oversee –Reform came slowly Political Bosses –Control city “machines” –Ward captains turned out voters on election day –Jobs handed out as political favors –Some provide welfare services, opportunities for corruption were great Can you say, “ Graft?” Boss Tweed controlled 60,000 jobs!!!!

Battling City’s Problems Reformers sought to counter poverty and other urban problems by focusing on moral uplift –YMCA and YWCA formed to provide housing and recreational opportunities –Salvation Army effective in providing emergency aid, housing, street kitchens –Comstock laws sought to close down gambling, pornography, prostitution, and Sunday liquor sales.

Battling the City’s Problems Social Gospel sought to apply teachings of Jesus to the problems of urban society. Blame for problems did not rest with the poor, but with society. –Washington Gladden – true Christianity requires churchgoers to fight social injustice –Walther Rauschenbusch – Christianity and the Social Crisis Churches should unit to reform the abuses of industry and fight for peace.

Battling the City’s Problems Settlement Houses –Jan Addams designed these to offer literacy classes, crafts classes, job training, and a sense of dignity to urban dwellers, particularly immigrants.