1. Chapter Seven Immigrants and Urbanization

2. Chapters in Brief - Overview
The population rises as immigrants supply a willing workforce for urban industrialization.

3. Chapter Seven – Section Two The Challenges of Urbanization

4. Chapters in Brief
Most of the new immigrants moved to the nation’s cities to get working in the growing industrial economy. It was also cheaper and more convenient for them to live in cities. By 1910, immigrants made up more than half of the populations of 18 different cities. Many settled in neighborhoods with others from the same country – even from the same province. As city populations rose, overcrowding sometimes resulted. Another movement helped swell urban populations. As efficient machines increased farm production, they also cost farm jobs. As a result, many people moved from farms to cities. About 200,000 of these new urban dwellers were African Americans leaving the South for Northern cities. They hoped to escape racial violence but found prejudice and low wagers in their new homes as well.

5. Chapters in Brief
The growing cities had many problems. There were housing shortages, and many urban property owners converted single family homes in multifamily apartments. These solutions often placed people in crowded conditions, full of filth and disease. Growing populations created transportation problems as well. As the cities continued to grow, the transit system could not always keep up. City officials also had difficulty obtaining enough clean water. Cities began to clean and filter the water and insist on indoor plumbing, but these steps spread slowly. Removing waste and garbage was another problem. By 1900 most cities had full-time professional fire departments. But the lack of water made fires very dangerous – and reliance on wood as building material gave fires fuel to burn. Both Chicago, in 1871, and San Francisco, in 1906, suffered very devastating fires. Another problem of the growing cities was a crime.

6. Chapters in Brief
Some social reformers pushed to improve life in the cities. The Social Gospel movement held that Christians had a duty to try to reform conditions. Some reformers created settlement houses. These community centers aimed at helping the poor, especially immigrants. Run mostly by women, they offered schooling, nursing, and other assistance.

7. Urban Opportunities
urban population exploded due to the lure of industrial jobs
1870 to ,000,000 to 54,000,000 people lived in cities
Urbanization: the growth of cities
Rural: the growth of country areas
Immigrants settle in cities
* cities were the cheapest and most
convenient places to live
* cities offered unskilled laborers
steady jobs in mills and factories
* cities provided social support for
assimilating into America
* people could cluster into ethnic
communities

8. Migration From Country To City
Country Living
* due to the reaper and steel
plow, many could not find
jobs
* this caused many people to
leave the country for cities
* many southern farmers were
African-American
* in approximately
200,000 African Americans
moved north and west to
places like Chicago and
Detroit
* they wanted to escape racial
violence, economic
hardship, and political
oppression

9. Urban Problems Housing
People could rent rooms in boarding house and share a kitchen and dining room
Some people lived in row houses, which were single family dwellings that shared side walls with other similar homes
Other people lived in dumbbell tenements, which were long, narrow, five-or-six story buildings that were shaped like barbells
Garbage was picked up infrequently
Garbage was dumped into airshafts, which led to a spread of rats and vermin
People used pigs or goats to eat garbage
There were no zoning laws, which meant that one could have a $1,000,000 home next to a slaughterhouse

10. Tenement Homes
Tenements were types of low-income housing units built in cities for the waves of immigrants who came to the United States during the second half of the nineteenth century.  Living conditions were crowded and unhealthy.

11. Tenement Homes

12. Tenement Floor Plan (Four Homes)

13. Tenement Floor Plans

14. Tenement Living Room

15. Tenement Kitchen

16. Tenement Kitchen

17. Tenement Kitchen

18. Tenement Kitchen

19. Tenement Yard

20. Tenement Yard

21. Tenement Yard

22. Urban Problems Transportation
prior to industrialization people moved on foot or in horse-drawn carriages
trolleys were introduced in San Francisco in 1873
subways were brought to Boston in 1897
“El” trains ran over city streets
“El” trains were run by coal, which caused pollution and dropped hot coals on people
it was hard for cities to keep old transportation systems in good repair, but it was hard to build new ones to meet growth demand

23. Urban Problems
Water
prior to industrialization people bought water from vendors
in 1840 to 1850, cities built public water works
as late as 1860, residents of many cities had inadequate water mains and pipes
residents collected water with pails to heat for bathing, cooking, and drinking
eventually chlorine was added to combat cholera and typhoid fever

24. Urban Problems Sanitation unsanitary conditions were wide spread
Horse manure piled in streets
Sewage flowed through open gutters
Factories released foul smoke
there was no system of trash removal
People dumped garbage into alleys and streets
People hired to clean up the garbage did not do their jobs

25. Urban Problems
Fire
there was a limited water supply and proximity to firefighters
cities were packed with wood homes
people used candles and kerosene for lighting
fire departments used volunteers. If workers were volunteer firemen and left work, they lost their jobs
two major fires
Chicago Fire– October 8, 1871 (Mrs. O’Leary’s Barn– fire started by Daniel “Peg-Leg” Sullivan hiding in barn drinking knocking over lantern)
San Francisco Earthquake– April 18, 1906

26. Urban Problems Crime Pick-pockets Thieves Con-men
Gangs controlled streets and corners
not enough law enforcement to effectively police the cities