1. Life in the Cities
Topic 1.5

2. City Growth
New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans and many other cities were bursting at the seams
New machines replaced manual labor on many farms
1880s rural population = 72%
1910s rural population = 54%
Growing middle class!

3. City Growth Great migration of southern blacks 2 phases
1890
1910
Movement of southern blacks to northern and Midwestern cities.

4. City Growth Skyscrapers & elevators
Buildings can be taller and cites can be more dense
Advances in transportation made commuting much easier
Mass transit-public systems that could carry large numbers of people fairly inexpensively
Suburbs-residential communities surrounding the cities

5. Where do poor people live?
Tenements
Low-cost apartment buildings designed to house as many families as the owner could pack in
A group of run-down tenements could transform an area into a slum
Hundreds of people were crammed into space meant for a few families
Severe overcrowding
Few trees, little grass
Dark, foul air
Open sewers attracted rats (diseases)
Small fires become large fires quickly
Contagious diseases spread easily

6. Where do poor people live?
Tenements

8. How can we improve this? “Lack of ventilation = main problem”
Lack of ventilation helped spread disease
1879 change in New York law required an outside window in every room
Solution = dumbbell tenements
Each building narrowed in the middle, gaps on each side formed air shafts to bring light and air to inside rooms (did it really work?)

11. Do we just not know about it?
Native of Denmark
Boarded a steamship for America in 1870
Experienced dreadful conditions in which many new Americans lived
Landed job as police reporter
Later-How The Other Half Lives

12. Do we just not know about it?
How The Other Half Lives (urban poor)
Jacob Riis, reporter, publishes book in 1890
Describes living conditions in cities
Led to legislation to improve tenements
Used new technology-flash photography

14. Danger! Fire was a constant danger in the cities
Chicago experienced one of the most devastating
Great Chicago Fire of 1871
18,000 buildings burned leaving 250 people dead
100,000 homeless
Property damage estimates reached 200 million/ 2 billion today
Disease spread quickly-summer months apartments heated like ovens

15. Growing Cities Rapidly growing cities proved hard to govern
Growth put pressure on city officials to improve
Police and Fire protection
Transportation systems
Sewage disposal
Electrical and water service
Health care
Raised taxes and set up offices to deal with peoples needs

16. Growing Cities
Political Machine-was an unofficial city organization designed to keep a particular party or group in power and usually headed by a single powerful boss.
Sometime the boss held public office
More often he handpicked others to run for office and then helped them win
Worked through exchange favors
Used an army of ward leaders
Each managed a city district to handout city jobs and contracts to residents of their ward
In return expected to give votes to machine’s
Extremely corrupt
Controlled local politics

17. Rise of Political Machines
William Marcy Tweed – Boss Tweed
Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall
Political club that ran New York City’s Democrat Party
You worked for a political machine in hopes of getting a government job that could lead you to big bucks through government corruption.

18. Through countless instances of fraud-many millions of dollars
Political Machines (continued)
Helped many immigrants who were “fresh off the boat” with jobs and housing in exchange for their votes
Tweed and friends padded bills for construction projects and supply contracts with fake expenses and kept the extra money
Through countless instances of fraud-many millions of dollars

19. Political Machines (continued)
The nickname for Tammany Hall was the “Tammany Tiger;” this cartoon shows the Tiger riding on the backs of immigrants from where he gets his power.

20. Political cartoons by German immigrant Thomas Nast helped bring down tweed
Exposed his methods to the public
Depicted Tweed as a thief and a dictator who manipulated New York City politics for his own benefit
Convicted of crimes Tweed died in jail
Tammany Hall dominated New York politics for another half century

21. Thomas Nast
The Man Who Drew Santa Claus!!