1. Big City Big Problems

2. Population Trends: Urban population increases faster than rural after U.S. is Urban nation by 1920.

3. New York City Population in 1860: 800,000 • Population in 1900:
3,500,000
Where should we put our things?

4. What Enabled Cities to Grow?

5. The Skyscraper Land was limited and expensive
Steel was stronger and cheaper
electric safety elevator invented
New York City’s Flat Iron Building (1902)

6. Mass Transit Transitions
First there were horse cars and then cable cars.
Next the electric trolley and finally the subway.

7. Where Did Different Classes Live?

8. John D. Rockefeller Lived on “Millionaire’s Row” (Fifth Ave.)
Rockefeller’s Annual income: $60,000,000

9. Middle-Class Lived in the newer streetcar suburbs
Brooklyn Bridge (1881)
Lived in the newer streetcar suburbs
Annual salary for college professor: $1,100

10. Working Class: Lived in multi-family apartments (tenements)
Avg. Annual salary for industrial worker: $490

11. Tenements Crowded multi-family apartment buildings
2/3s of New York’s 1.5 million lived here

12. Tenements were unsafe: pollution & disease.

14. So What Kind of Problems?

15. Don’t worry- I’ve got a solution!
Big City: Big Problems
Crime
Violence
Fire
Disease
Pollution
Don’t worry- I’ve got a solution!
William “Boss” Tweed

16. What’s the Solution?

17. Political Machines
an informal political group designed to gain and keep power.
Exchange services for votes and kickbacks and bribes from contractors.

18. Party Bosses politicians who ran political machines of big cities.
Graft- profit through dishonest means.

19. Tammany Hall New York Democratic political machine
“Are there any more repeaters out here that want to vote again?”
- “Boss” Tweed

20. William “Boss” Tweed
Notorious New York City party boss of 1860s and 70s
Arrested for corruption and sent to prison in 1872.

21. He was later caught and returned to jail
he died in 1878

22. What Next?