1. Urbanization

2. Motivation:
"The golden gleam of the gilded surface hides the cheapness of the metal underneath." - Mark Twain

3. Aim: Was urbanization a gilded dream or a gilded nightmare?
Key Terms:
Urbanization
Gilded Age: time between Civil War & WWI during which the U.S. population/economy grew quickly, there was a lot of political/corporate financial corruption and wealthy people lived very fancy lives.
How the Other Half Lives By Jacob Riis
Tenements
“Shopgirls”
Essential Questions:
How did the landscape of the nation change due to industrialization?
What were the positives of urbanization? Negatives?

4. What does the term “Gilded Age” mean?
Defined as the time between the Civil War & WWI during which the U.S. population/economy grew quickly, there was a lot of political/corporate financial corruption and wealthy people lived very fancy lives. **The time period was glittering on the surface but corrupt underneath.**

5. Characteristics of Urbanization During the Gilded Age
Megalopolis
Mass Transit
Economic and social opportunities
Pronounced class distinctions
New frontier of opportunity for women
Squalid living conditions for many/disease
Political machines
Ethnic neighborhoods
Family time was limited due to work hours.
High crime areas…

6. Gilded Dream (positive aspects of urban growth)
Features
Subways, elevated trains (steam/coal running!), streetcars.
Elevators (for tall buildings)
Skyscrapers
Electric street lights
Bell Telephone
New water and sewage systems; New hospitals
Museums; Concert halls, Theatres
Mass circulation of magazines and newspapers
Parks
Novels
Public education

7. Dream Continued… (12) Libraries
(13) Improved police and fire departments
(14) Decreased (eventually) need for fuel due to mass transit and walking.
(15) Job opportunity
(12) common area to learn (13) safer conditions for laborers and those in crowded housing (14) less pollution, easier to travel, could live elsewhere (outside of city), safer for walking (eventually), and less need for fuel resources (15) class changes; immigrant labor

8. Effects Enabled people to move out of the city.
Buildings could be taller
Population condensed, ingenuity sign, employment…
Longer hours for factories; safer for streets in some areas; less pollution/smell than formerly used gas lamps
Communication
Health conditions could improve
Philanthropy, leisure time/entertainment, culture
All have news available to them; could be in varied languages; participation in the political process.
Pastoral, modeled after Europe, mostly for the wealthy/leisure time; immigrants petitioned for more communal/farm/entertainment parks but were rejected.
Leisure; popular culture, something to talk about
Sometimes – assimilation schools!

9. Gilded Nightmare (negative aspects of urban growth)
Noisy, dirty trains (coal els)
Improved fire and police departments…result of tragic factory fires; tenement living dangers; creation of bar-bell buildings…for separation b/w buildings so fires would stop spreading – see Lower East Side!)
pollution; dangers
result of tragic factory fires; tenement living dangers; creation of bar-bell buildings…for separation b/w buildings so fires would stop spreading – see Lower East Side!)

10. The City as a New “Frontier?”
New Use of Space
New Class Diversity
New Architectural Style
New Energy
New Symbols of Change & Progress
The City as a New “Frontier?”
New Culture (“Melting Pot”)
Make a New Start
New Form of Classic “Rugged Individualism”
New Levels of Crime, Violence, & Corruption;

11. Technology – Telephones and Electricity

12. Largest Cities, Population
1. New York, N.Y.
696,115
1. New York, NY
1,478,103
3,437,202
2. Baltimore, MD
169,054
2. Philadelphia, PA
674,022
2. Chicago, IL
1,096,575
3. Boston, Mass.
136,881
3. St. Louis, MO
310,864
3. Philadelphia, PA
1,283,697
4. Philadelphia, PA
121,376
4. Chicago, IL
296,977
4. St. Louis, MO
575,238
5. New Orleans, LA
116,375
5. Baltimore, MID
267,354
5. Boston, Mass
560,892
6. Cincinnati, OH
114,435
6. Boston, Mass
250,526
6. Baltimore, MD
506,957
7. St. Louis, MO
77,860
7. Cincinnati, OH
216,239
7. Pittsburgh, PA
451,512
8. Pittsburgh, PA
67,863
8. New Orleans, LA
191,418
8. Buffalo, NY
352,387
9. Albany, N.Y.
50,763
9. San Francisco, CA
149,473
342,782
10, Louisville, KY
43,194
10. Pittsburgh, PA
139,256
10. Cincinnati, OH
325,902

13. Daniel H. Burnham 1846 – 1912 American architect and designer
Use of steel as a super structure.

14. NEW YORK
CITY:
"Gotham"

15. New York City Architectural Style: 1870s-1910s
NYC was the source of the capital for Chicago.
Most major business firms had their headquarters in NYC  their buildings became “logos” for their companies.
NYC buildings and skyscrapers were taller than in Chicago.

16. Western Union Bldg,. NYC – 1875 (burned down 1890)

17. Manhattan Life Insurance Bldg. NYC - 1893

18. Singer Building NYC

19. Woolworth Building NYC - 1911

20. Flatiron Building NYC – 1902

21. Flatiron Building NYC – 1902
D. H. Burnham

22. (2nd version) Grand Central Station, 1903ish-1913ish

23. John A. Roebling: The Brooklyn Bridge, 1883

29. Manhattan’s Skyscrapers

31. Tenement Slum Living

32. How the Other Half Lives By Jacob Riis (adapted)
Today, what is a tenement? The law defines it as a house occupied by three or more families, living independently and doing their own cooking on the premises. In reality, it is a brick building from four to six stories high with four families, many of these immigrant families, occupying each floor. A set of rooms consists of one or two dark closets, used as bedrooms, with a living room twelve feet by The halls of these tenements are dark. You can feel your way through, if you cannot see. The bathrooms are kept in the hallway for all to use - and all be poisoned alike by their summer stenches (smells). The death of a child due to suffocation in the foul air of an unventilated apartment is a common experience.

36. Tenement houses lined Orchard Street on the Lower East Side in the early 1900s

37. NYC Subways

38. Urban Growth:

39. Painting, “Shopgirls” Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones,1912
The reality for many working women in the early 20th century was confinement to jobs where they were routinely exploited--especially those who worked in mills and factories up to 70 hours a week for three dollars or less.

40. Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire of 1911 in New York City