1. IMMIGRATION, URBANIZATION, AND EVERYDAY LIFE, 1860–1900

2. The New American City By 1900 – 40% of pop. lived in cities
NYC pop. of 3.4 mil = total U.S. urban pop. 1850
Growth from migration and immigration
11 million immigrants
Immigrants & native-born compete
Rapid growth sparked manufacturing & production but strained city services
led to housing & sanitation problems
Underscored class differences
Reformers sought to improve cities & Americanize immigrants

3. Migrants and Immigrants
Pull factors – good wages & broad range of jobs
Migration from countryside & overseas
Rising # of farmwomen came to cities
Competing for jobs with immigrants, blacks, urban women
“Old” & “New” Immigrants
Old = Northern & Western Europe
New = Southern & Eastern
Both periods also saw growing numbers of Asians
1890 – 4 out of 5 in NYC foreign-born or children of foreign-born parents

4. Asian and European Immigrants Living in the Western Hemisphere and Hawaii in 1900

5. Percent of Foreign-born Whites and Native Whites of Foreign or Mixed Parentage in Total Population, by Countries, 1910
Source: D.W.Meinig, The Shaping of America—A Geographical Perspective of 500 Years of History. Yale University Press. Volume 3.

6. Migrants and Immigrants
Push factors include overpopulation, crop failure & famine, religious persecution, violence, or economic hardships
Many Italians & Chinese returned to their homelands after becoming successful in U.S.
With no long-term residency plans, they frequently made little effort to assimilate
Family members often waited in old country for family “breadwinner” to get a job & save $ to pay for passage of others
Traveled to U.S. by ship
Cramped, poor food, often poor sanitation
Immigrants arrived tired, fearful, and often sick

7. Ellis Island - 1892 Customs officials inspected newcomers’ health
Those with contagious diseases refused admittance
Difficult names frequently Anglicized
Ellis Island built to accommodate huge #’s entering
Angel Island performed same function on West Coast
Immigrants with money travel to other destinations in U.S.
Poor immigrants remained in eastern cities (Boston, NYC, etc.)

8. NYC – Lower East Side of Manhattan

9. Adjusting to Urban Society
Chain Migration and Culture Shock
Often settled by nationality & even by village or region
Called “Ghettos” and “Ethnic Islands”
Speaking English provided an advantage
Ethnic groups that formed a high percentage of a city’s pop. (e.g.. Irish in Boston) also had advantage
Dominance of politics & churches helped in upward mobility
Nativism was strong at start of 20th Century

10. Fashionable Avenues & Suburbs
“Nice” neighborhoods intermixed with slums
Fashionable areas with good conditions & technology
Contrasted sharply with trash, noise, etc.
Those with enough $ moved out to emerging suburbs
Stately homes, sprawling lawns, quiet
Street cars allowed many to move further out from the city centers
As cities expanded, they enveloped outlying areas into the city boundaries

11. Middle and Upper-Class Society and Culture
Manners and Morals – Key Assumptions
People could be improved through reform
Hard work builds discipline and advances national progress
Importance of good manners & cultivation of literature and art as marks of civilized society
Good breeding & following Victorian Code
The Cult of Domesticity
Women responsible cultural improvement of family
Middle- & Upper-class women devoted time & energy to decorating their homes
Some focused on participating in reform movements, settlement house work and women’s club activities

12. Middle- and Upper-Class Society & Culture
Thrifty consumers had to be convinced to spend
Merchandisers stressed quality & low prices
Products once made at home now purchased from stores
Department Stores
Giant stores with beautiful features
Meant to create an exciting experience for shoppers
Stores employed lower classes & attracted middle- & upper-

13. Football The Transformation of Higher Education
Wealthy donors endowed universities
Collegiate football – popular but dangerous – a character-building activity for players – a fall ritual for fans
150+ new colleges – founded by wealthy donors, federal govt. programs, and religious denominations

14. Universities Increased women’s enrollment Reforms in programs
Co-ed & Women’s Universities
Formally educated women able to compete with men & break Victorian expectations
Female enrollment rose from 30% to 71% between 1880 & 1900
Reforms in programs
Greater focus on professional schools for law & medicine
Deeper training in subjects key to the professions
Professional training increased skill + trust by public
Research Universities
Wider variety of courses
Faculty more involved in research in their fields

15. “Machine Politics”
Urban politics controlled by the boss of an unofficial political organization designed to keep a particular party or faction in office.

17. Working-Class Politics and Reform
Political Bosses and Machine Politics
Major influence over politics & city government
Boss Tweed & Tammany Hall political machine – NYC
Machines controlled taxes, licenses, contracts, etc.
Wide-spread corruption – great efforts made to stop them
Press & Reformers attack machine politics (Thomas Nast)

18. Working-Class Politics and Reform
Battling Poverty
Some focused on improving conditions
Others focused on moral reform – YMCA &YWCA
New Approaches to Social Reform
Salvation Army – offer food & shelter along with preaching
The Moral-Purity Campaign – Anthony Comstock
Fighting “vice” incl. obscenity, gambling, prostitution

19. Reform The Social Gospel
Washington Gladden – true Christianity means fighting social injustice
Walter Rauschenbusch – churches should unite to combat poverty & exploitation

20. The Settlement-House Movement Hull House – Jane Addams
Provide various social services for immigrants
Schooling
medical care
recreation (sports and art projects/plays)
day nursery for children of working mothers
Encouraged legislators to enforce sanitation regulations and pass laws protecting the urban poor
S.H. workers lived in neighborhoods in which they worked

21. Working-Class Leisure in the Immigrant City
Working classes needed diversions
Neighborhood streets were a gathering place
Saloons were a place for men to escape factory life by gathering to drink, socialize , discuss politics
Usually saloons reinforce ethnic identities
The Rise of Professional Sports
Rules of modern baseball developed – major league formed – profitable franchises in big cities
Large fan followings – first sports pages in papers
Boxing enjoyed a strong working-class following

22. Baseball

23. Baseball in the City Streets

24. Boxing
John L. Sullivan and one of his matches; Peter Jackson

25. Entertainment Provides Escape
Ragtime
Displayed fresh originality
started with black musicians in saloons & brothels
Complex rhythms
Widely popular with working class but eventually a national sensation
Scott Joplin - a major composer
Entertaining music provides a challenge to Victorian propriety
Entertainment Provides Escape
Vaudeville
drew the largest audiences in the late-19th century
Amusement Parks
Coney Island
Dance Halls

26. Vaudeville
Bottom right-hand corner = Bentonville Opera House It was located on the North side of the square where the Arvest Bank is today.

27. Why are leisure-time activities important to the working-class?
Viewed as a sign of prosperity
Factory-life = routine and impersonal; social interaction = inhibited
Leisure-time activities brought many ethnicities together > contributed to “Americanization”
Employers emphasized leisure and relaxation as method of keeping workers happy and healthy

28. Cultures in Conflict The Genteel Tradition and Its Critics
Literary conventions (rules) vs. gritty realism
Realism: literary form rejecting idealized characters and emphasizing the depiction of life and people as they truly were
Stephen Crane – Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (slums)
Mark Twain – Huckleberry Finn (South)
Theodore Dreiser – Sister Carrie (end of innocence)
Modernism in Architecture and Painting

29. Cultures in Conflict
Some women reject “cult of domesticity” & Victorian Code
Woman’s Christian Temperance Union fights against alcohol abuse and works toward better access to power by women

30. Education
Reformers stressed punctuality, centralized administration, compulsory attendance, teacher tenure
By 1900 – 31 states required attendance for kids 8-14 years old
Some critics of formal public education
Working class parents who relied on their kids’ labor
Catholic immigrants who objected to protestant oriented public schools
Upper-class parents who didn’t want their kids mixing with immigrant kids – willing to pay for private schooling