1. American Stories: A History of the United States Second Edition Chapter American Stories: A History of the United States, Second Edition Brands Breen Williams Gross Toward an Urban Society 1877–1900 19

2. Life in the Slums The kitchen of a tenement apartment was often a multipurpose room. Here the tenement dwellers prepared and ate their meals; the room might also serve as a workroom, and sleeping quarters for one or more members of the family. (Source: © The Museum of the City of New York, The Byron Collection).

3. Toward an Urban Society 1877–1900 The Lure of the City Social and Cultural Change, 1877–1900 The Spread of Jim Crow The Stirrings of Reform

4. The Overcrowded City In late 19 th century, people poured into cities Many came form rural America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia The city became the center of cultural, economic, social life

5. The Lure of the City

6. City becomes a symbol of the new America between 1870–1900 Explosive urban growth  Sources included immigration, movement from countryside  Six cities over 500,000 by 1900

7. Skyscrapers and Suburbs Steel permits construction of skyscrapers Streetcars allow growth of suburbs Streetcar cities allow more fragmented and stratified city  Middle-class residential rings surrounding business and working-class core

8. Tenements and the Problems of Overcrowding Tenements house working class James Ware and dumbbell design Tenement problems  Overcrowding  Inadequate sanitation  Poor ventilation  Polluted water

9. Map 19.1 Foreign-Born Population, 1890 Immigrants tended to settle in regions where jobs were relatively plentiful or conditions were similar to those in their homelands. Cities of the Northeast, Midwest, and West offered job opportunities, while land available for cultivation drew immigrant farmers to the plains and prairies of the nation’s midsection.

10. Tenements and the Problems of Overcrowding (cont’d) Urban problems  Poor public health  Juvenile crime

11. Strangers in a New Land Most immigrants were male, unskilled laborers From 1880s, immigrants primarily from southern and eastern Europe Resurgence of anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism

12. Figure 19.1 Immigration to the United States, 1870–1900 Note: For purposes of classification, “Northern and Western Europe” includes Great Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, France, and Germany. “Southern and Eastern Europe” includes Poland, Austria-Hungary, Russia and the Baltic States, Romania, Bulgaria, European Turkey, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece. “Asia, Africa, and America” includes Asian Turkey, China, Japan, India, Canada, the Caribbean, Latin America, and all of Africa. Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, Washington, DC, 1975.

13. Immigrants and the City Immigrants marry within own ethnic groups More children born to immigrants than to native-born Americans Immigrant associations  Preserve old country language and customs  Aid the process of adjustment

14. Immigrants and the City (cont’d) Immigrants establish religious, educational institutions, media which preserve cultural traditions

15. Urban Political Machines Urban party machines headed by “bosses”  Some bosses notoriously corrupt, e.g. William Tweed of New York City  Most trade services for votes  George Washington Plunkitt and “honest graft”

16. Urban Political Machines (cont’d) Why bosses stayed in power  Good organizational skill  Helped immigrants Most bosses improve conditions in cities

17. Social and Cultural Change 1877–1900

18. Social and Cultural Change, 1877–1900 End of Reconstruction marks shift of attention to new concerns Population growth  1877: 47 million  1900: 76 million  1900: population more diverse Urbanization, industrialization changing all aspects of American life

19. Changing Styles for Women Victorian fashion ideals for women emphasized elaborate, confining dress styles with a tiny waistline and full skirts that reached to the floor. Throughout the 1890s, as women began to participate in sports or work in factories, stores, or business offices, styles gradually became less restrictive. This 1900 cover of Ladies’ Home Journal shows women wearing tailored jackets and simple pleated skirts hemmed above the ankle, playing golf with men.

20. Manners and Mores Victorian morality dictates dress, manners Protestant religious values strong Reform underpinned by Protestantism

21. Leisure and Entertainment Domestic leisure: card, parlor, yard games Sentimental ballads, ragtime popular Entertainment outside home  Circus immensely popular  Baseball, football, basketball Street lights, streetcars make evening a time for entertainment and pleasure

22. Changes in Family Life Urbanization, industrialization alter family Family life virtually disappears among poorly paid working class Suburban commute takes fathers from middle-class homes

23. Changes in Family Life (cont’d) Domesticity encouraged, women housebound, child-oriented consumers White middle-class birth rates decline

24. Changing Views: A Growing Assertiveness Among Women "New women”: Self-supporting careers Demand an end to gender discrimination Speak openly about once-forbidden topics

25. Educating the Masses Trend is toward universal education: By 1900, 31 states and territories had compulsory education laws Purpose of public education was to train people for life and work in industrial society

26. Educating the Masses (cont’d) Teaching unimaginative, learning passive, Webster’s Spellers and McGuffey’s Readers Segregation, poverty compound problems of Southern education 1896: Plessy v. Ferguson allows "separate but equal" schools

27. A Regimented Education Schools, regarded primarily as training grounds for a life of work, stressed conformity and deportment—feet on the floor, hands folded and resting atop the desk. The teacher was drillmaster and disciplinarian as well as instructor.

28. Higher Education Colleges and universities flourish Greater emphasis on professions, research More women achieve college education African Americans usually confined to all-black institutions like Tuskegee Institute in Alabama

29. Growth in Higher Education A physics lecture at the University of Michigan in the late 1880s or early 1890s. The land-grant university admitted women, but seating in the lecture hall was segregated by gender—although not by race. Note that both whites and African Americans are seated in the back rows of the men’s section.

30. Higher Education (cont’d) Booker T. Washington and the practice of accommodation  Concentrate on practical education W.E.B. DuBois: Demand quality, integrated education

31. Educational Opportunities for African Americans Booker T. Washington, who served as the first president of Tuskegee Institute, advocated work efficiency and practical skills as keys to advancement for African Americans. Students like these at Tuskegee studied academic subjects and received training in trades and professions.

32. The Spread of Jim Crow

33. Separation and exclusion took firm hold in the 1890s—voting, education, housing, jobs The North, federal government did little to stem the tide Jim Crow laws penetrated all aspects of the South

34. Lynching Perhaps no event better expresses the cruel and barbaric nature of the racism and white supremacy that swept the South after Reconstruction than lynching. Although lynchings were not confined to the South, most occurred there, and African American men were the most frequent victims. Here two men lean out of a barn window above a black man who is about to be hanged. Others below prepare to set on fire the pile of hay at the victim’s feet. Lynchings were often public events, drawing huge crowds to watch the victim’s agonizing death.

35. The Spread of Jim Crow (cont’d) Lynchings also spread Racism also in North–blacks called it James Crow

36. TABLE 19.1 Supreme Court Decisions Affecting Black Civil Rights, 1875–1900

37. The Stirrings of Reform

38. Social Darwinists see attempts at social reform as useless and harmful Reformers begin to seek changes in U.S. living, working conditions

39. Progress and Poverty Henry George: The rich getting richer, the poor, poorer George’s solution: Tax land, wealth’s source

40. New Currents in Social Thought Clarence Darrow rejected Social Darwinism, argued poverty at crime’s root Richard T. Ely’s “Younger Economics” urged government intervention in economic affairs

41. New Currents in Social Thought (cont’d) Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class asserted that classic economic “laws” were masks for human greed Liberal Protestants preach "Social Gospel"  Purpose: Reform industrial society  Means: Introduce Christian standards into economic sphere

42. The Settlement Houses Famous Houses  1886: Stanton Coit’s Neighborhood Guild, New York  1889: Jane Addams’ Hull House, Chicago  1892: Robert A. Woods’ South End House, Boston  1893: Lillian Wald’s Henry Street Settlement, New York

43. The Settlement House, a Revolution and Social Reform Jane Addams founded Chicago’s Hull House in 1889. The settlement house provided recreational and day-care facilities; offered extension classes in academic, vocational, and artistic subjects; and, above all, sought to bring hope to poverty-stricken slum dwellers.

44. The Settlement Houses (cont’d) Characteristics  Many workers women  Classical, practical education for poor  Study social composition of neighborhood

45. A Crisis in Social Welfare Depression of 1893 reveals insufficiency of private charity New professionalism in social work New efforts to understand poverty’s sources Increasing calls for government intervention Social tensions engender sense of crisis

46. Conclusion: Pluralistic Society

47. Conclusion: The Pluralistic Society Immigration and urban growth reshaped American politics and culture By 1920, most Americans lived in cities and almost half of them were descendants of people who arrived after the Revolution

48. Conclusion: The Pluralistic Society Society experienced a crisis between 1870 and 1900 Reformers turned to state and federal government for remedies to social ills

50. Timeline (continued)