URBANIZATION

1870-1900Chapter 4 Lesson 2

URBAN PROBLEMSWHAT PROBLEMS ARISE?

A. Housing1) Lack of adequate family housing2) OvercrowdingB. Transportation1) Older mass transit systems have to hold up to increased demand2) Allow people to live farther away from work, translates to cities expanding

URBAN PROBLEMS

C) Water1) Problem: How to get sanitary water to residents?- Horse drawn carts (The water man)- Homes rarely had indoor plumbingD) Sanitation1) Problems- Horse manure piles up on streets- Sewage flowed through open gutters- Factories = smoke- People dumped garbage into alleys and streets

URBAN PROBLEMS

E. Fire1) Limited water supply2) Tightly packed wooden buildings 3) Volunteer fire fighters not always available- First fire dept. in 1853 (Cincinnati, Ohio)4) Great Chicago Fire (1871)5) San Francisco earthquake and blaze that followed (1906)F. Crime1) # of people2) Police forces were too small

GILDED AGE URBANIZATION

From 1870 to 1900, American cities grew 700% due to new job opportunities in factories: European, Latin American, & Asian immigrants

flooded cities African Americans migrated North

Escape southern racial violence, economic hardships and political oppression

Rural farmers moved from the countryside to cities

SKYSCRAPERS AND SUBURBS

By the 1880s, steel allowed cities to build skyscrapers

The Chicago fire of 1871 allowed for rebuilding with new designs: John Root & John Sullivan were the fathers of

modern urban architecture New York & other cities used Chicago as their model

LOUIS SULLIVAN “FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION”John Root “Simple & Dignified”

SKYSCRAPERS AND SUBURBS Cities developed distinct zones:

Central business district with working- & upper-class residents

Middle-class in the suburbs Electric streetcars & elevated rapid transit made

travel easy

TENEMENTS & OVERCROWDING

½ of NYC’s buildings were tenements which housed the poor working class “Dumbbell” tenements were popular but were

cramped & plagued by firetraps Slums had poor sanitation, polluted water & air,

tuberculosis Homicide, suicide, & alcoholism rates all increased

in U.S. cities

PRIMARY SOURCE

"With . . . one dollar a day [our mother] fed and clothed an ever-growing family. She took in boarders. Sometimes this helped; at other times it added to the burden of living. Boarders were often out of work and penniless; how could one turn a hungry man out? She made all our clothes. She walked blocks to reach a place where meat was a penny cheaper, where bread was a half cent less. She collected boxes and old wood to burn in the stove."

“The Passing of the East Side,” Menorah Journal, 1929

URBAN POLITICAL MACHINES

Urban “political machines” were loose networks of precinct captains led by a “boss”Tammany Hall was the most famous machine;

Boss Tweed led the corrupt “Tweed Ring”Political machines were not all corrupt (“honest

graft”); helped the urban poor & built public works like the Brooklyn Bridge

BOSS TWEED

Tweed Courthouse—NY County Courthouse was supposed to cost $250,000 but cost $13 million.

WHAT DID POLITICAL MACHINES DO?

1) In return for votes people received city jobs, contracts or political appointments. (Ward bosses) Votes for Favors2) Took care of immigrants = founds them jobs, a place to live, and helped them become naturalized. In return the political machines got votes.3) Voter fraud: dead people, children and dogs were added to the list of eligible voters. * In a Philadelphia, a precinct of 100 voters returned 252 votes4) Kickbacks: Hire a company for city work and have them jack up the price of the bill. The company that was hired would then kickback some of the extra money to the Political machine

DOWNFALL

Boss Tweed of New York 1) Taken down by a political cartoonist,

Thomas Nast. 2) Broken in 1871 and Boss Tweed was

sentenced to 12 years in prison.

AMERICAN INDUSTRIALIZATION

Benefits of rapid industrialization: The U.S. became the world’s #1 industrial power Per capita wealth doubled Improving standard of living

Human cost of industrialization: Exploitation of workers; growing gap between

rich & poor Rise of giant monopolies